It’s been awhile since I sat down and sifted through my thoughts. 

It hurts right now, but Lord I trust You. You promised a life filled with hope and You said You will make all things work together for my good. 

I just came from an awesome two day work event at Lagen Resort in El Nido, Palawan. And while it was for work, it was good for me to get away from the little stresses of Manila and just press the reset button. 

“Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?”

I initially wrote a long entry defining what I think happiness is, but for once, words would be too much. 

For as long as I have kept this blog (nine years in 2014! wohoo!), I have always dedicated a blog post to bid goodbye to the year that was and to prepare for the year ahead. To keep up with tradition, I am doing the same this year, but believe me when I say that at the end of the day, we don’t really know anything.

A year ago, I thought I had everything figured out. I just knew where I was going and how to get there, and then one day, I woke up and bam! nothing was where I assumed and wanted it would be. While I’m a big believer in knowing what you want and going after it, there are truly moments when God takes your carefully made plans, crushes them, and replaces it with His own.

Switching careers a few months before turning 25 was probably the most difficult thing I had to go through in the past year. The uncertainty of not having a stable job in the summer of 2013 was a humbling experience for me because I have always been defined by the work that I did. In a month’s time, I was stripped of the things that I used to define me. At 24, I was no longer an educational therapist or a college professor and for the first time since I started working at the age of 19, I didn’t know where to go next. And while it may seem like a cliche, it was when I was absolutely at the end of my rope that God picked me up and switched the direction that I was going to.

2013 was also the year I truly hit rock bottom in more ways than I could ever imagine. I have discovered the dangers of having a temper, of bottling things up inside instead of expressing them in a healthy manner, and the importance of being responsible for my own actions. This year earned me the most battle scars, and while I wanted to hide them and pretend I didn’t have them, I realized doing so would take away the significance of this year. I have made a lot of mistakes this year that made me question everything I have believed and stood for. It has been a year of pushing, pulling, and choosing what worked for me. Most people underestimate the power of their own choices and this year I discovered its importance. No matter who was or wasn’t around me, I had the choice to live a life that was pleasant and nowhere near miserable. 

It was also this year that I learned how to see people for who they are: the good, the ugly, the different, and yet chose to love them anyway. Mr. Marley was right in saying that everyone, at one point or another, would hurt you, but you just have to make a decision as to who are the ones worth hurting for (naks, dramarama!). However, it was also this year that I learned the value of cutting ties.

I, just like Elizabeth Gilbert, have been a victim of my optimism too many times to count. This person deserves to be loved so I endure whatever this person does to me because maybe my love can change them. This friendship is way too precious, it has helped me over the years, but it’s no longer working but letting that friendship go would be a bitchy thing to do. This man is obviously a boy, but what if he changes for me? 

I have let me own idealistic nature take over me and so many times, it has hurt me. Yes, I believe that “love endures” and “love always hopes for the best”. But truth is, we can love from afar. Sometimes, the best thing we can do for people is let them go and pray that they find their way to happiness. I think constantly being used as an emotional punching bag has led to my temper problems. Letting people go, and trusting that if God wills them to be in our lives they will be back, could possibly be the best thing I have given to them and myself this year.

I have also learned to stop putting up walls like i’m rebuilding the Great Wall of China. In an effort to maintain relationships that I never wanted in the first place, I begun putting up walls. The walls turned into pretenses. It was a pull between wanting to be loved and not allowing anyone close enough to hurt me (shucks, i have turned into a cliche!). 

The ones closest to my heart have been honest enough to tell me that life cannot work that way. I should let my defenses down and be true to who I am, people who love me for me will stay, and obviously those who don’t will walk away, and that’s okay (I should really be getting a medal when it comes to this rhyming thing or at least a cheerleader uniform!). 

And since this has been a year of change, I made a major one two days before the turn of the year: I chopped off my hair. For someone who has always found solace in my long locks, this was a major change that symbolized a significant change inside of me.

You see, for the longest time, it has always been about what other people wanted from me, and while I have no intention of being selfish, I realized (at the Salon, while they were cutting my hair mala Carrie Bradshaw) that I could only love and live the life I desire if I love myself. I can’t dislike myself, and try to fit into everyone’s expected mold of me without breaking down ala Britney Spears circa 2007.

I need to fix things on the inside if I wish to have successful relationships on the outside. I don’t know why it took me 25 years to get this, but I’m glad I still have time to change it. I’m also grateful for multiple chances given by my Heavenly Father, it is only through His grace, wisdom, and goodness that I still have the chance to get my act together.

I’ve always said that the year to come will be my best year ever, but I never realized that making it the best year starts with one thing: me.

So, closing off this entry with two songs (sorry no Kendrick, Drake, or even The Weeknd) that has defined my year, and a verse to wrap 2013 rather nicely.

Wishing you a happy 2014 with blessings that are more than you have ever asked for, hoped for, and imagined.

Darling, the best is yet to come.

I have been on vacation for about a week now, and my set of books, basketball games (a girl can hardly keep up really), Sex & The City, and Gilmore Girls have replaced newspapers and my work computer.

Photo Cred: www.buzzfeed.com

Little One, it is not, has never been, and never will be your job to “keep him interested.”

Little One, your only task is to know deeply in your soul — in that unshakeable place that isn’t rattled by rejection and loss and ego — that you are worthy of interest. (If you can remember that everyone else is worthy of interest also, the battle of your life will be mostly won. But that is a letter for another day.)

If you can trust your worth in this way, you will be attractive in the most important sense of the word: you will attract a boy who is both capable of interest and who wants to spend his one life investing all of his interest in you.

And while the wait may take forever, trust me when I say, it will be worth the wait. Don’t settle.

‘Tis the season for gift giving, food, and endless gatherings. 

  

I can’t believe I haven’t written in awhile! 

It’s safe to say that it has been one hell of a week. 

And while I don’t want to get into the nitty gritty details of what’s been happening both on the outside and the inside, I couldn’t help but want to write. 

Write about nothing in particular, however, the incessant tapping has kept me sane most of my life so here goes something totally unplanned, penning away thoughts that don’t form into one big swoop. Writers always go for the big swoop, that aha, that moment where every word on every page, and in every chapter comes together into one giant bow and finally the reader gets where all is heading to.

From the get go, we wish life to be that way. Growing up an absurdly optimistic little child, I’ve always longed for that bow, that final oomph where everything falls into place and everything makes perfect sense.

That has always been my go to move of choice: when things don’t go my way, or when my heart is broken or when i break someone else’s (insert my smug really face here but for the essence of a little drama, let’s throw it in there) I always think there’s a higher purpose, this will make sense. 

I’ve always had that strong, utter belief that everything will fit together just like that Lego House everyone keeps harping about. What I failed to realize is that on the way to that place where everything is just together, people get hurt, people fall apart, people are betrayed, and a lot, and I mean a lot of tears fall.

Soon enough, we find ourselves too wounded to go on. And while most of us won’t admit it, one day we’d have to when we find ourselves breaking down, either by directing our pent up rage over something rather insignificant or just crying over something that wasn’t supposed to be sad anyway.

The thing is, we’re all scarred. We all have battle scars, and while some people have that great ability to recover quickly, all our pain is somehow hidden inside, we push it away until we couldn’t anymore.

So what exactly do we do? CONFRONT IT.

The only way we can truly correct something and heal from it is if we confront the reality of what it is. The reality of how much it hurt us, how much we have been let down by something or someone, and how much it has transformed us. 

Paulo Coelho was right when he said, “Don’t allow your wounds to transform you into someone you’re not” because that’s what pain does, it turns us into little monsters if we allow it to. 

And while I am not an expert on this, I’d like to believe that confronting it from the get go instead of constantly hiding from it would make us better people in the end, instead of constantly hiding from it. Accepting reality is the first step, and shamefully so, something I haven’t done in the past.

But, I have resolved that in order to get to the part where everything falls into place and makes perfect sense, I have to take charge and make who I am today better. And when I say better, I do mean digging deep and getting things done. And it’s never easy, it’s messy and often, it seems easier to run away, but trust me your future self would be extremely proud of you being strong enough to get dirty.

So while there’s a lot of things to get done, a lot of things to confront, and a lot of things to improve on, I’m not disheartened simply because I know I was strong enough to begin and I will not just get through, I’m going to win.

My three year old niece used to live right across The Mind Museum, we used to watch workers build the great shiny thing in the middle of The Fort with great anticipation. We just couldn’t wait to discover what was inside and although it has been open for a year now, we have never set foot in it due to a lot of different reasons.