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…
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.
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.
Hey, I think you’re living in a cloud!
Several days after my (hopefully) last final examination for Graduate School (for my first MAEd that is), a voice inside me whispered those words.
It was very quiet then. Even as I try to recuperate from several days of lack of sleep and really gritty eyes, and even as I try to busy myself with work, with accepting an opportunity (a torture at this stage) to serve God vocally in front of my fellow SFCs, with working on two project proposals for our LGU linkages, with reading shoujo manga’s on the side, a part of me, just a little part, was rebelling and was trying to pull me away from all this… like I am doing too much of stuff for people – without connecting to these people.
I feel hollow inside now. And I am longing for something simple… something where I can get in touch with people, something where I can still watch the sunrise and the sunset and do quiet walks surrounded by the beauty of creation.
Home, work, home, work, graduate school… busy travelling to and fro and not really seeing where you are going and who you are connecting with… where is life in that? Where is love?
Somehow, a part of me longs to be somewhere else, with people whom I can help and who see me not as some one who can do something great, but someone who works with great love in her heart.
I cannot give up thoughts of becoming a religious sister because I fear what I might become if I stay single – a power hungry, status driven old-maid who sticks by the rules. I am afraid of losing what little love has started to warm my life.
I want to get out there and do something like volunteer. I want to get out there and do something that is not for me but for the other person or persons. I want to serve like that’s what I am meant to be or do…I fear becoming so driven like this for work, for position and status, for promotion… I fear that so much… I fear becoming so detached that I will not feel Jesus in my heart anymore.I fear that above all else.
I was always wondering why I was getting chilled before… I was trying to cover up my true fear by not facing them. My fear has an ugly face but it was really so simple. I was just so good at complicating things that I ended up not able to grasp it.
I know what it was like to live without love. Everyday was in monochrome, like everything is gray, or black and white. Like you are an automaton functioning simply because you have to. I am only starting to feel how love can color my world.
But I was only able to have short glimpses of it. I long to be overwhelmed by that love. I long to be immersed in it. I long to bask in it fully that all I am, every moment, is a reflection of that love.
However, I do not know how to….
Dear Heaven,
Photo Credit: somewhere on the internet (sorry)
I just want to tell you and the rest of the world, that I am not okay. I am hurting. I am filled with anger, pain, resentment, guilt and dark passions I can’t handle.
Right now, I do not want to listen to anybody. Right now, I can feel myself retreating deeper, far away from the possibility of anyone finding out the truth and rejecting me. You put up a strong façade. You put up a smile. You continue to attend household meetings and hear the mass when deep inside, you know, you know somewhere, your faith has been fractured. It has wavered in the face of so many stuff you have to deal with in the past few months. Stuff you refused to look into properly. Frightening things you kept hidden because you can’t stand to look into them.
You want them to see that you are strong. You're not that strong! You want to convince them your good. We both know you are not good at all. Sometimes, I am sick and tired of your pontifications that I often wonder where they all come from!
You keep listening to what your mind tells us. But, haven’t you notice that it is only echoing what it has read, heard and seen? Why is your theology not making any impact on me at all? Because I cannot feel it!
Your faith in God and His goodness is intact. But, I wonder, have you convinced me of it? You paint me out as the one at fault all the time. You keep pointing out that I am evil!. Your mind does not care about me at all.
Love comes from me. Not from your mind. It comes from me. You know, God cares more about me than you ever did or ever will. Why won’t you even listen to us? Why do you keep listening to your mind and to other people? You can’t do it on your own, no.
I don’t feel the right things? It’s because you never cared to talk about them with me. You bond with your brain more than you ever bonded with me. You pay attention to what your mind tells you. But have you ever listened to me? You keep me hidden. You keep me chained, locked and even managed to lose the key!
I embarrass you a lot don’t I? It hurts me that you think that way. It pains me that you have not even given me a shed of respect and affection. You just lock me in, like a dirty little secret.
Don’t you know that I also want to know Him? I also want you to tell me about Him? I also want to love Him with all of me as well. Why won’t you let me respond to His love? Why won’t you allow me to love Him? I may not know how, but if you let me, I would. I know I would.
I hope you will listen to me, this time. I know this is the first time I told you these things. This is the first time you listened to me. I long for Him just as much or maybe more than you know how to. I hope you will continue to allow me to tell you these things. You and your mind needs to know about these.
I need you to surrender me to Him.
Yours,
Your Heart
"Ever since the days of Adam, man has been hiding from God and saying God is hard to find."
