Life as You Planned It

 

I am a planner by nature. I like making to do list. I also like making daily “want” list. I have plans for one year, plans for the next five years, plans for the next ten years and hopeful aspirations for the remaining years of my life.

I have plans for myself, plans for my family, plans for work, plans for everything. I told you I like plans.

When my supervisor tells me to do work plans and action plans, my soul is thrilled. I can’t wait to challenge my imagination regarding how I want the future to be.

The problem with planning (and yes, there is a problem with planning especially at the end of the planned period) is that plans rarely materialize. Some of what you planned will happen but often, they happen in ways you least planned them to be. Some of what you planned never happens. And when you care, you get hurt and disappointed – a lot.

Lesson/Session plans are also the same story. Sometimes your plans are realized. Sometimes, they are not. Like right now, while waiting for my learners to arrive, I can’t help but feel disappointed because they actually failed to come. Only one learner came and we cannot do the lesson I have planned… not alone. So, I need to do something else for her… which is not in my plan at all.

Life never goes according to our plans. They seldom do. However, planning is still a good thing. It makes you understand what you want for the future and how you want it to be. I just have to learn not to get too immersed in planning because I just might be missing the point of living.

So, what’s on my plan today?

1. To live life to its fullest today.

2. To feel and really feel but not be overwhelmed or controlled by emotions.

3. To enjoy the moment!

4. To live this world a better and brighter place than it was before I came into it today.

5. To bask in God’s love every moment.

Still Seeking, Sometimes Praying, Always Hoping

 

I am not more enlightened than  I was months ago. I guess, I just feel more grounded, less afraid, more hopeful, more open, less excited, but still eager.

I can still feel my emotions strongly but I am now more willing to examine them very carefully inside my own heart, hoping and sometimes praying that it won’t explode and hurt innocent bystanders. I am in that in-between space again, still waiting, hoping, and sometimes praying.

A lot has happened in the past few months. A lot has also changed. Some of the changes were positive to everybody but to a broken soul like me, sometimes, these changes are not as welcome as I thought they would be. I had to adjust to new roles, new expectations and disappointments…

I had to make a place within me for the total acceptance that You are the Sovereign God, the All Powerful, All Knowing Creator who was, is, and always will be in control of everything in my life. You write my story, and I get to live it.

But, in giving You that space, I should also provide for the knowledge that accepting You does not mean everything would be easy, and that everything will fall into place. I just have to realize and accept that I need You so that even when things go wrong, You are still in control.

That even when I do not know the why’s right now, I should not worry, because I know the Who – that I know You.

I pray that I would always be able to say that honestly.

What Makes Life More Precious

 

It was a busy Friday yesterday when out of the blue, I received a phone call, in the middle of a session with my learners. It was Nenalyn, one of my dearest high school friends. She arranged a meet up with our high school classmates.

It was fortunate that only Marian (another bff in high school, and the three of us were thick as thieves back then) came. We had an intimate exchange that day along with so much food to burst us… and so much stories shared.

I was moved to tears by the experience. Connecting, really connecting with other persons especially those quite dear to you are special moments. I realized how much I missed my high school friends. And I also realized how much I missed the girls who made high school bearable (I was a neurotic competitive control freak even then).

I also realize that the limits we imposed upon ourselves are the only limits that truly caged us. I have been avoiding them for a lot of reasons yes, pride being the topmost reason but letting go of pride at times allows you to reach out to other people and allows you to see the beauty of life, the purpose of living – not to amass countless accolades, recognition, control or power…

I long for more of such connections. Simple connections among friends while eating siomai, talking openly and warmly about the past… that poignant experience can even bring tears to my eyes at present.

I do not enjoy them often but when I do, I treasure them dearly in my heart. Truly, when the heart is engaged, even a simple, short reunion in a common place becomes the most celebrated of memories.

It’s like I keep seeing the past interspersed with the present and it keeps giving me a glimpse of a wonderful future with them. Since they are still single too, we plan to meet up again when Nenalyn comes home after two years, some place where we can bond and enjoy life to its fullest.

As Long as It Takes

In our earthly journey, we often come to a standstill... a point where taking a step back feels as dangerous as making another step forward. A point where it's too dark to make any move in any direction at all...

At this point, you feel like you are going nowhere and you do not know what direction to take or where to go. So, what do you do? I am at this point. I can't move forward and I can't move backward... all I can do is play this song over and over and over again.

Faded Photographs 1

 

Finding my parents old photo album wrecked me a bit. The reality of the past captured in faded photographs contrasts too much with my present foggy reality.

I will be honest. I have an aversion to having my photos taken. I never had that as a child but as I grew up, I avoided the camera unless I am the one wielding it.

However, yesterday was a revelation. Photographs are beautiful. They carry the weight of a thousand memories we often tend to forget… sometimes because they are too painful to remember or sometimes, because they are too beautiful that looking back hurts you a lot.

Looking at photographs is like walking down memory lane. It helps you piece back together the tattered pieces of yourself. It makes you remember your essence as a person. It makes you recall the equally beautiful and painful memories of your yesterdays and by so  doing, it enables you to remember what matters.

Having your pictures taken with the people you are with captures the moment forever – something for you to look back on once the moment and sometimes, the people in them, have left your life.

Well, ‘selfies” are another matter. It only enhances the vagueness of the moment. But, having group pictures taken with your friends, your family, your classmates – well, these are the photos that are really worth looking back on.

This was probably taken when I was only four or five years old, with my baby sister then, my Nanay and Tatay (they don’t look anything like this now and I can’t remember them looking this way at all!), and Tatay’s younger sister.

With Tatay, and my younger sisters. My sisters keep laughing at how attention-deficit I was back then. I always loved having everyone’s, including the camera’s, attention. ( I wonder where that girl went though).

With Nanay and my younger sisters… So much has changed over the years…

At five or maybe six years old… with Nanay (and I don’t know the person beside her). Nanay used to be the Canteen Manager at PNHS.

At seven or something, with my sisters and some cousins and neighbors taken during the baptism of a cousin…You will no longer recognize these faces anymore… I haven’t met some of them again…

Plaza forays in my elementary days….

Fiesta Shoot: This was during a fiesta celebration at my father’s home town. I was with an aunt, my siblings and a cousin I seldom see nowadays.

Two or three years later at my father’s home town. I was in Grade Six and just had an operation. I remember not wanting to go there because it was too hot and my forehead (a node/lump/cysts was removed a week ago I think) was itching a lot.

Grade V, during a fiesta event in our hometown… with my sister who was then in Grade II.

In church, after our “pag confirma” which I still don’t understand until now…All I remember at that time was I want to go home already!

Grade VI Recognition Day with Nanay and my sisters…

Still in Grade VI, when motherhood for me, began. I am holding the current youngest sibling in our family. To think that I was nanny for the two youngest boys, and now, they are all taller than me!

Pieces of the me falling in line… now, if I can find the remaining pieces….

 

PS… will buy a camera for all those memories to hoard in the future…

New Beginnings

 

Sometimes, when you keep setting a target or a goal for yourself, you become blinded by everything else.

Goal setting is okay but goal obsessing is not. When we were informed of the post for Education Program Specialist for ALS, I got a little off tangent. I coveted that post since it would solve a lot of problems for me. And I am ashamed to admit that its foremost attraction was on the financial side.

That obsession made me forget a lot of things. For a few months I was driven. I was so suspicious of all the people around me who may apply for the post.I warned my co-workers that if I did not get that post, I will no longer do all the stuff I have been doing for ALS. I will only focus on my basic responsibilities as a Mobile Teacher, as outlined in our PAST (Performance Appraisal System for Teachers). I will no longer work on those reports except those I am required to do as a Mobile Teacher. I will only do what is specified in my job description. When I realized that my chances are slim to none, I felt depressed. I withdrew a bit inside myself. I felt really awful all the time. I felt guilty for my covetousness but I also felt more guilty for my suspicions and my conspiracy theories.  I played the blame-game with God, with myself, with my superiors, with my mother, with everything else in my life! I told God that His plan was not so good after all. I had not wanted to become a Mobile Teacher right from the start. I planned on becoming an English teacher in my Alma Mater. That was my plan. If I did not get promoted anywhere, I feel I would be happy if I grew old and mold inside my English classroom. At least, I would be doing something I love. But He led me into this work, this painful, raw reality of the other side of basic education.  Every year, He just gives me something to cry about, to be hurt about or to feel insecure about. This job is a lonely job for me. Looking for learners, watching ill-prepared learners take the test and fail, every year – it’s just too painful. Always, you are reminded that nothing is under your control. That once your learners leave your learning center, they are at the mercy of the Higher Power. There is no other option than prayer… for their protection, their success, their guidance, peace and maturity. I should have been a writer, a romance novelist. Then, I could have just stayed at home and churn one novel after another without meeting a lot of people who will only hurt me, betray my trust, talk behind my back, misinterpret my actions…. I was really becoming over-sensitive.

I wanted something too much. That should have been a warning to me then. I wanted something so badly I can almost taste the desire for it. Realizing that this was all out of my control freaked me out a lot.I mean, I should know right? I just keep forgetting.

But somehow, somewhere, a part of me has started to let go. It really is all out of my hands. I am not fit for the rat-race, as they call it. I am not a rat. It does not fit well with my skin.I know I will just fulfill my responsibilities as a Mobile Teacher as best as I can. I want to inspire my learners to be much better than who they were when they first entered our CLC (Community Learning Center). For now, that sounds a much worthy goal than obsessing over something that is out of my control.

God can see all my tomorrows. I can only see this moment. So, I will entrust all these things to Him, unburden my heart from all its fears and doubts and believe that His plans for me are all good.

Becoming that Person

 

 

      Jesus, help me to simplify my life by learning what you want me to be – and becoming that person.- St. Therese of Lisieux

 

 

 

 

From the start, I have always been a very complicated person who likes to complicate everything especially when it comes to emotions. What could have been simple becomes very complicated in my hands and in my mind.

Sometimes, I find dealing with myself quite hard. I even managed to think of this difficult person as someone separate from myself but is still a part of me. However, I want to believe that I am just a simple person. I like pretending I am one.

But then, when I think about the kind of God we have, I am bound to believe that as His creation, I am not simple at all. So, maybe I should stop pretending that I am one. He has designed and executed an intricate and complex plan for creation after all. 

However, if I try to add the needs and wants filling every nook and cranny of my very person, it would be too much, indeed. Although complex in its execution, intricate in its blue print, all our needs and wants can be met with something terribly simple. It’s too simple in fact that we often fail to grasp it in its simplicity.

As we live, every day, we ask ourselves, Who am I? What am I here for? And we come up with a lot of complex and complicated answers to these ones. We think in terms of the roles we play when we consider our responses to the first question. For the second question, we consider our first responses too.

My responses to the first question were:

1. I am a Mobile Teacher

2. I am a daughter

3. I am the eldest sister

Thus, I come up with these responses to the second question:

1. I am here to teach out-of-school children, youth and adults;

2. I am here to obey my mother and father and show them my love and affection (actually, I meant to write – to please my mother)

3. I am here to serve as a model for my younger siblings (in thought, word, and deed).

 

However, a time would usually come when my roles and purposes would overwhelm me, oppress me, and limit me too. And, at some point, I come at a stand still, because I would realize how transient these roles are, how ineffectual and how unimportant at times and how lonely I would become too.

But today, it came upon me that I have one identity and my purpose is connected with it too.

I am the daughter of a King. I am here to get to know my Father, to love my Father, and to love all His children as well. All other things would serve only to distract me form this one purpose.

Now, how does that connect with me and my life? Well, that is what this journey is all about.