i am woman, hear me rawr!

...if all the sun beams were bubble gum and ice cream, oh what a sun that will be...

People say happiness is a choice. I beg to disagree.

For me, I’d like to think it is a process and not just something you chose to do. It is something that is worked at, very hard, continuously and with conscious effort. It’s something you don’t take for granted or assume, just because you choose it. More than choosing happiness, I think it is about creating your own happiness, and part and parcel of that creation is acknowledging and honoring the sadness that may come along, recognizing its inherent value in the building of your soul. Sure, making a decision comes with the package, but it doesn’t end with just choosing to be happy. It comes with creating what makes you happy and reframing the way things happen around you.

Take this, for example.

Anyone who knows me knows how much I hate the rain. For me, the rain brings back bits and pieces of bad memories from really traumatic events that have greatly impacted my life. For me, the rain represents so many negative emotions like fear, dread, impending doom. At times, even death. The slightest hint of rain, from gray skies to the rumbling of thunder, always manages to tap into that. And while it may perhaps be a psychosomatic response to the rainy weather, whenever dark skies come and raindrops fall almost endlessly, I always seem to find myself physically debilitated and no amount of antibiotics or any medication would completely make me better. It is as if my physically body is commiserating with my soul, which slowly withers to the point of being at the brink of ‘death’. Read the rest of this entry »

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...you are exactly where you are supposed to be... from the prayer of St. Threse

Three years ago today I started on the most difficult, yet most soulful, two weeks of my life ever. It was at this time that I was in the deepest and darkest moments of my life. There I was, in the throes of a major depression, trying to keep my head above water and tread to safety, lost beyond imagination.

On this day in that not too distant past, I did the hardest thing I ever had to do. Correction: I was made to do the hardest thing I would ever have to do: face my darkness head-on.

I wasn’t there to confront it, I was told, nor was I there to fight it. I was there to get to know it and make amends with it so we can co-exist in a delicate balance of darkness and light.

Um…hello???

I fought as hard as I could so as not to go there. How, in all honesty, could I allow myself to go there, especially since going there meant letting go completely of all sense of comfort and familiarity? Sure, I was in so, so much pain and misery at that time, so much so that every night as I poured myself a drink so I could fall asleep I would pray fervently that I didn’t have to wake up again the next day. But that was familiar. That much I knew. And the hurt would go away anyway, as long as I stuffed myself with cookie after cookie, cupcake after cupcake and so on. Plus I had my distractions…I’d spend countless hours downloading songs from Grey’s Anatomy then one by one, arrange them and label them per episode. I virtually camped out at Seattle Grace during that year and from there, I was able to make an alternate reality for me. It was such a great façade, in fact, that no one knew how deeply depressed I was…no one saw the bottles of tequila hidden in my closet nor knew I would take a Nyquil or two, or three at times, just to get a few hours of restless sleep. No one knew how dead and empty I felt on the inside. Read the rest of this entry »

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...let go of hurt or anger or sadness, for like grains of sand it just takes up space and gets you nowhere ...

One time over dinner, a friend of mine and I got into a little spat because she said something that hurt me deeply. The following day, I sent her a text message and told her how her cutting remarks made me feel. She replied that she was sorry that I felt that way, but that all she had done was respond to what I had said earlier on (what these were I don’t really remember anymore, but bottom line, it turns out that I had kind of set myself up for the whole thing). She went on to tell me that maybe I was not aware of it, but that I had a penchant for self-sabotage. She ended with, and Ri, you seem to thrive a lot on drama. It’s as if you actively, although unintentionally, seek to get hurt and disappointed by the people around you. What you don’t realize, however, is that you set up the stage for this to happen…you invite it and when it comes, you cling to it and don’t let go. And you know what the sad part about this is, Ri? It’s that one, you don’t realize it, and two, you tend to create this all in your head and catastrophize it so much so it consumes you almost completely.

Um…hello? Are you kidding me??? I never really saw myself as that and tell me, please, who enjoys getting hurt in the first place? And hello…I make it all up???

Yes, those were the thoughts going on in my head as she told me that and I cried my little itty bitty heart out. By the end of our conversation, however, I did come to the realization that yes, maybe most of my bitter disappointments in people around me and why I keep failing at relationships (be it in any way, shape or form) were mostly my doing. Read the rest of this entry »

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...the plan for my last calendar year....

For my birthday this year, I came up with a list of 31 things I wanted to be able to do within the year. Tonight it dawned on me that I just crossed the 6th month mark since then and, given my whole life reassessment process right now, I decided to take a quick look at my list and mark my progress…

I must say, the list is kinda surprising! Surprising in the sense that one, I don’t remember writing most of them and secondly, how much they answer many of my questions today. To some degree, it kinda is VERY freaky how as early as then God (oh, yes, I have decided to stop calling it the Universe giving me signs, but to claim that it is indeed God’s way of showing me His plans) was talking to me already and I guess, like always, I wasn’t listening too well.

So…how has my progress been. Let’s take a look, shall we: Read the rest of this entry »

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One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters - whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished...Stop being who you were, and change into who you are. - Paulo Coehlo

In the past few weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking (and feeling, I suppose) about the direction of my life and the decisions I’ve been making that have led me to where I am. What dawned on me was that it always has been the little things that happen in my life that really cause the greatest impact. Why do I call them little things? Well, for one, these are the things often unplanned.

I think for most of us — well, scratch that, I’ll speak for myself — I think for me I’ve always been the type who wants everything planned out and clear before I make a choice. However, every now and then, life throws me a curve ball and reminds me that no matter how much I plan things, there are many, many other variables that I have no way of controlling. Often times, they come as little things: such as not getting something I was expecting, a promotion falling through, a gut feel of discontent, small displeasure that grows, mediocre performance that is unlike my usual…

It’s not that these are bad things, but for someone like me, it can indeed cause me to feel like I’m on shifting sands.

Come to think of it (whoops…did I just use the word think again? Told ya I’ve been thinking a lot these past weeks!), I suppose in many ways facing change is really like being on shifting sands, right? More so, when I pause a bit, I realize that the shifting of these sands never, or at least very rarely, happen in an instant. It’s all the little things that affect it:  a digging from one end of the beach, a shift in tides, the phases of the moon….

So today I take the time to recognize all the little things that have greatly impacted my life, both good and bad and remember that despite the uncertainty, discomfort, and lack of clarity they may have caused me at one point or another, they have all been essential to leading me to where I am today. Read the rest of this entry »

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a million little pieces of me, each part and parcel of the whole i am meant to be

As is customary in any long meeting I have to sit through, I found myself flitting in and out of conscious awareness this evening as my colleagues and I discussed issues and concerns arising in our work. In between these moments, I’d find my mind wandering to and fro the present, the past and everywhere in between. Suddenly, however, a colleague of mine said something that that snapped me back to conscious thought: these were but necessary pains.

Those words struck a chord loud and clear in me and shook me out of my inattention for a bit as it got me to thinking about conversations (either with myself or with the special few who get to see me beyond my masks) and moments not too long ago when I had struggled to make amends with my own times of discontent and little moments of regret. I remembered those times that I felt caught in a riptide, set adrift in a current of uncertainty and fear. For a brief moment, I felt myself taken back to days of my childhood where I would bear burdens that were not mine to begin with, teetering back and forth, feeling overwhelmed by a world much bigger than myself.

I thought back too, to my dark starless nights when all I wished for was to never wake up again, at least not in the world that I was living in.  And yes, much as I tried to ignore it, I thought about he-who-broke-my-heart-into-a-million-itty-bitty-pieces-and-left-me-broken-and-damaged.

Necessary Pains.

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when all the clouds darken up the skyway, there's a rainbow highway to be found leading from your window pane, to a place behind the sun, just step beyond the rain... Somewhere over the rainbow way up high, there's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby. Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue, And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true ...(lyrics from Somewhere Over the Rainbow)

Today I asked myself: what on earth was I thinking?

For some unexplainable reason, I had the urge to go on a road trip. It didn’t matter where, it didn’t matter with whom, I just knew I had to go.

The feeling came some time yesterday and I summarily dismissed it, but it got stronger and stronger until finally I said, okay, I’ll go. However, as the night wore on, I started to doubt that decision, especially since it was raining on and off all night. When I woke up this morning and saw that the weather wasn’t really “perfect” (which in layman’s terms would be defined as cloudy, but for me has always been considered a “bad weather day”) I told myself that maybe I shouldn’t go. But that stirring inside of me wouldn’t settle and that something inside of me told me to just go. “Just go”, it said, as I struggled with it. “Just go” it urged, even as I walked Bubba around the village this morning, arguing that the walk should be enough already. Finally exasperated I asked myself why do I need to do this. That voice just calmly said: do it just because.

So finally I got in my car and drove. Usually when this stirring comes, I head towards the beaches in Batangas because of all places in this earth I feel most at home in, it’s the beach. However, while I still had no solid plans and as early as last night, I already knew for a fact that it wouldn’t be the beach I would be finding myself in. Why, I don’t know, I just knew.

Surprise, surprise, I ended up in Tagaytay.

I guess anyone who really knows me is aware about how I feel about the rain and cold weather so I really don’t know why that voice in me insisted I go there. It was perhaps the coldest place in the city to I could head to, especially on a gloomy, overcast day such as this. I’ve never really been a fan of that city, no matter how peaceful and beautiful it is, mainly because no matter what time of year you go, you can count on it being, at the very least cool and chilly. And for some reason, the cold always, always manages to get me down for some reason. It makes me sad beyond explanation and it challenges the very core and fiber of who I am. I tried to convince myself to just go to Nuvali or Paseo de Sta. Rosa, after all, it was far enough from the city so if it was just the movement I was looking for, that should be good enough. And, I tried to tell myself, at least it’s kinda warm so I know it won’t be bad. But noooo…..”GO!” said that voice in me, “keep driving” .

As soon as I turned the corner to the city proper, a frightening sight greeted me: thick, heavy fog, so thick I could barely see more than three cars in front of me. With visibility low and an obvious coldness that I was sure I would hate, I felt an impending sense of doom come over me. The logical, cognitive side of me started telling me to pull over, turn back and head to safety. But that little voice inside me kept on insisting I go on. “Just breathe through it”, it said, “don’t be afraid because it will be okay”. “Besides”, it told me, “you know what you’re doing and I promise, this will be good for you”. Read the rest of this entry »

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Eat Pray Love. Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures

In a recent post, I wrote about how Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert has been one of the most pivotal and life changing stories I had read in the last few years. While some may say the story is a little self-indulgent, I feel that the story speaks volumes to me, in many different levels and ways. When I read (or should I say re-read) it when I am on a low point, it picks me up. On better days, it makes me reflect on what I have, and on really good days, it allows me to appreciate myself and the world around me. Whatever the message is, however, it always, always seems to come at the perfect time.

And as always, last night was no exception. I was finally able to catch the film adaptation of the story, which starred Julia Roberts and I walked away from the theater sighing a happy sigh.

I truly enjoyed the film, although admittedly, like most book-to-movie films, there were bits and pieces in the book that I would have wished to see but didn’t. In the same way, there were elements that were portrayed differently from the way I imagined it when reading. Nonetheless, I loved it. Not only do I love the story to begin with, I also love any film Julia Roberts, so that was surely an added bonus. I loved how real her performance was, and how I could really feel and become engaged with the character. It’s funny, though…while watching it I would catch myself seeing myself in many, many situations and discussions she was having with herself and others. There were scenes too that were too “real”  to me…real because it reminded me very much of conversations over margaritas and little synchronous moments I personally have been experiencing in the last few months with very special people around me. Like I said, Eat Pray Love always seems to give me messages at just the right time

One of my favorite lines in the movie (okay, for my dear readers who complain about spoilers, I apologize if you consider this as one, but I don’t think it is ) goes: ” Ruin is a gift; ruin is the road to transformation”.  That struck a chord deep in me because just recently, I found myself looking back at a difficult time in my life. A period in which I allowed myself to explore the artist in me, and during that time I found comfort and solace in working on that art. One of the most cathartic and meaningful things I did then was to take some chipped and imperfect vases and dishes that, because of their flaws, were no longer functional, but for some reason, I couldn’t throw away. So one day, I took them and smashed them to tiny pieces. From there, I picked up the bits and pieces that I liked and put them together in a mosaic to make new and more beautiful things that worked for me and by embracing that brokenness, I was able to make a better whole. Yes, by welcoming the ruins, I paved the way for transformation.

Today I embrace all that is broken and damaged and imperfect in me and sigh in contentment knowing that these are what make me better, for me and all those who are around me.

*happy happy sigh of contentment*

Eat Pray Love opens in Philippine cinemas on October 6, 2010 and is released by Columbia Pictures. This is surely one of those movies I wouldn’t mind watching over and over. Much as the book has found a way into my heart, so has this movie

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