FRAGMENTED

Shattered inside me
Like pieces of broken glass
My mixed emotions

MY COOL

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LONG TALKS, ANYONE?

Libra

Daily extended (by Astrology.com)
Let yourself linger in conversations today, especially with people you don't know very well. Sharing ideas and stories will help you learn more about someone who may, to your great surprise, become very important in your life. So if there's a person who has been pushing for a relationship that you don't think you want, give him or her another chance -- and sit down for a long talk. Your feelings may change.

I don't really believe in horoscopes, but just today, I accidentally came across this one and reading it made me smile. "Let yourself linger in conversations today". I am actually the one feeling like having long talks but no one seems available or interested enough. I cannot resort to blogging, as sometimes, especially when you're feeling really introspective, blogging can be weird. It's like talking to yourself in front of a mirror.

So here I am, resorting to 3D world, where people don't touch, nor cry. Everything is ready-made. Quick. Easy. It's not that I don't like blogging. It's not that I don't like technology. It's just that sometimes, I can't help but think of how people nowadays are slowly losing the capacity to connect and touch souls. Blogging is certainly a lot more different than actually talking to someone in person, sharing ideas, hanging out, spending time together.

Power of human touch.

Sometimes life becomes morose and mundane. Sometimes words aren't there to make up a blog. Sometimes a machine is just a machine. It doesn't offer long talks.

THE LONG WAIT

How do I count the days
that lead to eternity?
How do I wait for the sun
to come up
amidst this seemingly
endless darkness?
How do I trust
and not get scared?
How do I sing
a mourner’s song?

I am a coward,
forever asking questions,
forever wondering why,
forever failing to try
and live
the sacred dreams.

SAVING GRACE

I think most kids undergo this stage where they get extremely fascinated with big guys shoes. So cute.

My son is bringing me more and more joy every day. There are times when my tenacity wanes and it is also during such moments of my life, when having Gabriel keeps me achored to my faith.

WANTED: LOYAL NANNY

Manang May-May isn't well today. So I have no choice but to bring Abe with me to work. Not that I don't like it. I know he likes it here very much, running around, ransacking my computer. And who wouldn't like a cute little rascal around, anyway. But certainly work gets affected, needless to say. You know what he just did? He shut down my CPU, while he's seated on my lap and I was typing away. Now I will have to start this all over again...

Anyway, May-May, as a nanny is almost close to perfect. She loves Gabriel so much just like her own son, and she's still very young, mind you. Only 18 years old. She is an excellent homemaker, very used to working hard, and above all, is close to God, active in their church. She's a Baptist and I don't mind that at all, cause she's fond of singing Christian songs to Gabriel.

But things changed when she fell in love with that handsome gentleman just across the street. I always catch her staring into space, while Abe is playing around. Lately my son always gets bruises and scratch, and I don't need to explain why. A couple of Sundays ago, she didn't go home after her whole day off. She texted me saying she was spending the night with her boyfriend's family out of town. I was fuming mad! How could she? I got to go to work the following day, Monday! I sent her a cool text message asking why she didn't care to inform me ahead of time. No reply. I called but her phone was already out of reach.

She came home the following day, mid-morning, which only meant, I had to stay home and miss my morning work. When she same she was apologetic, I was stern. And I gave a good amount of 'homily' to her. She was quiet and really apologetic and ashamed. Then the bomb. She would leave by the end of this month. I don't know the real reason. She's not saying anything. All I know is that the guy isn't educated, no work, bummer. I really felt sad for her, and the bleak future that is ahead of her. I'm still wondering why she turned me down when I offered to send her to school.

And what about my son. Abe loves her very much and sometimes thinks she's his mother. These days, it's never easy to look for a nanny just like her. All I want is for a nanny to love my son dearly, so that while I'm away working, I know my son is in good hands.

Talking about woes of a working mom. I am all the more determined not to get pregnant again, as long as I am not ready to stop working. There are a lot of compromises on my part, on my son's part, even on my husband's whenever he's home. And I sometimes get sick and tired of making such compromises.

Right now, all I want is to stay home, take care of Abe, do the laundry (my favorite), put on some curtains, start scrapbooking our wedding album (yes, up till now, I still haven't got around to starting it!), cuddle with Abe and watch Barney...and forget all the worries of the world...

Luha

Indi pag kasubui ang luha sang iban. This is my mantra these days, if you can even call it a mantra. But it's helping me be kinder to myself. To many of my friends (well, all of them I must say) I am the great counselor, confidante, shrink, shock absorber. Even when I'm at work, sometimes, even in the middle of a meeting, I get calls, some urgent, most of the time, I think not as urgent as my own situation. At home, I sometimes need to cut short bonding with Gabriel, just to entertain a few incoherent sobbings across the line.

Every once in a while, I get burned out. I, too, need someone to listen to me and to my own woes. I do resent the fact that people call me and dump on me right away, without even asking me first, am I okay? How have I been doing? How's life treating me? You know, simple pleasantries that could surely mean something to me.

I recently took an online personality test. My result tells that I am a humanitarian. I am not surprised. Many times, I keep pain to myself, just to keep giving. And yet many still think I am selfish so I am always left with the feeling that I didn't give enough. How enough, really, is enough? Mother Teresa said, "Give until it hurts." I try to make it as my basis for giving. But I always end up getting abused.

Maybe I am giving away what I don't have. Maybe I really should try to be sad for my own tears first, before crying for other's people's pain. I know even if I always call myself a coward, deep within lay forces stronger than I know. And so I can keep getting sad for other people's tears.

CHOICE

Each night, before hitting the sack, I pray over my Gabriel. I lay may hand on his head and pray my heart out to God. I always cry. Sometimes I wonder why I have to cry, but could I help it? Gabriel is the most precious gift God ever gave me and Reinee. Every prayer for him is an offering to the Lord, entrusting his future, his being. As a first-time mom, I have many fears, anxieties, worries. You name it. And if I don't try to get hold of myself, I'd go nuts. So I pray, and ask God to teach me how, so then I can love Gabriel more freely, more purely. I'm tired of loving and fearing of losing, at the same time. I'm tired of living and fearing death, at the same time. Such a lousy way to enjoy the every day alloted to me. Then again, it's okay to get scared sometimes, feel anxious, worry about even petty things. What is important is you know you don't have to get drowned in it. Life is good and beautiful. It has to be a choice, an everyday choice. Otherwise everything else is a misery.

PS: just writing about this helps me get through even just this day.

SUNSET

You're going down again
Hiding in the secrets
Of the night
Like a defeated king

You're going down
So reluctantly
Leaving behind such
Poignant trails
In the sky
As if you understood
All the sadness of the world
And telling me
My own sadness too

And each time
I see you kissing the horizon
So painfully slow
I think of all the joy
That yet I have to know. .

PATTERNS FOR SORROW

I used to write no end.
I used to write like writing
was the only way I could live.
I wrote saccharine, sentimental pieces
where some people scoffed at.
And sometimes I bullied my way
into poetry like a dog getting on
a porcupine… and people adored me.

Out of my well-worn heart
and complex imagination,
I declared myself master of my pen,
oblivious to the fact
that poetry sometimes does fade.

The wine tasted bland.
Raindrops, annoying.
Night sky, frightful.

There was no more joy
in my writing,
only sad patterns for sorrow.
And so I grieved at the sunset
Like it would never rise again.

GABRIEL'S VOCABULARY

ENGLISH

stand up: idap
jump: mamp
blue skies: bukis
sleep: pis
love: wab
one: wan
two: tu
three: ti
four: po
five: ayb
six: se
seven: eben
snake: nish
fish: pish (sometimes he calls it 'sud-an')
cat: tat (he used to call it 'tak')
dog: dog
chicken: ken
bird: bud
airplane: peyn
toothbrush: babish
flower: pawis
pacifier: papen
i love you: evo

ILONGO

bug-at: undat
damo: mamo
kugos: gugus
lakat: nntat
gakat: gagat
langoy: ngoy
subay: mmbay
lamok: mmok
tumba: mmba
upod: mmpud
mus-on: un
ligo: go
inum: mmom
kaon: hawon
higda: igda
lola: owa
lolo: owo
diin: din
kapoy: papoy
saka: kaka
suksuk: kokok

more to come! that's the most i could remember right now. :D

A DAY AT A TIME

My aim for today: LOVE.

WOUND IN THE HEART?

Just trying to talk silly to myself here. Just got back from the doctor and the ECG report said some air are passing through this little wound in my heart causing it to palpitate, causing me to struggle with my breathing. I was not very convinced with that kind of explanation so I better check with the Internet and some other books I have at home. But my doc told me that I should avoid getting stressed, getting angry, getting tired, all those sort of things. If I wanted to avoid all these things, I have to have my husband beside me. That's all, thank you.

But what. He's not here. For long. Therefore God wanted me to have him...all of him. My little Gabriel is a great source of joy for me, for obvious reasons, but sometimes he can also cause me stress, for VERY obvious reasons -- especially at his age.

So yeah, God, thank you that you are there. No amount of medicine can make me well. Your love is more than enough.

THE BALANCED LIFE

I’m not yet halfway to finishing THE BALANCED LIFE by Alan Loy McGinnis but it has already affirmed me in a lot of ways.

Last weekend, my son and I, together with his beloved Manang May-May, were in Cebu for my nephew’s first birthday celebration. I was up to my eyeballs in the office, but I had to go the extra mile just to fulfill a promise I made way before, to my sister Bebang.

A weekend before that, we were in Iloilo to see my husband who called days before, begging me to go and visit him as he missed me and baby terribly. Making these kinds of trip means hitting the sack by midnight — someone has to pack, and with a-year-and-a-half in tow, packing almost means packing THE WHOLE HOUSE – and of course, it also means waking up at the wee hours! Oh well, not to mention missing a few hours, even a day, of work because almost always, the stay has to linger until Monday. By this, being a ‘dedicated’ (well, kind of) career woman, I almost always feel discontented about myself. I hate leaving a pile of work at the office and returning not to the same pile, but an increased one this time. And by the way, did I already mention how much these trips cost me?

I’ve always thought that I would only be either the best wife and mother, or a successful career woman. As a working mother, I miss a lot of things and one of those is the joy of taking care of Gabriel. Carrying him from the gate to our house is already a treat. And of course I want to learn how to cook, to sew, to put on some curtains, to plant some flowers and veggies. Sometimes I even can’t believe myself for resenting the fact that I have to wake up at 6am and prepare for work.

But this book has opened my mind to a new realization and I’m right now so happily basking on it. ‘One can live magnificently if one knows how to work and how to love’, as Tolstoy said. Little did I know, I have been doing the right things so far:

1. Bathing my son before going to bed.
2. Bringing him to my workplace once in a while (this will show him what I’m doing and that I’m doing it for him, he will see how much I am achieving for him and it will also make him a proud son)
3. The two consecutive trips I mentioned above, was also an achievement, little did I know, thanks to this book of course. I compromised with my boss regarding our office schedule and just did a few days overtime work, to compensate my absencens. (a few days of going home late is nothing compared to a weekend with my husband and son, compared to my sister’s joy of knowing that we made our way through all these, just to be with her and her family in such a special occasion)

These are just a few among other things that already gave me a tap on the back. I guess I will be blogging more as I go through the remaining chapters.

another beginning

so i've moved again. i guess i really have this inherent lust for wandering...for the time being i will be posting here some stuff i have posted on my other blog sites. some that i consider worth reading, at least.