..platform and prose..

"How do you see yourself  five years from now?"

Uh-oh. There is some easy question that seemed so difficult to give out an answer. Like why when you look at yourself in the concave part of the spoon, your image is turned upside down. Even if you are holding it right . Hungry people, I bet,  don't notice that. 

I've been sleeping all day, and it's not just so me. While others are "feeling meh" and some say "feeling blah" of any sort, I feel monotonous. In a plateau. In a hiatus. I've been thinking to write earlier, but I'm not in my element to do so. They say artists, like writers, are emotional. But I would want to get away from being labeled as one. This is my platform, and I, a storyteller, who shares the fragments of  prose I'm capable of. I scrolled my own articles, re-read it and discovered that:

1. I used "quite" instead of "quiet"

2. Interchanged "there" with  "their"

3. I've been aggressive to post my articles without proofreading it (I need one)

4. I can always go back to them and edit it

5. And that I only discovered it tonight

But life is not a blogsite you can open when time pace like turtle. That you can't just jump from one page and leave the other when you don't feel like finishing it through the end. And go back and edit mistakes and publish again.

To see myself in the next five years is an honest torture. Because I have no rules, and discipline divorced me a long time ago. Yeah, it's easy to make rules, especially the ones that you can break. When order calls, it's convenient to leave things as they are, even the ones that are broken. Because everyday, mess happens even if you try not to blink an eye.

So maybe, it's not a sin to entertain the idea to stay on top of things, broken or not. To have a goal in a day, even if that goal is not achievable in a snap of the finger. Waiting is my specialty, patient in persisting while persistently patient on things that matters bigtime. At the end of the day, when life hit us sideways, how you see yourself in the next five years will not hurt, because you live just for today.

It's not a bad idea though to HOPE. It's bigger than despair. And God who made a strong stuff out of us.

..Where will God be then?..

The sun peeked gracefully at our flat's window as if jubilantly excited to caress my skin. It's as if it had been rejuvenated from a painful sunset that it gloriously cherished another day being up in the clear sky. I stretched my arms wide, receiving every sunray as much as I can obtain and joyfully whispering my love for life. I stopped to think over of my privileges for today. How many people all over the globe cannot appreciate what sunrise is because they were born blind; or how many patients now are struggling between life and death; how many out there are dying in pain and fighting hope against hope with their illnesses. On the other hand, how many people out there are whining just because they cannot be contented of their newly bought make-up or treated hair, or because the food on the table was not served hot; or the elevator door came passed them. How many of us are complaining of our little problems while others are sick enough to endure theirs. How many of us gets out of our bed dragging our feet to work when others are bedbound of debilitating disease or never got the chance to wake up at all.

There are times when we are being weighed down by life; probably a betrayal from a long-term relationship,  being turned down from a work or promotion you've been praying for, or not granted your U.S. or green card visa,etc. etc. etc. The whining is endless, and there's no cure. Unless you learned that today will be your last.

Today is the last day you will get out of bed, the last day you will eat food not served warm, last day you will apply your make-up on or ride an elevator. Today will  be your last day of work, your last laugh  with friends, your last hug with your kids, the last talk with your love ones. Today is definitely the last day of your life.

What will you do? Where you'll be? Whom you'll be with?

I guess there will be an increase statistics of "Thank You's" and "I Love You's". Our homes will be overpopulated, and the malls will be ghost-towns. Your problem now would have been then how to make the clock pace slow to get more out of life..to say more comforting words, to bathe more with sunshine, to live life deeply with enthusiasm serving others, and the world by then will evolve in a new axis called LOVE.

Today, the clock ticks without our plain knowing.

The world evolves with our own sets of priorities.

And you chase things knowing you have 24 hours.

If today is your last 24 hours,

Where will God be then in your life?

..I thanked God I did not become a doctor..

After college, when my brain is dulled by inactivity of waiting for the result of board exams, it crossed my mind to enroll in the School of Medicine. I've always been captivated with those white blazers and hanging stethoscopes. How it did not come to pass, I thanked the Lord. Because now, it's part of my job to remove the white blazer and hanging stethoscope, change into scrub suits, and arguing with the doctors how to compute the accurate intake and output. Yeah, that's actually so normal being a nurse. 

And so my day starts at 5:30 in the morning, my daily set time for waking up. And 5 minutes more for an extra snooze. It's quite plain ironing your uniforms with towel on your hair. If only I did not update my Facebook status, I could have been already fixing my hair while having a sip of coffee. Nah, that social media can do. Anyway, I still received my endorsement on time, while yawning once in a while. I glanced at the clock, which is pacing slow for a census manageable for staffs who usually on the run early in the morning. 

This day is peaceful. Until the monitor will alarm for a low heart rate, the other, faster. Stable, is foremost, not even a word to be uttered in ICU. In a place where windows are not likely included in the floor plan, you'll realized how one's excesses is a deficiency to another patients. Moving on, you'll get by to hours when you are prompted to keenly find a good vein, and though it's 7 degrees outside, you feel like being in a sauna out of pressure to get a good access. You'll find yourself then being in a habit of finding good veins in every patient you'll see at first encounter. Even at your very own.

The ward called. An IV insertion. Bring on the habit! The ER called, patient for intubation. Oh, it's not included in my habit, so back off? Who said? Was it not mentioned in review days that Airway is a Priority? Your walk now becomes a sprint. You wear gloves that snuggly fit because you needed to ambubag the patient. In unfortunate times, your overcoat did not survive from vomitous, and later realized that it was actually  not yours. It was just borrowed. Poor colleague.

Time now is pacing fast. You can't even determine if the sun shines outside because as you waited for the feeding in the tube to go down, your mind is on your notes which was not yet started, doctor's orders you haven't carried out. Your patient opened his eyes, it was a beautiful window you see for the day. You forget what you haven't done, but the ones you did. At least.

Nearing the end of shift, your patient's level of consciousness dropped. Heart rate is nearing to arrest. Then it stopped. Code blue. Time stopped. You are now compressing someone's heart. You realized how ironic it seems when people wishes for time to swiftly pass while others wants it not to move at all. To which of these God listens to? To which of these God answers? I do not know. I do not own Time. 

I changed my scrub suits to my white blazer. I freed my hair from its tie. Holding the frozen Oreo frappe, I punched out. The clock reads 2000H. My shift has ended. My profession hasn't. Tomorrow, when my clock alarms at 5:30 in the morning, I'll look forward to seeing another beautiful window. I told you, I thanked God I did not become a doctor.

"You can’t be successful in life without these two essential things: Giftedness and Godliness.

  Giftedness is the ability to turn thoughts into things. Godliness is the ability to use that Giftedness to Serve." - Bo Sanchez 

..what winter can do..

Pajama fits so much for someone who is lazy to get up in bed. I've been staring at the empty ceiling while listening to my stomach's rumblings. It's very cold outside I'd rather hide under the blanket and bundle up with my pillows which occupy mostly the space of my once again sagging bed. It's only 5 o' clock in the morning. But I feel like I've slept forever. I remained still and cherished the moments I need not to wait for the shower to heat a bit, or go out to log out with a towel on my head, which is typically normal for someone with a dynamic schedule. Staring on an empty ceiling is like watching the curtains unfolding right in front of you, a movie about to start, and you are the actress in the big screen. However, some scenes are definitely not suitable to be shown. But movies, like life, are not all victories and happy endings. You need to get by with the pauses, with the gaps, with the lessons thrown at you in a not-so-conventional manners.

 I learned how to be drunk back in college. You know, those after exams blast. Dropping from one bar to another. Aside from Chemistry and all those Maslow's Hierarchy of needs,  a pitcher of Tequilla Sunrise, I learned, can increase the motility of my gastrointestinal tract, and that I have a functioning gag reflex whenever I would throw up. Tipsy people spill the beans, and I'm not tipsy yet as of this writing. And so, when you are still young, and the world is so ideal to enjoy life, you go with the tides. I can even remember going home one morning, my hair smelling smoke from the bunch of orally-fixated bar hoppers. The gate was opened by my Auntie, without any word. I woke up with meals in the table, still nauseated from binge drinking the other night. Those late night sneaking out just to kiss someone goodbye. Who can say that an inspirational blogger like me would have done those. And lying in my bed idly, I just smile remembering the throwbacks. Those are lessons I did not learn from books, from comfort zones, from the safe side of life. I am a storyteller today because I made stories in the past. Yes, some of them are not so inspiring to tell, but I'm not a people-pleaser. I value "black and white" type. I value honesty. 

This is not much of a story. Not much of those that you usually read. I just feel the need that somehow, you owe to know your blogger. Just as you have trusted me with your time. To the younger ones who might be reading this, don't be afraid to make mistakes, to come up with the wrong decisions. Don't be afraid to seek out yourself. Allow pain to knock at your door, welcome disappointments and frustrations, grow from nothing to something, from a nobody to somebody. Life awaits outside the safe harbor. I tell you, maturity comes from there.

One day, I'll sit with my children. I'll tell them how there mom was. I'll smile when I hear them say, "you've done that?". I know by then, I lived my life.

This is what winter can do. =)