The breaking of a new morn beacons a new chance to hope for today. Wherever you are in the world right now, may you always look forward to the next day with a hopeful heart that there’s still a better and brighter future ahead of us. Thank the heavens, the universe, God, the cosmos, for giving you this time of your life to live out your purpose. Continue to hold on. You are never alone.
We’re all in this together. ❤️
I have to be honest, I sometimes stalk people online. Up to a certain point, I check my friends the moment they start to pull away. And then, I let them go, and I also go on my way.
Maybe it’s the same with other people. And also maybe, some others are more persistent and devoted. With a blog like mine which has very minimal views, I am happy to have this sense of knowledge of who my visitors are by just seeing where the views came from. Italy, Ireland and Czech Republic are easy to identify. Philippines and the US were the most difficult to trace.
However, a year and some months ago, I noticed that the same countries have viewed my blog persistently. These devoted viewers were from Germany, Finland, Australia and Canada. Germany had been the most devoted because it would check on me sometimes once or twice daily.
I don’t have a single idea who these people are behind this stat. But I have a feeling, they were the same person eversince I noticed this trend in my analytics— the same person who checks on me from time to time— and yet even with the lack of any update or new posts, it’s surprising that they still remain consistent up to this day.
I can choose not to give this importance but I am curious if somehow, these persons and I had met before, somewhere. And why these regular visits. Anyhow, this post is for all of you to let you know that I acknowledge and appreciate you efforts in visiting this little space of mine.
As COVID-19 halts people’s lives around the world, the views became more consistent and frequent. Maybe because people have more free times now compared before? Or maybe, they are bored because of being put on quarantine, like me and needs something to read to divert their attention? I can’t be sure, of course.
Whatever it is, I am grateful for people who still have the time to check on me, regardless of where they are in the world– friends and families, alike. Or even strangers who happen to cross by this blog by chance.
At this critical time, I hope you all stay well, safe and healthy.
I hope you are all coping in the most helpful ways possible.
Let me do some real talk here because I think it’s relevant to me at present.
People often ask me why I’ve chosen to stay single for a very long time, 35 years to be exact, when I could be happily sharing my moments with someone special. They are right, I could have done that. But the thing is, I have always felt the need to safeguard my heart from pain. And when I say safeguard, it is to put up walls that no man can break them.
I stayed away from occasions when I know I’m only going to get hurt in the long run. I cut people out of my life if I feel I’m no longer needed as I used to or when I feel the other person does not want to choose me every single day anymore. Each one of us is unique and no relationship is ever perfect so for a relationship to work, you have to choose your person every single day— with all his flaws, his eccentricities, his moods, his everything. If I feel something is different or when I’m no longer wanted or if the other person does not want to fight for what we have, I let go instantaneously.
So on these occasions, you need to be the braver one to give the other the freedom he needs inorder to be truly happy— even if it means, you are no longer part of that reality. There’s probably a play of the ego here and I do understand that it’s not healthy and right when it comes, but so far, it has been helpful in keeping me away from possible numerous heartaches.
Don’t get me wrong though, I’ve loved some wonderful people in my life, although I never get to the point where it was made official. When I feel in love, I feel deeply in love and as I grow older, I’ve learned to tell the other person honestly about how I feel, which is so different from what I used to do years ago. I’ve grown into a different person who can now communicate what I want in the other person or what I expect from a relationship that when that need is not reciprocated, I let go. I let go irregardless of how much the person meant to me.
As it happens, I would feel the situation and ask my heart if it will be okay to do this and that. And then, I put the closure. I’m not the type to ghost on someone. When we put a closure on something, even if it’s painful for both parties, I believe it makes the pain a little bearable. To put an end by letting the other party know why is showing respect for what you used to have. There’s never a person in the past that I hold grudges with because I have tried to be a responsible adult— even to people who never managed to return a reply or say sorry. They have their reasons and I don’t have the right to judge them. Life is too short to hate and the world is too beautiful not to be happy for the lessons that have helped me grow into the person I am today. Oftentimes, I am barraged with blames from friends who I happen to entrust a part of the story but I stand firm with every decisions I make.
Once I leave, I leave without turning back— but one person just keeps showing up time and again. I let him do that because I will always be a friend to someone who needs me.
The moment I let go, a part of my heart goes to grave with all the memories I held on to of the person. It would be hypocritical to say that I’m not hurt but I’ve learned a lot about myself last year that I see pain as a very welcomed emotion and something that I have to accept as part of the moment, understand it and how it affects me and from there, I draw the courage to move forward with gratitude. Not a single regret for lost times. Not a single regret for having allowed myself to be vulnerable.
“To live for the present”, is my year’s mantra.
I have stopped thinking about the future and just let the universe do its magic. I’m not sure if what I have now is eternal but at the moment, this makes me happy. Like a weed that grows on a solid pavement, if this is meant to live, it will live and grow however dry and barren the soil it grow on had been.
Single or not, I will still be the happy kid that I am (I’m always the one with a kid’s disposition). If I happen to choose the other way now, regardless of who I end up with, I’ll keep my happy kid in me because life is more beautiful when you love unconditionally, when you learn to entrust the other person of your heart, when you strive to be happy and grateful at the moments that make your tummy flutter and your heart skips a beat— like you do when you see blueberry cheesecakes and ice cream. 😂
…
Love is like a plant. You water it regularly and sometimes, you leave it in the open so it can breathe on its own, so it can take in sunlight— just enough of it that it may not wither… it also means, you subject it to the forces outside your control that might eventually affect its health. But that’s how it’ll grow healthier. With its roots absorbing the nutrients from the ground, the sunlight and carbon dioxide it took in to make way for photosynthesis to occur, so does love grow into something more real, into something with profound depth. That’s eventually how it blooms with more connection, meaning and purpose.
If there’s a year that I will remember most in terms of how it molded me to become a bolder version of myself, it would be my 2019– the month of December, to be exact.
Pardon for the unnecessary photos that followed. :p
I need not discuss anything about what these things were about but I just want to congratulate myself for having a breakthrough year. As with the previous ones, there were beginnings that turned into inevitable endings and endings that gave way to new beginnings, but this year was a year of courage, clarity and closure, above anything else. I’ve learnt a lot by unlearning things and found myself when I truly allowed myself to get lost and forego my ego.
I am happy and excited about a lot of things. I’m looking forward to living not with the anticipation of a wonderful future but with the knowledge that you need not safeguard yourself, your heart and your mind all the time to be happy; you just need to forget who you were first. You need to take down your ego and kill it. You need to become vulnerable and be your true authentic self, irregardless of how people may perceive you along the way.
Remember that this journey is all yours. You take this road by yourself and in the end, it will be you and your seventy-year old self who will come face to face in the future, asking questions and throwing blames at each other. Would you have the courage to tell the older you that you were overwhelmed by fear that’s why you opted to tread the sedentary life? Or would you be proud to tell her that because you made the choice to follow the clamors of the inner you, you are happier and content, even without nothing?
I hope you get to stay on track. I hope that M‘s purpose in your life will not go to waste. I hope that you continuously savor the present moment that is laid out before you. I hope happiness will radiate outside of you that people will be able to feel it too. I hope you continuously make people happier, more content and more in tune with their divine inner self.
Here’s to another year of learning and unlearning things, to loving yourself and letting others to love you, to more adventures towards the self, to more adventures around the world, to living and letting the self die at the same time. Here’s to being present!
Hugs and kisses to all of you! Happy New Year, everyone! 💋
Over the years, I’ve known enough selfless people to assert my belief that people are innately good. Prior to the biases and judgements and the painful experiences we go through, we are at our basic human state, a force of good. We are love itself manifested outwardly. We are God incarnate, in the form of flesh and blood. And maybe, some mix of the mystical stardust from the cosmos.
Just to be honest, I’ve not been very religious for quite some time now. For those of you who knew about my religious journey, this would come as a surprise. Years ago, I felt a calling to the religious life, hence, I devoted myself to further my understanding and depth of my faith. I felt being called to enter the convent. If I did not stop, by this time, you would have called me, Sister M and I would probably have worn a habit already. 🙂
But then, I felt being pulled by a string to a different direction.
Regardless, I do respect my faith. I respect the people who are so dear to me who I’ve witnessed, have done so much work in the name of selfless servitude. I am still a consecrated member of a certain religious congregation but I have kept myself away from the familiar religious crowd. Not even my mother who is a devout religious woman can make me go back to where I started.
Why? Because she knows I have a belief of my own– something that she has learnt to respect after all the years she has urged me, but failed.
Looking back, I don’t feel any different about how I feel and see the world now than before. I hold the same belief in people. I remained who I am for the most part, perhaps even more grounded and understanding of the truths laid before me– maybe due to the maturity that comes with age. The only thing that changed was that, I stopped frequenting to the places I used to spend some time on.
Was I lost somehow? In terms of religiosity, how do you know if one has lost track of his way? Does one demand more privileges, act more gifted, present themselves as better than anyone? Does one have to speak ill of others? Or think ill of others? Does one have to do something horrible to someone or the society to be regarded as a lost sheep? What if the (lost) being only seeks to understand the moment at hand, hence on a deeper level, in order to follow a more compassionate essence of living, so one can be more forgiving and grateful of this moment given to him? At the basic level of being human, where goodness resides in and of itself, within and without the body, would it be wrong and inhumane to forgive someone who have always thought bad of you? Would it be wrong to forgive the people who had been dishonest, exploited your trust and wasted the love you gave away?
If being lost is having a clearer vision of people in their most fragile and vulnerable state that instead of hate and grudges, we emanate light so it penetrates deep within the other for love to live on, then I want to be lost forever.
I want to be where love is the only language we speak and the gain we seek after. I want to be lost in a moment of stillness and complete silence where the ego is non-existent.
It’s a shame that until now, I still ask these questions, because this only means, I still haven’t really figured myself out. But then, figuring in relation to form, is ego working, and when ego as a work of the mind overrides the essence of your true being, the soul dissipates and so I will grow old, still unable to see who I am. And that’s when I will forever be lost.
I am on a journey towards myself. If it leads me to something more beautiful than now, then perhaps, I can say, I’ve succeeded. If not, then I will be just as who I was before this– religious or otherwise.
But then, I will continue to feel God within the confines of my inner self, to see the good in the bad, and to manifest love and light in the things that I do, however difficult it can be at times.
Why in the world did I dream of someone I never even think of or who never crossed my mind in such a long time, confuses me.
It happened with him and me in a cliff by the sea– he was holding my hand in an unromantic kind of way and was telling me to not be afraid. He probably did it to let me know I am being watched upon. He knew I had fear of the water so he convinced me to jump with him– hand in hand. I was hesitant. He jumped first, stayed where he landed, waited and urged me to jump after. But I just stared at him unsure if I want to. In the end, I stayed. And to think he is a person I looked up to in my life, makes it even more baffling why I did not listen to him, because in reality, I could entrust him my life. That’s how much respect and trust I have with this person. Of all the people whom I know personally, he is the one I want to emulate and still trying to emulate with regards to being a positive rippler. He graduated just three or four years ahead of me and eventually became our professor in that same university, and then later on, the Chair of our IE department. I looked up to him as my personal Elon-Musk-Mahatma-Gandhi kind of mentor. Without him knowing, he had always inspired me and many others to become a positive agent in this world, in our own little way and to always embrace and honor our true potential.
He was the university’s King of Engineers and the Summa Cum Laude when he graduated. But never in any circumstance, did I feel or witness that he purposely bragged about his honors or his achievements. He was vastly admired because as a King, he was modest and kind.
I remember Sir A always loved Zig Ziglar.
“The only hindrance to achieving your true potential is your denial of it” and “If you can’t stand for something, then you will fall for anything”, were just two infamous quotes that he often mentioned in class, which stayed with me all through these years.
Since I graduated from the university thirteen years ago, I only bumped at him once or twice in public, and never got to see him again in person after that. But the only and possibly last exchange of messages we had in IG long ago was him telling me to never wait to be ready to chase after a dream, because I won’t ever be ready to do it.
It’s so strange why of all people, he would come visit me in my dream, at this particular moment in my life. It must be telling something because of the big decision I made last week and how it could have possibly change the course of my life. Somehow this dream assures me that I am being guided and led in my journey.
I’ve made that decision and was ready to face it regardless if I could live up to the circumstances or not. What transpired the decision was no longer the reason why I’ve finally written and handed the letter. I was scared but for days, I readied myself. Then I handed the letter early in the morning. I cried a bit. We cried a bit some days after and tried to understand where we could meet and change what is needed to be changed. I could have opted to be selfish– to think only of myself regardless of how it pains me to stagnate. But there’s just too many downside to a sudden departure. So yes, the letter never got to serve its purpose in the end.
Whatever change will befall me in the coming year is something that I look forward to with excitement. Until then, I have to savor this moment, this now that is given to me because this is the only time there is to live. Everything else is just an illusion, until that moment becomes the present.
Let your heart rest when it needs to. Do not rush, do not let it fall into the pleasant visions of your mind showing you something that is non-existent. Let it breathe and allow it to release whatever emotions it may have been dealing with. The heart is your strongest muscle, do not overwork it to the point that it may no longer be able to stand on its own. Create a healthy space for it to breathe fully, for it to heal and grow. Nurture healthy emotions by only allowing yourself to consume healthy thoughts. Change your mental diet if you need to. Or change everything from head to toe, from here to there, so you start out with a fresh vision. Change the way you see things, people, situations through your mind. And these will eventually create a new heart within you.
“How many times do I have to do this”, you may asked. Well, in reality, it’s a never-ending process. Restart as many times as you need to. And everytime you do this, be grateful to the circumstances for where it led you. It has armed you with a robust heart that can see beyond prejudices and flaws– a heart that can cry with you in silence but can also laugh of joy because the tears meant something that was worth living for.
And how do you know if it’s about time to restart? Ask your heart. It will always have the answer.
From here on, I will be sharing some music pieces which I may find interesting and or relevant at the moment. I’ll be doing this for myself to see how my taste of music changes over time.
I personally have a wide range of music genre that I listen to, so I cannot say for sure if I ever had a favourite genre when it comes to music. I guess my preference depends on the current state of my mind and some other circumstances. While most people would listen to sappy songs when going through a difficult moment, I, on the other hand, would choose bright and upbeat music and vice versa. The juxtaposition is almost always never noticed, even in my innermost circle, so I let things be.
Today’s featured song: The One That Got Away
Songwriters: Katy Perry / Lukasz Gottwald / Max Martin
Cover by: Brielle Von Hugel
Early this morning, this song came up in my Youtube feed. I’m neither a fan of Katy Perry nor can I relate to this song’s lyrics fully, but I do find this cover cute, if not, partly melancholic.
Do you guys believe in TOTGAs? Or do you ever had one?
