Mirror of Truth

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Life used to be one big theater for me

I had to play, I had to act

Masks and facades and barriers

Had all been a part of me

That sometimes they became my "truth."

And do I have to tell you

That before I resented you?

I disliked the way

You were seeing right through me

For that meant I wasn't convincing enough.

Others saw the smiles and claimed

They felt my joy

But you saw how empty those smiles were.

You saw the pain beneath,

The uncertain, vulnerable child that I was

Hidden behind those masks.

I tried my best to avoid those probing eyes

I was wary of the wisdom those knowing eyes held.

If I could then shut myself from you, I would

For you "scared" me and it's not because

You were mean or ill-tempered

But because you knew me so well

That I felt vulnerable with and around you

And no one wants to be vulnerable, right?

Pride dictated me to shun you

So no one would then read me accurately

No one would know my heart and being but me

But you were so understanding of and patient in

Just letting me be, waiting for me to mellow and mature

While doing your best to help me probe deepest into myself

That I may bring to light the real me.

Little by little, my defenses came crumbling down

Until finally, nothing was left but my true self 

The very self that I used to hide and deny surfaced...

I no longer resent you, in fact I never did.

I just thought I did but now I know 

That those were just resistances...

I'm glad that all those masks are now gone

I no longer act, I never will again

For life is no grand theater, 

Everything and everyone is real

And so I must be too.

I am what I am and it feels good to be me

And it feels even better to know

That you accept me as I am.

Thank you... for being my mirror of truth

For that's all I needed for my awakening.

When I Leave

One of the best gifts God gave me is you
And I am really grateful to Him for that
The times I have spent with you
Are the best of times and even if
I want those times to last forever,
We have always known that the time will come
When we have to part ways…
That time is now and even if it pains me to leave,
We both know that I have to
Life is a cycle of hello and goodbyes
I say goodbye but know that my leaving
Does not mean that I care for you no more
Or I love you less…
When I leave, be sad not but smile
Bask in the wonderful truth that though
The season of our being together has passed,
Our friendship continues because our friendship
Knows no season, only eternity…
I will surely miss you but wherever I go,
Whenever and whatever,
I know exactly where to look for you
To find you, I only have to look inside my heart
And I will see you
Prominently cherished in there
And just a heartbeat away…
As long as we let each other live in our hearts,
That is where each one stays –
Always,
Even forever.

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Little Girl Lost

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For eight years, I was the apple of the eye of each family member. My relatives doted on me and they catered to my every whim. I was a brat and loved every minute of it. Then my youngest brother came and little pampered me was relegated to the sidelines. Or so the child in me thought.

I resented my brother at first. I hated the way the family would gather around him and exclaim how cute he was and how adorable. Didn’t I use to be all those and more?

When my brother was nearly a year old and I was about nine, something happened that changed my life forever. Mommy promised that she would take me shopping. I was ecstatic! Finally, bonding time for us! And her time just for me!

On that promised day though, my brother got sick so mommy said we had to first make a stop at the doctor’s clinic. Mommy, my baby brother, the nanny and I then went to Kalibo but since we did not have an appointment, we had to wait. The waiting took more than an hour and when it was nearly twelve noon, I became impatient and annoyed. In my most bratty manner, I came up to my mom and demanded that we go shopping.

“Mom, you promised,” I implored. My mom was trying to pacify me. “Later, honey,” she said. “This won’t take long. Your brother has to be checked by the doctor.”

“There’s the nanny,” I pointed out but my mom shook her head.

I did not know what made me flared up then. Maybe I was hungry. Or I got tired of waiting. Or I was just sick of having a brother who usurped what I thought was my rightful place.

“You shouldn’t make promises you couldn’t keep,” I accused, my eyes shooting sparks. And I said this in the loudest of voices too. “I wish I were home,” I added petulantly. “If I knew we’d come to this, I shouldn’t have come with you.”

Mommy, who was usually patient, then flared up too. “You’re being selfish. Your brother’s sick and all you think about is yourself? If you wish you weren’t here, then I wish too that you weren’t!”

Stung, my pride torn to shreds, I haughtily squared my shoulders then walked out on my mom. “Fine. I’ll go. Don’t bother looking for me. I don’t need you and I hate you.”

And off I went, complete with some stomping of my feet and clenching of fists.

Ten meters from the clinic, I stopped. In my stubborn, proud but hopeful heart, I waited for my mom to go after me.

I stood there but she did not come. The two minutes I spent waiting was like eternity, with each second more painful than the one before it. I remember crying then angrily wiping my tears with clenched fists.

Then I forced myself to move. And started walking aimlessly.

I later found myself in Kalibo’s town plaza. And that’s when it happened. In the park were a lot of people but my attention was drawn to two children. The girl was almost my age and the boy was maybe about two. They were begging for alms and when they came to a couple on a bench a couple of meters from where I was, the couple gave them a sandwich. As the children walked off, I watched in fascination as the elder sister halved the bread and gave the bigger portion to her brother.

Stunned, that’s when I realized just how selfish and bratty I had been.

Buoyed by what I just witnessed, I stood up and made my way back to the clinic.

A block away from the plaza, I bumped into my mom and that’s when another realization hit me – I’m loved! Of course I am! As we stood there, both of us were crying. Mommy was saying sorry for losing her temper on me. She said she and the nanny weren’t able to follow me because just after I walked out the door, their turn came. I just smiled and said sorry too for being selfish. When I asked where my brother was, she said she already sent him home with the nanny while she stayed to look for me. She added she was mindless with worry. The fiercest of hugs was then exchanged.

And so I was a runaway for a couple of hours. But that experience changed my life - my life as a sibling and a daughter. It was my turning point for that’s when I resolved to myself to be the best big sister that I can be.

Just how much of a big sister have I become? Oh, enough to give up my brat throne to my baby brother and lavish him with so much love and protection that sometimes, I end up saving his hide from mom’s scolding. Te he!

Of letting people be...

How come we always put restrictions on other people simply because these restrictions have been somehow imposed on ourselves? We very well know that we have no right. And yet, we keep on expecting people to be like us, to do exactly the same things we do. We keep on hoping they would change for us, to live their lives like we do ours. Or at least try to.

When I was in college, I had a friend who was my sounding board. Almost every week, I would see her and tell her my frustrations - about how a groupmate could not be depended on because her research always came out sloppy... About how I got mad at another friend because she was late and the always punctual me waited for a long time... I would nag this sounding-board friend about how most people could not understand me. And I too could not understand them. I would wonder how they could allow themselves to be careless. Or to not choose to be reliable and dependable... how they could allow mediocrity to rule their lives thus leaving people like me no choice but to make up for their ineptness.

One day, after an especially frustrating day for me, my friend gave me the answer to all my questions. And more. She simply said, "Because they are not you, Lai."

Struck, I just stared at my friend. "I am not going to say anything anymore," she said. "Just ponder on those words."

Later, alone in the confines of my room, I got my pen and my journal. I wanted to write. I badly needed to write. I needed answers. But nothing came to mind. And my friend's words kept playing inside my head.

Because they are not you... Because they are not you... Because they are not you... because they are not you...

I knew I wasn't confused. I knew exactly what my friend meant. I was just in denial - for so long a time. Pondering on her words, something I read once also came back to mind. "Great athletes make lousy coaches."

Admittedly, I had it easy all my life. I remember acing quizzes and exams even when I did not study hard. I excelled in almost anything. I was what they say the perennial achiever. Having shown such abilities, I thus lived a life of expectations. I grew up with an acute sense of people always expecting me to succeed in any endeavor I take... And I imposed the same expectations on people I came across with.

I would think: If I can be on time, why can't she be? If I can make my research or papers detailed, how come hers are not? Why can't they be as meticulous? How come I am always the one who is expected to do this and that?

The answer? It's all on the I. The Me. And the mine... I am me. And s/he is the person that s/he is.

And in some endeavors, it is me who does the work because I can. And s/he cannot.

Can I sing well? I cannot. Can I solve complicated Math problems? I cannot. Can I dance or act or paint? I cannot. And the list goes on and on...

Each one has his or her level. Thus I should not make them perform on my level. Each one has his and her own personality. And I have mine. And this personality makes us who we are. It defines our differences. And it is these differences that make us unique from others.

Lastly, each person is his and her own self. Thus I have no right to change a person just as no one has the right to make me conform to the person that they want or expect me to be.

And so, just as I yearn for people to let me be, I give them the same freedom to be themselves.

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The Gift of Your Love

I used to think that unconditional love

Certainly does not exist

"Who can selflessly give such love?" I scoffed...

But then you came along and showed me

That indeed, unconditional love is living

In those who draw such love

From God who is love Himself...

To love is by being love ourselves

We are to be love's essence, its embodiment

It is totality -

We either give our best

And our all to the one we love

Or we give nothing at all...

We are to love the person as a whole

Along with her weaknesses and failures

For when we love only the good in her

It is not love but just plain admiration...

But love does not end in our seeing through

Our loved one's human misgivings

For real love is that which helps motivate

Our loved one to rise above her limitations...

I want to thank you for the love

You unselfishly give to us

You just don't know how life-changing

How motivational and inspiring

The gift of your love can be.

A Friendship Beyond Time and Distance

When was the last time we saw each other?

I cannot remember the exact date.

How many miles are you away from me?

I do not know.

Mountains and oceans and seas

And numerous countries are between us

But they do not matter because we know we are friends

And that is all we need to know

To continue caring for each other.

True friendship is that which is beyond time

Time does not cause a friendship’s downfall

But it does deepen it.

True friendship is also that which is beyond distance

We are apart, yes, but only physically

For in our minds and more so in our hearts

We keep each other and the memories that we have shared.

Our prayers go where the two of us cannot go

And so even if we cannot be together

We know that we reach each other through our prayers.

Hearts never cease to talk, they communicate for us

Time and distance are therefore not against us.

Come what may, my friend, I know our friendship stands

For it is not just a plain friendship that we share

But a true and endless one.

============

written in 2003 for a friend who went to Europe.

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For Bonita

Whenever I'm confused

And nothing seems right
Or everything is just
Too good to be true
I just turn to you
And the confusion and doubts
And those endless, nagging questions
Then become words of assurance and comfort
And wonderful feelings of empathy and hope.

Whenever the day seems
As dark as the night
You would just look into my eyes
And smile at me
And I would know right then
That everything will be all right.

Whenever I think I'm weak
And can not win over life's challenges
You would just pat my shoulder
And I would know right then
That I can go on and succeed
And that I am worth more
Than what I had thought.

I may not know
What lies ahead of me
But one thing I know of
Is the fact that with you around
I need not be afraid
For you are my guiding light
That spells of faith and hope and love
Life's a wonderful, meaningful journey
Because I journey through it
Alongside of you.

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For my Beloved Friend

You have told me a lot of times that love is a gift... and I have believed you. You are a gift to me, a very precious one for to me, you are love – the very person who, being love, gives me love in its purest and sweetest form.

Love is truth. Truth, bliss. In loving each other, life is at its most colorful... in its happiest... in its peak. A simple thing is made special because the two of us share it.

Love is freedom - the beauty grasped in the conviction that when we are together, each can be just her true self, with no masks or protective barriers for we know that each is accepted and loved by the other for who and what that self really is. We have differences, yes, but these differences more so deepen our understanding of and our love for each other.

Love is growth. Each of us allows ourselves the space to grow continuously as we deepen our friendship. You grow, I grow. One wonderful thing though about our growth is that we can grow individually without drifting apart from each other.

Love is totality. We either give the best in us and give our all or give nothing at all. Love is also totality in the sense that when we love, we love the person as a whole, along with her human failures. We do not love each other only for our good attributes for if we do that, we are not loving but just admiring.

Love is blind, the cliché goes but ours is not. We see our faults and weaknesses but we choose to see beyond those. We do not dwell on our imperfections. No one is perfect, anyway. Our weaknesses are known to and accepted us part of each other but when you motivate me to know and face my weaknesses, you actually are giving me the strength to overcome those same weaknesses and the inspiration to rise above my human limitations. Motivate is the operative word - gentle and nurturing. We also motivate each other to change for the better, possibly to become the best that each can be. Again, motivate, not force, is the word - gentle and nurturing, as we are to each other.

Love is being. That’s the utmost lesson your good heart taught me. We are to be love incarnate. We are to be its essence, its epitome. We cannot love without being love ourselves.

Love is a mystery... Too deep to fathom and too powerful a word to be fully defined. It is beyond reason. Countless times have I wondered as I do now of how we became friends or when everything had started. I have come up not with answers but with even more questions to answer. For instance, was it you who initiated our friendship? I used to evade you like the plague, having heard many negative things about you, even having witnessed myself your moodiness. How come we became friends, really good friends? Is there such a thing as a destined friendship? I have asked myself those nagging questions a lot of times. I have pondered... and mused... but I have gotten only splitting headaches. It is until now that I learned this: There are things in life that are beyond reason. Ponder not for even the most intellectual and genius of us will never really fathom the wonders that only God knows of. Just let some things be what they are – puzzles and mysteries. And since our friendship is such, I will leave it at that.

Love is what you continuously share with me. Not just any love but a true, life-changing one. And so now, I want to thank you, my beloved friend – thank you for making me see things at a different perspective. Thank you for making me live my life as I have never lived it. Most of all, thank you for your love.

From my heart, thank you.

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Till You Came Along

I never thought I needed someone
Till you came along
I’ve always thought I’m better off alone
Till you showed me otherwise
I never thought that shielding myself from hurt
Is for myself to become an even greater loser
Till you taught me that living and loving
Is about taking risks
I want to always come out strong but you showed me
That it is sometimes okay to be vulnerable and that
It is even better to show this vulnerability to someone
Because then someone would be strong for me
Life has never been the same
Since you came into my life
You make me feel proud yet humbled
For the person that I am
With you, I don’t need to be always lovable
Or always at my best because you understand
And accept me as I am
With you, I also come to surpass own myself
And go beyond my self-sufficiency
Because you inspire me to do better
Be greater, love more and give more...
It never occurred to me that being loved
And having someone to love are the best things
That can ever happen to anyone
Till you came along.

walking wounded

buildings and skyscrapers
as high as my dreams
crisscrossing streets
as chaotic as my wayward thoughts
blinding lights from cars
admonishing me to slow down...

where am i going?

i walk aimlessly
as my mother's parting words
keep playing inside my head
"what does a man gain
if he loses his soul?"

it's a dog-eat-dog world i'm in
but i made it.

i'm successful.
self-made.
an enviable career woman.

but what do all these entail?

spending christmas alone.
missing family reunions
not being able to attend birthdays, weddings
and other memorable events
in the lives of my loved ones.

suddenly i feel so lonely.

and i walk not
but trudge home.

home?

where is home?

is it the four corners of my apartment
with its balcony with a view of the city
and its modern comforts?

it's not.

and so i find myself missing my room
in the house i grew up in...

i miss my mom
and my dad
and my siblings
fiercely.

i miss home.


===============
written in December 2006 while I was still working in my former company. This was when I felt all burned-out. And stressed. Two weeks after I wrote this, I tendered my resignation, packed my bags and went home in our province. Home sweet home.

Middle Child

Growing up, I had difficulty analyzing my place in our home. I was a middle child, you see, and mom wasn’t really clear on how I should behave.

Whenever my older brother and I would quarrel, mommy would step in and tell me to give way for my older brother because he was older.

When my younger brother and I had misunderstandings, it was a different matter altogether. Mommy would pull me aside then tell me to be patient with and more understanding of my little brother because I was older.

Like what? Why couldn’t she tell my older brother to be more understanding of and giving to his little sister? Or tell my younger brother to let his older sister be? It was really contradicting and mind-boggling for a child my age.

Thankfully, that set up did not instill feelings of bitterness in me. I did not rebel but instead became more understanding. I learned to strike a balance among three hyperactive siblings. I was the peacemaker, the mediator in countless childish tantrums and petty quarrels.

I read in a book once that middle children are insecure attention seekers. I googled "Middle Child" as I am doing this blog and came up with a "Middle Child Syndrome." What I found out made me chuckle.

The middle or second born child or children often have the sense of not belonging. They fight to receive attention from parents and others because they feel many times they are being ignored or dubbed off as being the same as another sibling. Being in the middle a child can feel insecure.

I admit that in my childhood years, I had these issues. It stopped though the moment I turned ten. By then, I had mastered the art of compromise when it came to my brothers. More importantly, I learned to bask on my individuality. And my brothers' too.

I love what Dr. Robert Needlman wrote in this article. Aptly titled Middle Children: Finding Their Own Pride of Place, it delved into the psyche of middle children and detailed their importance not only in the family but in society as well.

Middle children, who are usually smaller than their older siblings while they're growing up, often learn non-aggressive strategies to get what they want, such as negotiation, cooperation, or seeking parental intervention. As the underdogs themselves in many sibling conflicts, middle children often develop a fine sense of empathy with the downtrodden, as do many youngest children. Where first and last children may tend to be self-centered, middle children often take a genuine interest in getting to know other people. Being in the middle, they may find it easier to look at interpersonal situations from various points of view.

But this uncomfortable feeling of not having a defined place in the family may actually turn out to be an advantage. Unlike first children, who often define success by their ability to meet their parents' expectations, middle children are more prone to rebel against the status quo. This observation is the main point of a fascinating book, Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics, and Creative Lives, by Frank J. Sulloway. The book also argues that birth order--the middle position in particular--is one of the prime forces behind the scientific and social revolutions that drive history forward. I'd wager that most middle children had no idea that they were so important.

I seek not attention but understanding. Not misunderstandings but peace. I may have resented being a middle child when I was too young to fully grasp my significance in our home but now I can only sing praises for being the middle child in the family because if not for it, I wouldn’t be the responsible, understanding and mature adult that I am now.

"Evil" Stepmother

A person, they say, learns trust and other values in his early childhood. That wasn’t the case for me though because at the tender age of six, I learned to mistrust, be wary of and even be angry at some people.

Mom’s the second wife, you see, and this put her in the category of the “evil” stepmother. The children, my half siblings, were actually nice (I think children by nature are nice except when they were through some painful experiences like I was). It was the people around them who weren’t. In the neighborhood lived the sister of the first wife and she would tell my sister (I never referred to them as half sisters or brother except when I need to be politically correct) who was under her care to not go to our house. She forbade her to play with us and would go ballistic if she found out that my sister visited us.

Tongues kept wagging too. People talked about my mom a lot, always portraying her in a negative light. Some even went as far as saying that even when the first wife was still alive, she and daddy already had an affair. There were talks too about her being after my dad’s money.

I was only a child then but I was a child who was sensitive and very astute. Children are more susceptible to pain and so that time, I was the one grieving for my mom. There was even a time when I overheard a mother of a playmate said this to her son, “Don’t play with her because she is not nice. Like mother, like daughter.” Needless to say, I was raving mad. Why said such an absurdity to a child? What did we, innocent kids, know of or do to deserve that?!

Mom was very civil and polite about everything. She was too nice to a fault. She just told me to understand and forgive people, to make allowances for them. That they may say whatever they wanted to say but these really didn’t matter because we ourselves knew the truth.

I took my mom’s advice at heart but I vowed to myself to never fully trust people. I knew what people were capable of so I built walls around myself to shield myself from pains.

Not all people are cruel, of course, this being in line with the truth that not all stepmothers are “evil.” Mom was the best of mothers. I am my mother’s daughter, all right and I am so damned proud to be that. Like mother and daughter? I sure hope so because mom, unlike me, was very forgiving and the epitome of kindness and generosity. And these traits are what I hope to emulate always.

Now if only I can shed off my being jaded and cynical about people…

Random Thoughts - # 1

How come you can always make me smile even at the lowliest point of my life?