The Ideal Life

Mode: Blabber

Okay. So. 22.

Yep. Life has been so fast. I feel like I'm understating everything, so... LIFE IS SO FAST. I couldn't find better words to describe how intense and rapid everything is for me at the moment. I am aching for a slow down. Nope, just kidding. 

I am 22 for 21 days now, and it feels so odd how I am just 22. Man! How could I be 22? I mean I've waited all my life for this time to happen, and yet here I am marveling at the fact that I'm actually 22. How could that be? I promise not to make sense in this post so...

I've always waited for this age to happen. It feels like when I turn 22, everything will blossom into an even more brighter theme, and that life would be as clear as the skies after a horrible storm. As if there would be a rainbow in it. Or something like that. And here I am gushing over the fact that I am 22 and I'm still a bummer in my bad days, and I am still a loose talker in my good ones. Come on, couldn't I be a better individual uniquely tailored for a beautiful and serene and gentle existence in this aged planet? 

And suddenly, everyone else's life looks much more ideal than mine. I mean everyone's that isn't mine. I feel so uncomfortable being in my own skin. I feel like wanting to run from everything and everyone if I could just do it. I feel like dropping stuff off for me to be able to flee from all these wretched circumstances, and however much I want to just be okay with all these things (aka life), I couldn't. And being aware of how I am feeling makes it all the worse. Because of course, my value is to choose to see the beauty in everything. So this existence tantrum is on me. 

It's actually very difficult, to be honest. Well, I know, it's just a phase. And while I'm on it, I wanna anecdote it, probably, to remind myself someday that THIS kind of fit happens. I'm having a fit over life, come on. And when I just get to the threshold of all these overthinking and babbling, I would have to just move on. Because this is the time in one's life when the only way is forward. Just one step away or backward could make me trip.

My words could be piercing, my actions could be destructive, and my thoughts could be catatonizing. And if I want to live the type of existence I would want to have, I'd have to make way for my heart to understand that things aren't the way they used to be. This is the time of my life when I'm going to be taken seriously. So everything that I produce would take effect on the creatures and circumstances it is delivered to. In short, I have to be careful. I have to embody the woman that I am, difficult as it is. Because I'm not a little girl anymore. My decisions aren't trial-and-error-based. I am making my life. And I should choose the one which doesn't just give but also reflects the meaning and value of my heart. Because I know that the only way for me to not regret or regress is for me to be who I have really been crafted. It is not who I think I am, not who others think I am or should be, but the one that has been originally blueprinted in my being. 

And I guess, at 22, that's the journey I'm taking on. Maybe as the years go by, more questions will come up as some will be answered. Anddd, of course, failures will always be there. Yes, I should be more careful, but it doesn't mean that I wouldn't fall or fail or get hurt or break people. But I could choose to live a life of value and meaning. And I guess, that the only way for me to be comfortable in my own skin is to acknowledge the love that I am worthy to receive and the love that I am capable to give. I have been wonderfully made for the reason of existence for a certain purpose--that which I am about to find out. I don't have to end up with solved puzzles at the end of this year, or even of this lifetime. I have to focus on the journey, and to live this life well. 

So, while I'm still on bumming, I have to do some catching up with my own life!

090116

Barely lit rooms
Bare feet
Turned left
Turning tables
Short breathing
Shortened moments
Wondering on truths
Wonders witnessed
Chest chained
Chests uncovered
Leaves cluttered
Leafing pages
Stretched hopes
Stretches of time
Lying on a couch
Lies to conceal
Worn out heart
Wearing fragments

081816

Longing is a wonder

The desire for a nonexistent

It is a craving from deep within

An inquiry over profound devotion

Women Woes

via

Woman, what are you?

*deep sigh

I'm trying to figure out what the real score on my orientation, my gender, my design is. I have always thought that my gender is just another one of those characteristics I embody, not anything else that differs me much from the other half of the species of this planet, not anything so huge that could affect my lifestyle and activities... I mean, I have never thought myself distinct from men. I thought that I could do what they do, that it's not exactly different at all; except that I solely prefer men when it comes to romantic involvements, nothing else makes it different for me and them. Well, and of course, all the other biological stuff per se. 

But, recently, as I get to know more people and get to know more women and get to know more men, at the phase of my life when I'm already entirely deviated from childhood (in the structure of society), I am having these moments. I feel different from men in a conscious manner. That I cannot be like them, like... them. That I have my own distinct qualities, and they have their own, and I shouldn't try to take over their roles. Or something like that. It's become inexpressible for me, and it brings me to deep thinking on this new aspect of humanity that I am getting exposed to, that I am, or should be, embracing. It's like finding someone within my heart and allowing her to surface. This woman in me, I guess, it's trying to take over.

And it's weird.

I was raised up in a family full of women. Most of the women in my family are single, my mom has been a single parent for more than a decade now. I have been single since I first saw the world. And, I have never thought myself in need of someone to carry my bag for me because I never saw anyone take off the carriage behind my mother. And that kind of modeling proved me that a woman is strong enough to take on the roles of both sexes. Somehow, it's been what I have been modeling myself after as well. 

I don't ask for help from men when I'm carrying heavy stuff, I don't need them to open the door for me, to give way for me in the line, to allow me to get in first, and all the other gentlemen stuff. I have never really been a huge fan of those actions because I consider them vanity--steel weights to boost their ego muscles. And I still don't feel like wanting those special treatments, just because I'm a woman and their men. It's weird, I cannot reconcile myself yet to it. 

But the environment I'm in encourages me to take this pride on my gender off and allow them to feel empowered, though of course, I don't think that it's the kind of empowerment they need... ugh, I'm going crazy with all these arguments in my head. Of course, people could just easily say, "If you don't want, then don't ask for it. What's the big deal here?"

The big deal is my design and God's purpose for it. I have been realizing that I haven't been acting along the design that I should be in, that I'm trying to free myself from that position where I should be in. And it's not because God wants to limit me, but because He wants to maximize my life to its fullest. And I could only do that if I obey the Lord, and act accordingly. 

And one more thing that makes it not good for me to be trying to take over men's roles is that it's because of pride. And nothing else. I don't want anyone to think that I'm in need of them, generally. But I do need people around me. When I'm carrying heavy stuff, they're definitely heavy, and I could use a hand. I fail to acknowledge that I am weak and I have my own limitations because I want people to think I am strong enough to take care of myself. Which may be the case, but not the ultimate. People need people. And I guess this, among all the other things in this planet, is part of the mechanisms in our lives' ecosystem. Our interactions are naturally caused by our designs, our need to be part of something because we're incomplete on our own. We were all designed to complement one another, the humans, the animals, the plants, the air, the everything. The physique of this realm is proof that we're interdependent creatures. And so, failure to comply to our own design destructs the natural flow of this system--if not breaking us or the others around us, puts us into a limit. Imagine a duck taking on the role of a lion, it's not gonna work, it's highly inefficient, it's foolish. A single man who lives in a cave and says that he can live on his own breathes in air, drinks water, and eats from the trees around his place--he still continually interacts with the natural system because he cannot provide air, water, and food for himself from his own body. And I guess, that is how we were designed, we cannot do everything for ourselves.

These are words for myself as I am coming into terms with what on earth I am here for, with the design that I have been made of, with the interactions that come along with it. I haven't really moved on or have changed my own responses to men and to the circumstances that link us, but I am learning. And I realized it's fatal to resist my design. I am fooling no one but myself. I am hindering myself from greater things ahead of me. And, I guess that part of the journey is getting to know myself, and embracing the truth for which I exist. 

Phases Faces Paces

Tila ba mga bulong na walang tinig

Mga guni-guning umaaligid

Hindi mawari para saan pa't may alaala

Lumisan nga ngunit yapak ay nariyan pa

Naririnig ang dating kwentuhan

Mga biro at tawa ay palakasan

"Halika't doo'y samahan mo ako"

"Tara," at iiwan ang inuupuang bangko

At kapag ang araw ay nagdaan,

Sa may karinderya'y mag-aayaan

Bibili ng isang platitong ulam

Na siyang paghahati-hatian

Mga wasak na puso'y tila mga sinulid

Na siyang humahatak mula sa kun anumang gawain

"Ang puso ko ay puno ng pighati"

"Tara, at sa tindahan tayo magpalipas ng gabi"

At pupunuin ng mga pangarap ang puso

Aawit at magbibigay ng mga payo

Na minsan ay kalokoha't katatawanan

Madalas nama'y may aral na kapupulutan

At ngayon, ako ay nasa isang silid

Ang oras ay tumatakbo ng walang pasabi

Sa aking gunita, kayo ay namamasyal

Nananatili, naglalaro, at tila hindi lilisan 

People Speak to People

The stretch of time has been visible
Though unfathomable
There has been so much in words
But incomprehensible
And as the whole city is observed
There is a hope beheld
And though there are only angsts
There will be a light upheld

You tell me, 'My fingers are ten'
I ask, so what is it for
I ask you, is there anything you live for
You say, 'My hours are consumed'
There is a heavy and empty banter above
There is thirst and hunger around
There is so much wisdom hanging on paper
Nothing is done to thine wisdom's vapor

One day you will wake up and say
'I have so much words and my fingers are not bent'
And as you look around the steady high tides
Mist will cover the opening of your eyes

I Miss My Dad

via

One of the most difficult things about longing probably is missing someone you won't see anymore. It's like a memory that's hazy and foggy--you know it's real, but it doesn't feel like it is anymore. Coupled with regrets and hopes which are to no avail, the longing gets even more unbearable at the worst instances.

It's been a lot of years now since Daddy passed away. A decade to be exact. I was 11 then, stupid and unaware of the effects of death. It just won't strike you as real or anything big at once, well, at least for me. It didn't happen that way. For all it was, I was wondering more than I was grieving. I found it normal. I found it as something which happens to anyone, anytime. I wasn't the grieving girl type when it happened.

Until the fact struck me. I remember the sad dreams that haunted me months after the event. I cried in my sleep, more of because I hoped the dreams were real. I cry when my mind wakes up, and realizes none of it were true. (When I wake up from a dream, I don't usually automatically open my eyes). The content of the dreams are usually the same, my father returns, an indication that he has already left. And at the end of it, leaves. Usually, he leaves when I am unaware of it, that I'll wander a little, thinking he's gonna be there when I return. Usually, in my dreams, I get lost looking for him. Maybe these are projections of my hopes that he'll still return. Because the grave doesn't look like it's full. It looks like a bed of grass with nothing else beneath it.

When I miss him, I feel like curling into a ball because I want to hug him so badly, but I know I couldn't ever anymore; because my chest hurts so badly, I want to make the pain seize; because I want to be like a little girl again, forgetting everything. There were those quiet sobbing at some nights, trying to conceal the pain. Sometimes the triggers are quite simple, a chocolate bar, a string of beads, a fragrance, a tall man, different things that remind me of him.

They say that time heals wounds, but I realized that the wounds will turn to scars--visible reminders of pain. And though they say scars don't hurt anymore, sometimes, it feels like there are frail scars, they hurt when you touch them. And though it is a decision to move forward and to not dwell on pain, it is human frailty to go back and wish things were different.

I have been healed from the pain, yes. But remembering is just inevitable, especially when someone deeply dear to you cannot be there for you anymore, all you have left are the memories and hopes. And though it is to no avail I hope he returns, I look forward to let him remain in my heart. Moving forward doesn't come with forgetting, shouldn't even. I told myself I should not dwell in the pain of the past anymore, but I concluded that doesn't mean I forget the beauty of it. How could I easily forget the only time I depended on a man? How could I forget that once in my life I have been carried? How could it be easy to unremember that time all I was waiting for was Daddy to appear on the school gates and pick me up?

I am thankful for the turns of events that crafted me to be who I am right now. I am thankful that it didn't go otherwise. I am thankful that everything has been well-orchestrated by my dear Creator. And though I remember, I won't go back and try to remedy things and try to do the improbable and impossible. I am happy to be reminded that my father was a good man who loved me and my siblings so much. I am happy to have had him in my life. Knowing that the Lord's design is for me not to have him in the entirety of my temporary existence, I am thankful that for the first eleven years in my life, I have been taken care of by someone like him. Time is rolling, and the time that I have had no Dad will be longer than the time he was with us, but my desire is to continue to treasure the memory of one of the most beautiful people I have ever met in this life.

Thank you, Daddy. Thank you so much.

Whatever is...

via

Among the many and diverse characteristics of us humans is our vulnerability--that one phenomenon that makes or breaks us. For me, I would define it as a trait that makes the things and people in our surroundings able to have an effect on or affect us. And, I can attest to the fact that it is present in every single one of us. We all are vulnerable.

As a Christian woman who has been striving to live a life of worship, I would say that the things around me attribute to my being. I am as much of a human as every single one of my co-humans is. Rains happen, summers come, floods rise up, lands get dried... life just simply goes on in a certain manner of difficulty. Honestly, it isn't easy. I like things which are different from what are right, the world around us can be so tempting--we sometimes feel like all we need to do is to go grab and get what it offers.

Despite the strong and aggressive efforts of the world to lure us into temptation though, we should be careful to keep ourselves preserved for the Utmost. We have been bought with a price, that which is more than silver or gold, more than riches or fame.

1 Corinthians 7:23-24, NLT

God paid a high price for you, so don't be enslaved by the world. 

Each of you, dear brothers and sisters, should remain 

as you were when God first called you.

And that calling started when we received Him, and acknowledged Him as lord and savior over our lives, therefore, that was upon us having been freed from our bond from the world. And the price He paid to buy us from that enslavery was the most precious blood of our dear Lord Jesus Christ. In the same manner, we should sacrificially offer ourselves before Him, trusting His greater plans for us, defying the lusts of the flesh, choosing what is honorable before Him.

Today, as I have thought about it, I have discovered that life wouldn't be easier from here onward. Things will happen, I will get my heart even more broken than I already have, and life will just continue to be life. But I have Him. And I want that to be the only thing that matters, for that to be enough for me. I may not be on that full scale of offering yet, but that is my desire because I know that I would be better off nowhere else than in His arms.

Dear Lord,
 I know that the world can be beautiful and glorious before my eyes--the grandiose of all such creation of men is too high it makes me want to climb. But to what will it avail if I follow my flesh and taint my worth off? To what will it avail if I obeyed my own desires and broke Your precious heart? Let me dare not to veer away from Your holiness, from Your orchestrations, from Your truths. Strengthen my heart that I will choose to honor You with whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy in Your sight. I am nothing but a weak being, dysfunctional and demented to my own disgrace, but the price You have placed as my worth makes all things invaluable, crafting me to be nothing else but a woman called, "Yours". Meet my heartbeats with Your plans, and let me love You to my deepest. 
SP
 

"One day, I'll fall in love"

"One day, I'll fall in love"

And the wilted flowers are to bloom
While the storms will dance beneath the sun
The waves will crash the mountain peaks
And the days will never meet the nights

"One day, I'll fall in love,"

Screamed a lady trapped up above
Cried a little boy running in the streets
Said a man living with a paper and the pen
Whispered a woman who knew no one

"One day, I'll fall in love..."

And you will join me in the ride,
Finding out the best is always the next
And the next, and the next, and the next
As long as it's you and me, and that one day next.

Saturday Gets Real Stylez*

It's 10 minutes to Sunday, and I am gonna write down some (not-so-)fun facts I've concluded about myself throughout the day.

Note: These facts are stuff about me I am not willing to live wit hfor the rest of this month up until the rest of my life.

1. I cannot comply to routine. In a damaging way.

via

Let me start by saying it's not cool. Well, it used to be. When life is all about me and me getting to do things I wanna do upon a signal sent from one of my dendrites to its axon to another one of my dendrites to... I mean, it was always by impulse. Well, to cut myself some slack, wise responses to impulses, which only become unwise due to their timing and being random and unplanned. Being chill and doing things unplanned is pretty fun, but not when you're working and living a life of being an adult. My point is that I don't have to live in routine, but I shouldn't live with no routines in. It's making my life totally disastrous to have routines, but it's making me inefficient and ineffective when I fail to comply to routines, which in turn, might (haven't happened in a major way yet) mess up not just my life but everyone else's around me. It would take me years to explain how routine can help, but it sure can... I just have to figure it out.

2. I am more sleepy than restless.

via

I mean restless as in restless-to-go-and-explore-the-world mood. This is the number 1 saddest fact I have concluded about myself today. It was actually just a few minutes ago when I realized it. I want to be creative and be productive in response to it, but no, my mind has a lot of things it wants to work on, but it just ends up wanting to sleep more than do something that might be world-changing (Gina Linetti mode on). Look, I have these dreams of being an artist of words in some way, but it seems like I'm ready to flip them all over for a good night's sleep (or even an afternoon nap). And I am so dreamy (which might be from me being always sleepy), I don't understand why I cannot be more passionate and driven.

  
3. I don't like going anywhere on Sundays.

via

Okay. For people who know me, this might sound surprising. But for people who really really know me (which I think are just me and God (and God's not counted because)), this is a fact. Sunday is like an extension of Saturday to me. On Saturdays, I get really hazy from watching movies/TV series, reading, getting cozy, and all that stuff which lead me to being up late on Sundays, which lead me to being so annoyed at the idea of being somewhere else than bed on a Sunday morning. And the anticipation of a week ahead makes me want to have Sunday all for myself alone. I know, I know, I know. It's not good. I have to learn how to rest, and rest in the Lord in this context. And I am going to fight this off. I will. I will. I will.


4. I've got more mirror neurons than I should have.

via

I really have to stop my mirror neurons before they get me into trouble. Mirror neurons are those responsible for humans imitating and going after the people they actually like. Not "like like", just "like". This is the ones that would best explain how having a role model works and maybe even fangirling. So, I have this very easy way of imitating voices and even moves. And recently, I have been finding Gina Linetti soooo adorable. //Gina is from Brooklyn Nine Nine, a series I am currently SO in love with, to the point that I am cooking a post about Amy and Jake, one of its couples. *Plus to the point that I made a reference about it on my Stylez up there, plus the one in #2//. Gina is so adorable, I want to reenact her into my real life. And I feel like I've been blatantly sarcastic in the past few days (I'm normally sarcastic, but in a more gentle manner if not secretly), just like Gina is. Now, I hope it's just her adorable fashion I would channel.

Phew. It is not easy to have these traits eliminated, but at the very least, I hope to have them managed and controlled.