Introspection

I've always thought I'm not right in the head, but now I'm going over the bend. Not because my life is scattered and confusing and full of maddeningly complicated details, but because it is so mundane, and simple and easy and nothing's really happening and I just suddenly didn't have the urge to write. My muse left me and I didn't know how to go around it.

This month has been a roller-coaster ride. We went to Baguio, and I really think I could live like that. Just being with my family with my brother's kids as my surrogate children and gossiping and giggling with my sister over the most trivial things. I keep praying for divine intervention to let me get through a personal slump last month. And I did. I keep praying for His help to give me strength to come to terms and to being okay to be alone, and I think, I believe, I'm starting to be a little okay with it. At least 20% okay with it. There's still that 80% really adverse to being alone that I have to work my way through.

I enrolled, and I attended my classes. I had also made peace with the fact that I'm not meant to teach this year. I'm still asking the heavens why and I'm still blaming it all on my incompetencies, but I'm patiently waiting for the answer. There is always an answer and soon, I'll know it.

Then came a disturbing news from a close friend, an old friend. I do not claim that I'm kind, and religious and always morally upright. I'm not. But there are some things in this world I'm not going to touch with a ten-foot pole. People generally have the impression that I'm worldly and liberal when in fact I'm not. I like to stay at home as much as I like to go out. I like to lock myself up in my room and read for hours on end, and just go out to eat and then I'll read again. Sometimes, I like to go out for a drive, driving nowhere even if it means I'll just get Coke from the nearby supermarket. I don't like clubs but I like bars.

And when it comes to lifestyle, I can be friends with gay couples, lesbians, all nationalities except one, and I will support my friends despite all manners of sin, except murder and adultery. So I'm old fashioned. Guilty. I cannot fathom the fact that sleeping with a married woman or man is justified as long as it's the fashion or the trend or everybody's doing it. It's just not fair to the children of that marriage. It doesn't make it right. I hope that I won't be tempted, or if I am, that I will have the strength to say no. I'll probably try to do all novenas known to Catholics just to have the strength to say no. I know about temptations and you will need all the prayers you can say to say no.

But I was disturbed because my friend was happy and clearly I was not. My friend has a love life and I don't. My friend wakes up with a smile towards the heavens and here I am, stretching upon waking up and trying to think of a reason why I'm on a program again to lose weight, why it's a neverending process. Why? I pray and I go to church and I talked to Him every night, and my life is stuck in second gear, while my friend is a non-practicing Catholic, having an affair with a married person and still is happily in love.

Of course, the answer came to me as quickly as the question. Everywhere in our house, you can see Jesus Christ, or Mama Mary, Bibles, candles and what-have-you. If I will be having an affair like that, I will burn in shame in my own house, that much I can see will be true. So I know why, I just cannot live with myself if I did that. So I just have to make peace with what I have. That's what I have to do. It'll be hard, but it's the only way.

My personal slump last May was due to the fact that I'm feeling so incompetent and all my insecurities about this new profession came crashing down on me. I got over it. Just because a close guy friend put things into perspective again. I keep complaining of being an old maid, of my life having no direction and of being generally unsatisfied with how things are going on around me. He said I'm not the only one feeling that way. That at least, I'm doing something that I love and yes, it's okay to be alone. That he won't think less of me if I ended up old and alone and with just my parents for company. He said that's not the measure of happiness in life.

I was quite flabbergasted. So simple. He said all of this in less than two minutes (well, because we like to argue and we like to get our point as fast as we can before the other can butt in) and I kept quiet, reeling from the realization and the comfort those words brought me. I didn't know that what I'm most afraid of is not fitting in with everyone, and being looked down upon by others for being alone and having no real job. When he said that it's okay, and when my other friends and my family said, in their own way, that it's okay, that's when the 20% of okayness happened. I'm finally coming to terms with it. I'm finally making peace with myself.

It's okay to still be struggling at my age. It's okay to be undecided about a career. It's okay to study and lean on your family for sometime to get to your dreams. It's okay to cry when you find out your dreams are a little harder to reach. It's okay to be single and alone, no one is going to think less of you.

And I think that should be my mantra for this year. Halfway done already but not too late. It's okay. It's okay because it is my life and I shouldn't live it according to others' standards. And it's okay because sooner or later an answer will reveal itself to me.

It's okay because prayers are always answered. He just always have a good reason why He gave you that answer. In time, I will get it.

Twelve Days

It's been almost twelve days since I've written a blog and I still don't have the faculties and inspiration to write about what happened in those twelve days. My Baguio blog is coming soon, and well, what I just wanted to say is that how come twelve days feels like it was gone in a blink of an eye?

How come time flies by so fast when you're not looking? Or living well?