One Rainy Sunday

Nothing much to tell about the title. Just that I am quite hurriedly writing this because of a number of stuff that needs to get done before this day ends because tomorrow already has its own full plate of TTDs (things to do).

Opened a new tab while doing research just now for a paper I am writing when I saw this in one of the links. Wondering the last time I was here and wrote something...as it turns out, its been a long while.

...and as I try to save drafts, I see some of them in there. So that's where all the posts are all this time. Someone's got some major editing and reading to do. Hint: that's someone is no other than yours truly.

I am thinking of ways to keep posts coming in this place. Surely, I have more than 2,000 words to say on a daily basis and I don't get to talk that much to anyone since I work from home. Besides, what better way to share awll the things I read and see than having them here.

This is one place I've long thought of having its own hosting  but still having doubts on how to get it all off the ground. I remember asking one blogger how she manages to maintain at least 5 active blogs  - 2 of which are award winning - and have time to write for all of them on top of her mom and wife duties. She told me the writing  comes very easy once you get used to it.

Well, I've been writing since I was in third grade and started my first blogs with Friendster and Live Journal. I've been a ghost writer since 2005 and started doing that professionally in 2012...but the writing never became easy.

Not that it's gotten harder, either. Its just that it remained either motivated by reward or inspiration.

Now, I am not sure why I keep on blabbering about it when the simple answer is this: I never developed tha habit of "blogging" regularly. Sure, I wrote replied to emails daily, wrote manuals and procedures here and there, drafted contracts and pitches once in a while, produced academic and marketing papers on demand, and wrote rhymes and verses once in a while, yet I never worked on producing blog content regularly. Never pushed myself enough to make it a habit.

And so we for the next 66 days, the  habit should be updating personal blogs here and there and there. Make this a pseudorevival of the A Blog A Day Challenge but this time, we'll work harder on producing daily content. The goal is not PageRank but to build the habit of consistancy since I really suck at keeping my blogs updated despite blogging prefessionally for almost 4 years now.

Hope you take this journey with me.

Of Endings and Beginnings: Unbelievable Lightness

I've always believed there's a right time for everything.

This week, I think the right time just presented itself.

At first I was hesitant if I should go through with it. Its just that it seemed so long and unimportant anymore. However, I had to find the courage to do it because the chance might never come again and besides, I wasn't just doing it for the other person. I was also doing it for me. 

I needed to say my apologies and my peace. It really doesn't matter how the other person will receive and return the gesture, I just wanted to do it to get it off my chest. It was a burden of guilt and sadness that I've been carrying for quite a long time and it was taking up an important space in my being that can be put to better and more progressive use. 

So, there I was seated near the exit, waiting for them on their way out. In my head several things were still spinning, am I actually doing this? I felt cold and conscious of what I was going to say and how, what if I stutter or say the wrong things? At the top of my head, there's this queer little voice telling me to just leave because what I wanted to do won't change anything.

The minutes seemed eternal as the debate went on in my head if I was going to go through with it, on the left side of my brain. While the right side was composing what I was gonna say. Despite my own inhibitions, there was this stronger resolve to just get it over and done with since this is something that doesn't happen everyday.

On her way out, I called her name but she didn't hear me so I came after her and touched her shoulder, asked her to give me a minute. I told her this was something I wanted to do a long time ago but never had the chance. I said I'm sorry and gave her a hug. She smiled and said, "Wala na 'yun." She then introduced me to her son who took my hand and touched it to his forehead in a gesture of respect. I smiled at him and said, "Pleased to meet you." Just before we parted ways she said to me, "Sorry rin ha." Dumbfounded, I touched her elbow, smiled and said, "Okay na yun." I said my goodbyes and went my way.

To my surprise, the gesture was received with an equal amount of surprise, acceptance and an unexpected apology in return. I felt a surge of warmth, liberation, sheer delight and an unbelievable lightness in my heart that I never thought was possible. Its as if there was nothing you can throw at me that will get me upset. 

It was the first time I met these two individuals face-to-face, first time that I actually spoke with them and yet our paths and fate have been entangled over a decade earlier in a very twisted way. So unbelievably twisted that it hurt. Still, there is nothing I can do to undo all that. What I can only do is say I'm sorry and wish them both well. And I sincerely mean that.

Our past is nothing pleasant nor fancy but I am grateful that it helped shape who I have become and if through my loss, something good came out - just a ray of hope, a chance at happiness and a chance at love - then my loss, no matter how much of a heartbreaking epic and monumentally soul-shattering moment it was at the time, is something that I no longer entirely feel sorry for.

My story hasn't gotten that happily ever after storybook endling that little princesses dreamt of yet, but I've gotten my second chance to get back up on my feet and make things right - and I struggle to do so every single day. For me, that is enough. As for them, I don't know how their story has unfolded and I have no desire to. I only pray that they be blessed with the same lightness that I now have in my heart and the most genuine of joy.

Pitstop '15

I'd like to think that this is another pitstop am taking to lead me somewhere better that I ever imagined. Life is an adventure meant to be lived after all.

There is, however an almost poetic sadness in the recent shift of things. There was nothing dramatic or comical about it. It was rather quick and quiet, and hopefully a more matured decision than I originally thought.

As I have said before, I simply end chapters and avoid closing doors because for most things, we can never tell with finality when they are over. An affair can end in a chapter to be picked up again later. Some good things sometimes need to be put on hold for more important ones.

I am all in when it comes to pursuing passions but succeeding in that pursuit requires more than passion itself. It requires freedom, resources and skills - you do need something more to show, no not just show but actually put on the table other than sheer desire.

Personally, for me its knowing with some amount of certainty that I have taken care of all the other important things so I can freely go after the things I really want.

There is however a risk in putting off things you're passionate about on hold for quite some time to take care of more practical and pressing things. The process changes you in certain ways. As you grow, you begin to challenge and question things you earlier had very strong convictions about. I don't know for certain if its a good or bad thing when you get to a point when you wonder if what you've always thought you're passionate about suddenly feels like its no longer for you.

Its quite startling to be caught in the middle of trying to live up to it only to realize it doesn't feel right anymore.

People change, sometimes we grow and sometimes we grow backwards...whathever the case, its just important to take a step back and analyze where you're winiinwinning and losing the most and what demands you're greatest attention. At the end of the day, the important thing is to learn from the experience and take corrective actions as soon as one realizes his or her shortcomings. Life need not be perfect but it does need to be lived to the fullest.