Thoughts

Yesterday on the bus to the office, I sat thinking how the previous weekend went.  How crazy I was, my friends told me, to have traveled alone to a place 5 hours away just because I couldn’t bear to be in traffic while trying to get on a bus heading towards the Metro.  Instead, I hopped on another bus going to Baguio, spent hours staring out at the rice paddies, the small houses that we would pass by from time to time, the herds that were out grazing.  It was a crazy weekend indeed.  But I needed that quiet, my alone time to just step back and re-think about my purpose in life. 

I wrote the other week about my purpose in this life.  I’m beginning to realize that that purpose will never come about if I don’t live my life with some purpose in mind.  What do I hope to accomplish?  As always, one of the things I learned from my 7 Habits of Highly Effective People session, was that we all need to live each day as if it were our last.  It seems dire – like some kind of doomsday decree.  The speaker went on to add that if were to have people write on our tombstone, what would we want to see.  That just gets to me every time I think of it.

There’s nothing like being surrounded by peace and quiet.  Even the occasional yells of the bus conductor fell on deaf ears.  So immersed was I in my thoughts. I started to ask myself how different I was now from then.  I like the changes but I still need a lot of room to learn and improve.  

It took me 25 years to learn a lot of things and I am still learning.  

I learned that sometimes, I’d have to really see for myself and learn that we have people who wouldn’t care less about me and other people who’d genuinely care.  A number of people who do aren’t even related to me in blood.  When I left home at 21, my parents told me that I’d probably not meet people who were as kind and as understanding as they were.  They were right.  I met people who were kinder and even more understanding, who really saw to it that I lived my life as I should, who gave praise where praise was due and admonishments when necessary.  There were no shortcuts, no sugar-coated words – just the plain and ugly truth of me being too proud, too stubborn, too haughty, too weak, too quiet, too unsociable, too laid back.  I was too many of many other things.  I cried and thought I wasn’t worthy to even live, but then when I came to my senses – I realized that all those words hurt because they were true. They didn’t stop there.  They advised, they prodded, they praised, they admonished (yet again), and encouraged me to be the best person I could be.  I am still living short of their expectations.  The struggle is real. 

I learned that the world doesn’t always revolve around me.  In fact, there are only a few people who really know me – a handful at best.  All the others think they know me, but that’s for me to know and them to find out.  When I thought my parents were too strict (and they were) because I was never allowed to go to soirees or to any overnight pajama party, I called one of my sisters-in-law and we would talk until 2AM.  I didn’t talk to my sister or brothers.  I called her up (it was during those times when we didn’t have cellphones).  We called people to talk to them instead of texting.  Thank God for in-laws who care.  If not for her, I would have gone crazy and would probably have remained melancholy for the rest of my life.  

I learned that no matter how hard I may have been hurt, that I can rise above all of it, not by trying my hardest to forget and pushing the hurtful memories into a dark corner of my mind but by actually remembering and facing my fears about it, talking about it, sharing it with others who care and who’d listen with their hearts.  When I first left Caryana, my parents only gave me a very short time to talk about my life there and weren’t really interested in the details.  I was hurt about that fact but I remained quiet and conceded to whatever they wanted for me (I tried at times).  A few weeks after the great escape, I was in school.  So I had to put all that aside, and concentrate on conquering life – which was school and people, learning a new language (Tagalog) and taking new classes.  I loved school but I had such a difficult time getting to know people because they didn’t understand what I said.  At the time, I felt crushed when some girls would laugh in my face whenever I said something in English.  They looked at me like I was an alien and even asked where I came from, how come I was a Filipino but didn’t know how to speak Tagalog. I took this rejection hard.  There were only a handful of people who took to me and accepted me for what I am maybe because we had a few things in common like the love for books.  Sometimes, children can be quite hard on other children but then if we know just how innocent and how straightforward children are, it makes me understand the situation even more.  What’s sad is that I’m looking back only now, after so many years – trying to look at things in a different light.  But at least there were a few precious ones who cared to listen back then.  People with listening hearts are rare, but they do exist.  

In the most difficult moments of my life, I’ve realized that whether I wanted it or not, I had to accept that my friends were not going to be with me 24/7 (even if they said so).  But they always meant well whenever they said they’d be there for me.  Even if I wanted time to stand still, the earth to stop rotating on its axis – it just wasn’t going to happen.  Life went on, my friends had their own lives to live, they had their own things to do.  They could stop and listen only after they were done with all the things that they needed to do but not before then.  How I cursed them and thought they were selfish.  Now that I find myself in the same situation, I can all but put my hands up begging for a little patience and a little understanding – that things are easier said than done; that even if I want something to be done, sometimes, it does take 2 or 3 or even more to tango.  I look back at those times and can’t help but smile a bit and be sad a bit too at how I needed to be creative to survive. 

I learned that alone time doesn’t need to be scary after all.  In fact, it’s when I can think best, I can just be me – with no masks and no fears.  I think I scared myself even more than others did. Alone time can be good because strength can also be gained from my inner self.  My strongest supporter will be me. 

I learned that sometimes my fear in so many things, in many people, in circumstances that could’ve happened may have been borne out of past experiences, but it’s something I have to face.  I am still working on facing them. 

I learned that when I really am desperate, I need to let people know that I need help too. I’m trying to dig deep to find out why I always thought that needing help was a form of weakness.  I can’t put my finger on it to determine when it even started.  Nevertheless, a helping hand is always good to have.   I’ve grabbed on to many a helping hand – for food, for shelter, for acceptance, for someone to unburden my pains to.  I also found that the people who lend a hand and listen with their hearts don’t ever demand anything back except that you do the same for someone else.  It’s an unwritten promise and something I’d like to keep.

I learned that when I have children (and I’m still hoping), I need to listen with my heart.  Children feel, listen, learn and remember whatever we, grown-ups say or do.  It’s imprinted in their minds forever just like mine was.  I never ever want my future children to feel that they’re too young or they’re not smart enough to understand what’s happening around them.  Sometimes, words don’t really say it all.  Feelings and actions do. I want them to know that even if they may be too young to make their own choices, they can always start from the little things – simple things such as choosing between ice-cream and cake, choosing what to wear, where to go, or what hair piece to wear; that whatever choice they make, I don’t have to stop it but I can improve on it and give them my opinion too.  I’ve learned to be careful of what I say and not keep thinking that children move on from hurt a lot more quickly than grown-ups do.  They do, because they live in the here and now.  There is no point in going back to the past nor do they look too far into the future.  What’s important for them is NOW.  

So today, I am thankful that I am able to get up every single day; that the entire day may be rough but that I will never know every detail until I live each second and each minute of that day until the entire day has transpired. 

I’ve learned that when I do something wrong, the world isn’t going to end.  I just have to accept it and learn from it. As the saying goes, “pride goeth before the fall.”  It’s happened time and time again and I’ve gained nothing from it but pain.  So this is what’s important.  I can’t be perfect and I can’t expect others to be perfect as well.  I can blame no one except myself for the choices that I’ve made. 

Most of all, I’ve learned that I have to put in a lot of effort to help myself.  People can help out.  But if I don’t want to be helped, it won’t mean a thing.  So I’ve got to start with something simple – something I’d like people to remember me by.  Life is short and I’ve got to make the most out of it.  I’ve survived a lot and I can continue to survive.  Survive and live life!