Let everything happen to you

Beauty and terror--with so much becoming more beautiful precisely because of terror. This is 2020. 

I'm surprised with myself that I haven't written anything about the pandemic. I suppose it's because it has literally invaded every aspect of my life and I've become its prisoner, like most everyone else in the world. I guess I didn't want to think about because I always have to think about it. If I could never think about it again, I would.

But that's not the only reason. In March, I simply walked away from a life that I realized was completely wrong for me. I left my job because I wasn't liking the person I was becoming and, at the same time, I ended what I felt was a special friendship for exactly the same reason. 

Walking away was a clear and easy decision, especially from my job, but the execution was nevertheless extremely painful. Then suddenly the whole world was on lockdown and I was surviving a broken heart and a bruised ego and a pandemic. 

It's kind of amusing how my personal drama was eclipsed by a very tangible threat in COVID-19. This brush with death--this pandemic may very well be a brush with death for those of us surviving it--has made me take a closer look at what I value in life. And while I can't go any further than that in terms of shareable insight, this closer look has reminded me that I still, like always, want to create beautiful things.

And when I'm gone, I want to leave beautiful things behind. 

***

This year is a terrible year, but it's also a mixed bag. There were many children born in our family, and the older ones are thriving in spite of current events. My mother had a health scare, but is on the mend. 

And there is someone that I love, to add to the small number of people I have grown to love more deeply this year because while the pandemic took their physical presence away for the time being, we are even more present in each other's lives.

***

When Typhoon Ulysses battered Luzon, I felt a prolonged terror like I'd never felt before. The typhoon was strong and slow, and I barely slept because I could hear the makeshift roof of our laundry area being thrashed by the wind from midnight onwards.

I wasn't just afraid to lose the roof--I was afraid for it to cause major damage or hurt someone. I couldn't go out to secure the roof--there was nothing much I could do, really, so I prayed. And then I wrote on my phone. I kept writing even when the electricity went out. 

It was only after writing that I felt calm enough to sleep. 

And so I am here, again, in this space where I still write whatever I want, about everything I want, all the things I find beautiful and even the things I find terrible.