I'm going back to the start

First, an explanation: This isn't an account of my entire experience. This is more if me thinking on digital paper, holding a weekend in my hand like a bright jewel and turning it around to examine angles that sparkle brighter than the rest.

***

The weekend found me in Subic, attending the Singles for Christ Metro Manila Conference for 2013. It was only a few weeks after my Christian Living Program graduation, and there I was, feeling a little out of place in the 3,700-strong crowd, but nevertheless happy to be there.

Our road trip to Subic was long and uneventful, and it was capped by a nice lunch at an Asian restaurant called Coco Lime. I realized I'd never really gone around Subic before, that I didn't really know the place. But the real first for me was my attending the SFC MMC -- or any large-scale religious event after high school, for that matter.

I wasn't sure what to expect. I'd never really felt comfortable in large group activities, my attention always escaping, straying to my surroundings, then shifting to the activity, and back to my surroundings again.

In group worship, I'd try to sing the songs, clap my hands with the crowd, get into the moment, and then start wondering if I was doing things right: Was I clapping in time, was I out of tune, did I need to I raise my hands? I'd wonder: Why am I not like all the other people, who are completely awash in worship bliss?

I know that none of these matter to the God, but still I think there is always something I can do, to be better, to be part of something big. But I've always been like that: never the person who completely lets go, and always that person who has to open her eyes and observe what is happening to see what else needs to be done. I take two steps forward, and I have to step back, survey the situation, check myself and process my experience. Then I can take several steps forward again.

So, anyway.

For the first night of the conference, the theme was the 90s. We were asked to wear a 90s-inspired outfit. I wore a plaid polo shirt on top of a white T-shirt, dark jeans with the cuffs folded, and black boots. Pop music from the 90s played all day, songs like "Always" and "Quit Playing Games With My Heart" and "Stop" and this girl group song I know I like but can't, at the moment, remember.

Later at night, the music ministry performed a 90s music medley, and the song lyrics were flashed onscreen so the crowd could sing along. Everyone was belting out "And I sing this song to all of my age, for these are the questions we've got to face" when I suddenly remembered myself as a college freshman, sixteen and making sense of my life, discovering what I was good at and what I liked, knowing myself, and following my heart.

And my 16-year-old self looked at my 35-year-old self and asked: Who is this person?

The feeling and the thought stuck with me throughout the evening. The weekend would give me beautiful small and big answers, enough to make having the question hanging over me comfortable. But I am grateful the question begged to be asked, never mind if I had to channel my best version of 90s grunge (my plaid shirt was a bright green!) and listen to some of that beautiful decade's bad hits.

I suppose the way I live most of life is the way I behaved in group worship: I never lose myself completely in it, always stop to look around, and constantly process my experience. At one point in Subic, while everyone around me was jumping around, raising their hands out of overflowing joy in the Maker, I paused and threw a sincere question at God, "Where am I in all this? Where is my joy?"

I need to close my eyes, I thought. And I did. And that's where I found it. It came to me like pictures of my travels to places where I had felt the least out of place. Almost-uninhabited islands. Endless ocean. Clear lakes. Tall, strong trees and swaying grass. Mud on my feat. My hand on cold, solid rock. Birds. A dragonfly coming to me.

So many pictures, and then words. Overflowing words, and I was covered in their richness.

I kept my eyes closed while people sang around me. I was around thousands of people, and I was sure of their ecstasy because it encroached on my senses, and I did not begrudge them that. They had their joy; I had mine. We were all rich. We were all blessed.

It was okay that I was reeling from the sheer number of people. It was okay that I was feeling out of place, like a bottle fighting to keep afloat on relentless waves of joy. It was okay that I swung from exhaustion to bliss, from acceptance to rejection, from yes to no and yes again.

I am this person.

I think a thousand thoughts per minute. My heart feelings a hundred emotions per second. I am scared, and I am brave. I hate being with strangers, but I love people, and it takes only a moment for strangers to become people to me. I have an anxious brain, and I have, I'd like to believe, a good heart. And this last, big reminder-slash-realization: Words are central to my faith, and so are stories. And letters. Words are my service.

I am this person.

I had known this before, in fact, it was the only thing I was sure of when everything else was uncertain, but somehow, somewhere along the way, I had forgotten. I was so sorry I had forgotten.

Be kind to yourself, I told myself. This is how you surrender. This is how you begin. Just close your eyes.

Hello? Hello!

My last post was over a month ago! I'm disappointed in myself, but I remember getting sick and then getting busy and forgetting about this little side project right after I'd invited most of my Facebook friends to like my blog's Facebook page! Tsk, tsk.

But now I'm back. I've also (yet again) tweaked my blog's layout and restored the minimalist look I like. I'm quite pleased with the simple look. Maybe it'll inspire me to keep blogging.

Guess who's now a member of Singles for Christ?

I have other news to share: I've just become a member of Singles for Christ, after completing a 12-week Christian Life Program. You could say I'm rediscovering my Catholic faith. To be honest, it's a rather bumpy journey, but, at the same time, it also feels like a long trip to a familiar place. Still, most of the time, I don't know what I've gotten myself into. But I think it's worth a try.

Tomorrow, I'm heading off to Subic with other SFC members to attend my first MMC (Metro Manila Conference). It'll be a two-day affair, and I really have no idea what's going to happen, except that I'm attending a workshop called "Shakespeare in Love" and it's about writing to share God's love. At the very least, it's a nice break from my usual life. And I'm up for anything.

I'll try to update from Subic, if I can.

CLP graduation day on July 12, 2013. I'm with one of my best friends,
Emily, who's an active member of SFC.

On learning to like things

My two nieces spent the night at our house over the weekend. Jasmine is eight and Keona is seven. They're both learning to assert themselves and testing their boundaries, so they were quite a handful when it came to things they had to do, like eat or take a bath.

When you tell Jasmine to do something, she studies your face closely to see how serious you are and decides to follow (or not to) based on what she sees. When you tell Keona to do something, it's a battle of wills and, sometimes, fake tears. They're both beautiful, kind, and sweet, and they're also stubborn, strong-willed, and, really, too clever for their own good.

They are also very picky eaters.

When my mom served them red rice (we're trying to eat healthier) and corned beef (I said trying!) with scrambled eggs for brunch, they both said matter-of-factly that they only ate white rice. It took us a lot of convincing and prodding to make them eat.

We told them how red rice is healthy for them. "I don't like it."

We told them them how red rice is princess food in the mountains of the North. "I don't like princesses."

We told them how we wouldn't leave the table until they were done, so no Minecraft until they clean their plates.

Keona liked corned beef, so she was the first to yield. The moment she realized the red rice "doesn't taste like anything," she couldn't stop eating. Jasmine, on the other hand, declared she would just eat the rice, after having convinced herself that it tasted like chocolate. Eventually, she asked to try "just a little" of the corned beef and was surprised she liked it. The two girls finally cleaned their plates--and they both decided on their own that they actually liked what they ate, even the strange red rice.

In fact, Keona asked for a second helping in the afternoon.

This got me thinking about the things I like and how I got to like them. For instance, I love to eat, but I'm not a very adventurous eater. For years, I would order the same items in restaurants, because I liked knowing that I already liked what I was going to have.

This week, I'll blog about at least three things I know for sure I like and try to recall how I learned to like them for the first time.

I should take a good look at where I am

I treated myself to dinner and a movie (Man of Steel) in Eastwood yesterday, and it hit me that even if I've been working in Eastwood City since 2009, it was the first time I actually went to the place for leisure.

I mean, I've watched movies and I've treated myself to nice dinners in Eastwood, but it's always been after work.

Then again, even if yesterday was a holiday, I did pass by the office first!

That's one side of me that I want to change, that person that often forgets to take a good look at where I am at the moment.

Like, I now live most of the time in Quezon City, but have I gone around the place, discovering what's nice about it? Not so much.


This is a house near where I live in Quezon City that I've always found interesting. I took this photo in October 2012. I thought the house was abandoned, but a couple of weeks ago, I saw a group of teenage boys calling on a girl, asking her to come outside.

Come to think of it, I haven't been doing a lot of discovering recently. Maybe that's why I'm a little bored with life. I've got to change this.

There are a few places that I want to check out in Metro Manila. I'll post the list in a separate entry.

Maybe you have some suggestions?

I said I would write every day

I want to do it, really. Just to keep the habit going again. I've written for two days straight, and I can already feel the words swirling around in my head. Still, I worry that I would run out of things to say.

When I started blogging so many years ago (it was so long ago, I put it on Blogdrive.com, which, I'm pleasantly surprised to discover, is still alive), I was content with writing about my daily activities, no matter how mundane. In fact, my life then, no matter how dull, was enough to fuel a blog post or two a day. Three, even.

Nowadays, for some reason, outside of my little personal dramas, I can't seem to find anything worth blogging about. I think I've gotten used to Facebook status updates -- minimal effort with almost immediate results!

But I said I would write every day, and I will do it. So I asked the Internet for advice through Facebook (and again, minimal effort, almost immediate results), and I was advised to google "blogging prompts."

After a quick search, I found a couple of sites that may be helpful. Check them out at the bottom of the column on the right.

Maybe I will only need them for a while, until I get my writing groove back. Or maybe I won't use them at all because just knowing they're there for me to turn to takes out a lot of the pressure, and I can finally hunker down and write.