Tag: 2014

For moreness

Tina 1 Comment

For moreness. My best friend coined this on the trip we took on the weekend before I turned 28, the one where I asked them to join me because as much as I enjoyed traveling on my own, I realized that I didn’t really want to spend the last few days of a wonderfully crazy year not surrounded by the people who have seen me through not just in last year but also the year before that. And the year before that. And the year…well, you get my drift.

So off we went to Calaguas Island in Camarines Norte with Travel Factor. For moreness.

From a sleepy bus ride to a choppy 2-hour boat ride that left none of us dry (and taught us an important lesson on waterproofing our things — don’t worry, my phone is still alive and safe from saltwater), the island welcomed us with this:

Long bus ride? Scary, choppy waves? Here, have a beach.

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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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Twenty Eight

Tina 3 Comments

Hello, I’m 28 today.

In the previous years, I usually start the countdown to my birthday a month before, and I make birthday plans as early as that. This year, I didn’t have a count down (a public one, anyway, because in my head, I was counting down) and I didn’t really make too many plans that early. When I made plans, they weren’t super grand ones. They were smaller, quiet ones that I looked forward to, and am looking forward to quietly.

Perhaps this is the effect of one of my wishes from last year: to be more settled, to be grounded. Granted, my 27th year was a year full of tremors and shocks, so God knows how much I need to be settled this time around. But it feels like there’s more to that. Maybe this is me learning to not just enter the silence, but to truly enjoy and embrace it, every now and then. To let the silence and stillness seep into the crevices of my heart, the parts that ached for it so much over the last few months. Maybe I’m learning that silence is golden. Maybe, I’m finally realizing that God is truly present in the silence, and finding myself in Him is the only way for me to see my life unfold. :)

28

Earlier today, I went to mass, and while I was praying after communion, I felt something light up inside me. The last time I felt this was after the SFC International Conference in Cagayan de Oro, a month ago. I sat there, and smiled, and I knew for a fact that God was taking delight in me. He was happy, He is happy because of me. Not because I was in church, or because I was doing something good (although I know He is happy because of those things, too)…but because God was just simply delighted in me.

What an amazing thing, to be loved and delighted in by the King. :)

It took me a long while to really understand this and feel this and claim it, and now I am trying my best to truly live it: I am worthy, I am loved, because God called me by name, and I am His. :)

Thank you to everyone who made my 27th year an amazing journey, and thank you to everyone who remembered this day. :) You are a blessing, and I am truly, truly grateful for you. ♥ I wish you joy and love, always. :)