I woke up today surprised with the silence in our
house. There were only the six of us including diodee plus four house helps. A
total of ten! I was thankful for the silence and couldn’t help but give a sigh
of relief. Finally, some quiet time! J
Once in a while I withdraw myself
from the world and go to hibernation. These are times when, I would turn my mobile
phones off to deliberately ignore incoming text messages and calls. Shutting
myself off from the world from time to time has always been a conscious effort
from me. And yes, I do take it seriously. For me, quiet-me-times are the most
important times one can spend with one’s self. I take it as times when I would
simply shut the hell up, reflect, listen and feel.
For the past weeks or even
months, I have been in a panic mode. Panic mode because of final exams and
final requirements in school, panic mode due to the campaign season, panic mode
when mom got hospitalized again, and panic mode because of the results of our
local elections. Sometimes the anxiety gets too strong and even my tummy aches.
Well, either that or you can just have me go to the restroom for a puking break.
Panic! Panic! Panic!
But today is different,
everything is calm, and peaceful, and my surroundings are quiet. Thank you,
Lord for this quiet and beautiful day!
My goodness! It’s been a while since I blogged!
Not that there’s nothing worth writing about, I just couldn’t find the time to
do so. (WEH?! EXCUSES!)
It’s been a while since I last
had breakfast with my family and I’m happy I had breakfast with them today. In
fact, the last time we had dinner as a family was the night of my birthday. Our
“eat together” days are usually on weekends, but again, things have been really
busy the past weeks. We used to be a family of six, now we’re plus sized to
nine, and I can’t wait for us to be upgraded to more. J
I have realized the importance of family time
especially since it becomes rarer and rarer nowadays. I guess, either getting
old or growing up does that. When my sister moved out, I remember myself
crying. SOMETIMES I missed her since I no longer had somebody to fight or argue
with. Or there’s nobody to hurt my feelings and make me cry. Haha! Same thing
happened when my brother, Tbram, moved to Renaissance. I missed him because
nobody would randomly knock on my door anymore during late nights to give me
money. Haha! He’s always been generous like that.
Those who do not know our family’s story would be
amazed. We’ve been through a lot. And believe me when I say that every storm we
experienced was always Ondoy like. It was excruciating. But despite of being scathed
and bruised we struggled to survive it all.
People can say whatever they want to say but the
fact still remains that my dad still found his way back to us. For others,
their story would be a father abandoning his family to create another family or
a new family of his own. For Pop, he chose to stick it out with us. And his
decision will always be something, others will be envious of. Some years ago,
mom was taken away from us and was diagnosed with breast cancer. These were
difficult times. I actually thought I’d go crazy. But looking back, I will
forever be amazed with how my parents stayed together. So I guess it’s true
what they say “true love is when people manage to stay together despite the
things that are meant to keep them apart”.
Of course our family wouldn’t have survived all of
those without the help of our Gongora relatives. It’s innate in all of us to be
“pakialamero” and “pakialamera” with each other. At times it’s annoying but in
all other instances, it has helped us a lot. It helped our family through. My aunts
and cousins would make sure the household still ran well, that we had food in
our fridge, that I still attended school and did well in it. They slept beside
me when I was sick, they attended my school PTAs and the list will go on
forever. When mom was back, she went back to her usual hobby of helping anybody
and everybody out in whatever way she
can.
I got my trait of being "socially aware" and "socially conscious" from my
parents. They used to be activists of social change back in the days. A characteristic
my lolo/Amang would call “subersibo”. I have seen how my parents would always
try to give back to our community. And in my own little way, I have always tried
to do the same.
I celebrated
my 26th birthday through a gift giving in an orphanage. This
orphanage is my “go to” place when I need to see the world in a different
perspective, under a different circumstance. Oh how I love children! They remind
me of life’s simplicity and for some unknown reason, I am reminded of God’s
unending love and faithfulness whenever I’m with them. When I experience
heartbreaks or when life gets too difficult, I’d visit my nieces and nephews
and play with them all afternoon. When I go on fieldworks, I find myself making
friends and playing with random kids in the afternoon. Back in college, I would
secretly go to UP during my birthday or my birthday week to buy the street kids
ice cream and taho. Yes naman! Level up ako this year! Haha! With all honesty, I
get more from the times spent with these kids than what they get from me. These
kids are the best examples of how “life can still be blessed even if things
have gone wrong”. And they show me what it’s like to “ learn how to grow-up
under less than perfect conditions”.
And since I have really supportive relatives, my cousin
and my nieces helped me with this birthday celebration. They helped me with some of the
prizes and the games. Thank God I am blessed with not only gorgeous and
intelligent nieces and nephews but also with kind hearted and generous ones.
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| not in picture: Kirsty and the younger ones |
I am also blessed to have true friends, friends
that have stayed with me through the years. These are people other than my
family who have witnessed my mood swings, crankiness, stubbornness and bratiness,
yet have managed to love and accept me for who I am. They manage to laugh at me
and laugh with me when I become my extremely annoying or sometimes my –stupidest-
self. These are people who have proven that despite the fact that I don’t get
to see them everyday, when I need them or even when I don’t, they’d still be
there. Cheers for more years of
friendship and sisterhood!
Often times I’d find myself saying I don’t put in
that much of an effort to making new friends anymore. Simply because I’m
contented with real ones I have. But
since my life has ways of becoming wonderful, I still manage to bump into a few
good ones and get to keep them as well.
The jackpot prize all in all is of course finding
the buddhabear who gets to be my shockabsorber everyday. “Love is kind, love
is patient…” thank you for keeping us together by being both! Your patience is
simply amazing! :P
God! How I missed quiet
times! I know for a fact that I am the least religious person one can ever know.
I’m not perfect and I may not be a blessing to others all the time. In fact
there are times when I doubt Him and His love for me, consequently failing me to become an instrument of his love. But quiet times help me
to assess, to reflect, to come back and feel his presence. It is through quiet
times that I have come to believe that no matter what happens I will always be
standing on solid ground. Thank you, dear God for the twenty-six years of my
life. It has indeed been onehelluva roller coaster ride! Thank you for putting
fantabulous people in it. You may not always give what my heart desires but I know
in my heart of hearts that I have everything I need when I have you.
