Category: Dear Diary

Lost in Transition

Tina 1 Comment

So I open my laptop today, after using it last night, and found myself staring at the stats of the Facebook page that I now handle for work. Then I thought, Cut it out, Tina. It’s Saturday.

This day a month ago was a Wednesday, and it was my first day at my new role at work. I wanted to blog about it, but things got really busy with our SFC Christian Life Program and then the Japan trip and then the transition at work that I couldn’t find the time, and now it’s just a month later that I am finally telling myself to sit down and write if I care for my sanity at all.

So hello, there, random blog readers. I missed writing. I missed a lot of things that I used to do before I jumped into this new role, namely slacking off. Or, I mean, doing all the other things I do. But yeah, slacking off, too, I guess. ^^

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t hate this at all. It’s a tad bit stressful, because many of the things I do are new to me and I’m scared of messing up and I like being in control but everything’s so unpredictable sometimes that I just want to scream in frustration, and that kind of makes it feel like I hate it. But I don’t. When things go right – and most of the times, they do – I feel very happy. And I like being challenged. It’s just when things happen fast and I have to deal with the stuff I need to do, then I remember all the free time I had before this, I feel like maybe I shouldn’t have agreed to this, that I shouldn’t have jumped.

But will I even be really happy if I didn’t jump? Won’t I regret knowing that I didn’t take this chance, simply because I didn’t want to be stressed?

So these are most of the thoughts that come into my mind in the past month. I tell myself to quit worrying, that it’s just work, and you don’t have to bring it home. Of course there are times when I had to take phone calls when I’m already out of the office, but it’s okay because I learn a lot about it. And it teaches me about necessary sacrifices. And it keeps me on my toes.

Some days, though, I just feel so tired.

“Of course you feel that way. You’re still in transition.”

One office friend told me that, when we happen to go into the office at the same time and I told her about this. She also told me, “The Lord is so good, He’s always watching over you.” And it was Truth. Because I really did pray for this, for change, for something new, and I knew for a fact that this was His plan that unfolded before my eyes. It’s just that I had this wrong expectation that when God’s plan unfolds before me, it will all be smooth sailing.

But hasn’t last year taught me that it’s not? Hasn’t my year of being brave told me that if anything, when God’s plan happens, it will always, always require me to hold on to Him a little more tighter?

Sometimes I think I expect too much of myself. Wait, scratch that – I do expect a lot from myself. I’m so scared of messing up sometimes, of disappointing the people, that I worry about everything to the nth power. But all of this is new to me, and different, and no one expects me to get it all right at at once – the one who expects that is just myself…and I shouldn’t listen to that. And I tell myself, over and over again, not to worry, because it’s useless, and don’t I know the One who has power over everything, and He’s got me? He’s always got me.

Funny how that could easily get lost in all the rush of the day.

In a way, I see this as a perfect exercise to choose joy, to take delight. Because again: Joy and delight are not happy feelings; they are choices to let love win. They are the choice to trust that love triumphant. Sometimes I don’t know what this love is, and then I remember that I know who Love is, and it’s God, and being joyful means trusting that God is always victorious. Always.

So this is what’s happening lately – transition.

Will you pray with me about this? :)

#100happydays

Tina 4 Comments

I heard about the 100 Happy Days project from a friend on Facebook.

Let me tell you: I’m a sucker for these things. To be more specific, I’m a sucker for anything that has to do with something that I “owned” for myself. Case in point, last year, Arriane of Wanderrgirl had a blog challenge with a theme of courage, my word of the year. Of course I had to participate!

So when I heard about 100 Happy Days, I knew it was something I had to do, because of my 2014 word. Like I said, I’m a sucker for these things. I decided to start it on February 1, 2014, and as of May 11, 2014 (yesterday), I have reached my 100th happy day.

*confetti*

I know a lot of people who participated in this challenge, and I also know a lot of people who scoffed at it, made fun of it, and even really hated the entire idea. What’s the big deal, right? Why are you bragging about your happiness on social media? Are you even truly happy?

But I don’t have answers or rebuttals to that. Different strokes for different folks, as I say. (Also, walang basagan ng trip. :P) What I have, instead, are the things I learned while doing this challenge:

  1. You are not going to be happy everyday for 100 days. That is a fact. I don’t mean to be a downer. That’s just reality. There are good days and there are bad days, and on those bad days, you will not want to post anything at all because it’s hard to see or find something that made you happy. I had several days like that – especially early into the challenge – and I had no idea what to post.
  2. Honesty is really the best policy. Cliche, but I’m finding there’s so much truth in this thing. When your day didn’t go swimmingly, then admit it! No one is happy 100% of the time (see #1). But…
  3. Sometimes you have  to seek happiness on purpose. Happy things don’t just happen all the time. Sometimes, there are days when there’s really absolutely nothing remarkable that happened. Or, like I said in #2, there are days when you feel furthest away from happy. But this project taught me to really look for something – even the littlest thing – that made my day brighter.  A small treat, a song, some time with a friend – the little things really do count. Happiness will not just fall on your lap; most of the time, you have to choose it.
  4. Sometimes, the way to be happy is to make someone else happy. Not a secret, really, but it’s something we forget in our “quest for happiness.” Happiness happens when we share it, and I guarantee that the best way to cheer yourself up is to make someone else smile. :)
  5. And finally, sometimes, you just forget to take a photo. Well that happened to me many times. ^^; And you just take a photo, any photo to just to remember what happened. :D

#100happydays taught me to be mindful and grateful.

You won’t have stellar days all the time, but these not-so-stellar days always has something in it that will make you smile. And that’s what we search for – not perfect days, but small things, events, and people that make the not-so-perfect days feel all right, if not perfect in its imperfection. The trick, I think, is not to force yourself to be happy when you’re not. It’s looking at both the pluses and the minuses, and then choosing to make the former matter, but not entirely discounting the lessons that the latter wants to give.

So yeah, I did not have 100 completely happy days, but now that the challenge is over, I realize that there was so much joy in the past 100 days, and I am glad that I was somehow able to capture them. :)

And I had fun. :)

On a sidenote: on their website, they said that: People successfully completing the challenge claimed to…Fall in love during the challenge. Did I fall in love? HAHA! But yes, I fell in love with God and this life He gave me and all that. :) It’s not the romantic kind of love, but I am so not complaining. Life is good because God is good. :)

I honestly have no idea what happens next. A friend told me in his birthday message that he hopes my 100 happy days won’t end at 100. I think I will abandon the #100happydays hash tag because it has used its purpose, but I will still keep my eyes open for the happy things. There’s so much beauty and joy in everyday that it’s a shame not to take delight in it. :)

And here are some of my favorite photos in my #100happydays project! (Warning: photo dump!) :)

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Nostalgia’s a bitch

Tina 1 Comment

It happened again on a Tuesday. I was at mass, and as I knelt down to pray after receiving communion, some sort of movie reel started playing in my head. Or maybe the more accurate term is movie clips, because they were different scenes from a certain time in my life, one that I really didn’t want to remember that time. (Or anytime, really.)

As I walked back to the office after the mass, I tried to think of other things to stop the movie reel of memories from playing. But when that proved to be a bit futile, I sighed and muttered, “Nostalgia’s such a bitch.”

I have a sharp long-term memory. I remember small moments – as in really small moments – so randomly, sometimes, that I think it freaks others out because they cannot remember the things I was talking about. But I remember them, and if it was a happy moment, I keep it. I used to write about it (and a friend told me that’s why I remember most of it), but later as I grew up, I didn’t have to write about it. I just remember it. I keep it, and it seeps into me, and I remember it, remember it, over and over again.

So much that sometimes, those memories feel a lot like reality.

And when your memories are happy, it’s fun to relive them, and maybe even hope that those memories happen again.

But things happen, and life changes. No matter how happy those memories are, they turn bitter when you know that they can never happen again.

Nostalgia can be such a bitch.

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