..imagine a day without the thing you needed..

I planned my activities for the following day before going to bed. I said I'll have an unhurried bath, empty my hamper which defined my week's schedule, I'll cook a decent meal, and probably will clean our bathroom. I woke up and went to the receiving area, laid for a moment in our couch, imagining the scrambled egg and Tender Juicy hotdog for breakfast. Then I heard the grumble of my flat mate while she's holding her hamper back to her room saying, "no water supply for today". NO WATER SUPPLY FOR TODAY? The image of scrambled egg and hotdog faded in an instant. 

I was able to share this story to my cousin Anne when we were able to had a good catch up online. That day, when the water, the basic need of every human being was cut off, I found myself bargaining. That I would have wanted to have no electricity than to have no water at all. In the absence of the basics, we realize how extra ordinary they are. A patient will set aside a branded shoes as soon as her doctor will say that her leg needs amputation. Or a father will drop off a big time close deal meeting when he learned that his son got a car accident. Or a successful business man would trade his bank account to regain a cancer-free body. Or those who experienced a gargantuan destruction of typhoon who would exchange their valuables for the safety of their family. God is wise enough to give us a day when we experience a threat of losing the things and people we often take for granted on a daily basis. Because we think that they are anyway accessible everyday. They are just there. So you don't find them that eager to take care of. That day, when I heard the gushing of water in the kitchen, I ended my habit of wasting it.

What can you afford to lose in order to retain what matters most? How will you imagine a day without that very thing you needed? 

It's not too late to start to declutter your life.

..a good sneak out..

(c) Jem Ven Ar

I sneaked out of the flat in robe. The guard is now fast asleep with lights in the hallway off. I took the stairs, careful of my foot steps since I don't want to create noise that might wake up the occupants of the building this moment of dawn. I stopped in one of the floors, thinking that someone might see me, and  it might provoke a "conjuring" thought. But I was born a non-conformist. I reached the top of the building, pushed the door open, and the morning air embraced me. The sky is clear after a day's downpour, as if preparing for a triumphant day. The full moon's glow is superb, illuminating in pride as if savoring the moments while it is still the queen of the night. I stand looking at it for a minute or two as I encircled my arms to keep warm. The winter is nearing.

I stared at the sky.  It's not everyday that I am grace with a chance to be at peace with being alone. I don't know if I should be afraid with being comfortable in my solitude, but I am happy. The clouds continue to move, passing the stars that remains in the sky. I am aware of the fact that while I remain glancing at the stardom of gratitude, my countrymen are suffering of mammoth loss. And again, I still trust God who holds the blueprint of our lives. He will restore, rebuild, reassemble whatever is wrong at the present. Just as how He managed to breathe life out of dust. I can't get away from comparing the beauty of the night when the sun will soon rise. There's so much in darkness that only shines bright away from the spotlight. It is my prayer, that the night I am experiencing, the night my country is facing at the moment, the night some of you are also battling at, that we never run out of source of hope amidst our fall. God is here, even if He is not obvious.

I took the one last view of the sky before closing the door. Everything will be alright.

..it belongs to the Cross..

(c) Kostas Satlanis

I stand at the top of the mountain. It was about noon time, and sunset is at hand. From afar, a mystic beauty of the beach caught my attention. Two chair were there, empty. It was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. Glistening somewhere in it is the Cross. It made me decide to go down from where I've been and followed it. I don't know exactly how it happened, but I crossed the river. My feet can feel the smooth rounded stones underneath. I was not taken away by the currents. For there was none. I passed a strait, good enough for my size with water still flowing in it at the level of my waist. I breathe in, not so sure if there were other people crossing with me.

I reached a road, a passage towards the place that swept my heart away. I walked passed a group, they are barefooted., playing on the ground. I can't understand their noise so I continue walking. Along my strolls, a woman in her old age warned me not to enter the place. I reached the nearby parameters anyway, almost there. But why is it, that when I'm near to the beauty that captivated my peace, I feel so lonely? The beach, the mystery inside, the empty chairs, all of these added to the melancholy while I am standing at its entrance. I am eager to go inside, find out what's in there, what made me crossed the river when in fact, I haven't done it in my previous soul-travel. Why it is such a lonely place when from afar, I saw the Cross in there, shimmering among the rays of the sun.

I was about to sign my name at its entrance when I woke up. I close my eyes again, wondering what time is it, recalling the vivid dream that made me cry early in the morning. I was born to have abnormal dreams, those that is supposed to be for people who are living a life of piety. But I get by with it, for none can say what it conveys. And so when I'm sober, I consoled myself with the thought that probably, there are things in life we can be amaze at by just looking at them ONLY from afar. To revere the mystery at distance. To be content gazing to the joy it brings without having to make it your own. For taking them into our hands, owning them, pushing ourselves to get in  will not make us totally happy in the long run.

What lies inside that place, I cannot say. It's probably not for me...

 It belongs to the Cross.

..just like the feet..

The empty receiving room, the absence of noise, the spacious couch. I'm home..

I poured the 2-liter container of milk into the glass, grabbed the pillow from my room and settled in my favorite corner of the house. Elevating my legs is one of my simple joys of the day, and it became a habit. I love the moments of solitude when a glass of milk saves me from conserving energy of cooking meals. I have all the time in the world watching my feet, and why my mom loves to hold it everytime. I wonder what would it be if God created them facing backward. I'll twist my waist then to lace my  shoes, probably rotate some angle of my head for me to fix it because I'll be wearing them the other way around, and I'll be moving, errrr...backwards. I shake off the morbid thoughts, watch my toes fanning out, bending and wiggling them such as to say they are a happy feet. And thanking God He orchestrated it magically perfect I doesn't have to do all things I imagined above.

How beautiful life becomes depends on how beautiful we look at things. Sure, we have our own keepsake of unwanted memories. Those that withhold us from experiencing the true joy of living. If only we can learn to simplify things, honor the blessings starting from ordinary people surrounding us everyday, channeling the bad circumstances into something which we can draw lessons from, and making the deepest pit of our trials into a bouncing leap of inspirations, then probably, there will be less lonely people in the universe. If our feet can say the hidden truth why they were made that way, I would like to think of it this way: that just like our feet, life is meant to be traveled forward, no matter how complicated it is, no matter how unsure we are what lies ahead in there, no matter how many times we hit rock bottom, no matter how much we've been rejected, despised, tested, and pushed to our limits. Because between those stops and pauses, light shines somewhere in the depths of our hearts. I don't know what you call it, but I believe it's the inherent power of the human soul to keep on moving. Whatever the things we conceive in our mind, remember , God is already there.  He'll be the last man standing for you.

..some kind of traffic..

I sat on the last seat portion of the bus. It's a bit late as my day is filled with such an enormous adrenaline rush I can feel I really am an ICU nurse. But when I take off my scrub suits and leave the unit, shaking off the scenes and grumblings that might elude my inner peace, I am there at the far most space leaning over the glass window, thanking  God I still have the strength to watch the evening sky. The bus started to move, and I am oblivious of the bumper to bumper traffic. Many people on that street are fathers  and mothers who are in a hurry to see their kids back home, probably excited to get kissed and hugged by their toddlers to soothe their aching muscles of all day's work, or probably teenagers who are preoccupied of the class thesis to be finished, or someone with a drain battery of laptop with urgent office files due first thing in the morning, or someone whose stomach complains of something to be a grind. Nobody would want to be stuck up from such a time consuming waiting..and waiting..and waiting.

Momentarily, out of the many hassles of the day, there will always be a moment when you are retracted back to that comfort, quiet zone. There, you are able to recount how you were able to passed life's perplexities and emerging victoriously as a strong soul. Success has its own adverse effects. Going after our dreams can sometimes make us forget the essence why we go after it. There is no pause button in life. Everything moves fast. People age, our bodies age, the world age. We are in one moment on a security ground, then one moment on a course we never planned. Some kind of traffic. We need that once in a while to slow down, to rectify our priorities in life, to put value on people and goals that will make us conclude that there are things in life we cannot pack to heaven. A quiet time for yourself, a time for God, a time for life. That's something traffic taught me to think over about.

Goodnight! =)

..if seconds are left..

I sat on my chair under dim light as I keenly watched the tracing on his monitor. Some lights in the station were already put off. It's enticing to close my eyes, but being assigned to a case of "anything-may-snap-at-any-moment" drove me to stay afloat. Her beloved other half was there, holding his hand in tears while he bravely tapped her shoulder as if saying that everything will turn out right. Married for 25 years, and having no kids at all, I understand where her fears are coming from. To devote yourself to a man in a relationship, and having lasted that long despite all the "we tried everything to have one but nothing worked out" melts my heart. And now there she was, clinging on the flimsiest hope that the man she loved her whole life will get out from the place away from defibrillator, away from another attack of arrhythmia, away from bustling nurses whenever the tracing becomes unstable. And unstable is an under rate word.

Even if the Fundamentals of Nursing taught me how to avoid counter transference and terminating a relationship with your patients, I am poor at regulating my own emotions. Simply because books can never teach human being how and not what to feel. The hardest part of my profession is to deny that at one point, you are emotionally entangled to people you know will never be there for too long.  You take care of them, feed them, change their gowns when it is soiled, give their medicines in due time, wink at them when they are looking at you and smile at their warm "thank you's". At the end of your shift, you realized that it is actually them who is teaching you to live the best of your days. I started this article inspired by someone who hold on to every unstable seconds of his life. I am immensely blessed for that little while I was his nurse, and he was my patient. I was his student, and he was my teacher. And our class that usually takes place in a deathbed, on a 12-hour shift ended when he finally let go of those seconds left.

Time. Relationships. Passion. True enough, we will never put value to anything unless we learn that our life is like a thread stretched out from its roll. At any time, it can snap away. While you might be reading this, there could have been few unsaid words we hoard to ourselves for the people we love. Say it. We might have been delaying forgiveness to the people who hurt us. Give it. We might be consumed of anger and disappointments to the people we trusts. Let go of it. Don't wait for "seconds left" to come before you celebrate life. Live it. "We're meant to lose the people we love. How else would we know how important they are?" Show it.

..On Failing..

"He got a failed mark". 

This was a morning greeting when I called my auntie the other day. We were talking about my 11 year-old cousin who just entered high school. I hadn't fixed my hair yet while looking at the broad mirror and holding the phone and listening to her grumblings. I must admit that an ache reached a certain part of my heart. Not because I have too much expectations in him. Not because I love him so dearly that I am treating him like a younger brother to me. Nor because I am paying for his tuition by my own free will. It hit me because I know what he felt. Failing itself is not the issue, it's the feeling of having failed someone else that is. How come I won't know? 

When I spent my vacation last June, I saw the medals I received during my competitive years in school. All those symbolic tangible evidence of my hardships were still kept securely by my grandmother, my avid die-hard fan. It reminds me of many things; that I can't wear those metals around my neck to succinctly describe my character, that I can't make them as an extenuating excuse not to live a decent life. But the most remarkable realization was that no matter  how accomplished you are, once in your life, you failed someone. The greater pressure is when that someone keeps on forgiving you, accepting you, blessing you all the more, loving you all day in and all day out, making you feel that there's always a chance to bounce back.

Many years ago, I am like a child fear to approach my grade card to God. I am ashamed, because many times I have "failed" Him. I won't show up in prayers, and would go deaf when He would whisper. But He was persistent in pursuing me. That's how crazy He was. One day, I laid down my failed card to my Father's hand. He grabbed my cold palms, ran His warm hands and lift my down cheeks high saying, "You can always try again. I won't get tired on you. I'm not giving up on you."

How many times do you run from God's mercy? When would you give up resisting Him to do wonders in your life? How long will you run from God?

P.S.

My greatest failure is the main reason why you are reading this blog. Fail many times, bounce back double! God loves you! =)