THE SILENCE

The most memorable Dan Brown's quote for me came from his Digital Fortress; "They say that all things became clear in the face of death," and ironically in my profession, I have witness quite many deaths this past days than I ever had while watching the evening news.

I have been there, face to face with a person whose heart beats for the last time. It was like they've gone from being someone to... I'm not sure. It's as if they become someone else when they die. This reminds me of my sister back to the moment the operating nurses brought her out, wrapped in a green blanket from head to toe. I remember tearing a part of it away, because... I'm not sure why either. All I know during that moment is if her face is wrapped with a blanket, how the hell will she breathe through that. And I saw her face. With bloody nose, eyelids close for forever, pupils that won't dilate... (Ughh. This is hard for me to write down, you know) Then, I remember the distant feeling I have while looking down on "that" lifeless body. I remember asking myself who the hell is that because it couldn't possibly be my sister. My sister was warm, alive, cunning and laughing days ago but "that" thing, "THAT" THING, doesn't have its chest rise up and down. It's like she became someone else. Someone who looks like my sister but isn't really my sister.

I wonder what are the things that became clear in the face of death? Who are we when we die? What become of us?

Will we still be able to be who we know ourselves to be on the other side? Who we become in there? I wonder now.

But no one knows.

I don't even know.

What happens when we die is one of life's greatest mystery. We are not allowed to have a glimpse of it. The dead stay silent... and all we could do is wait.

TWENTY THREE

"The bravest thing I ever did was continuing my life when I wanted to die."
-Juliette Lewis

I turned twenty three years old today.

While everyone around my age were having the best times of their life, here I am, alone in my room, contemplating the things that makes me who I am at this moment.

And what did I become after all these years?

Well, let's start by sayng that I become a registered professional, working in one of the most recognized institution in the Philippines. People say that I'm the lucky one. After all, not everyone on my age gets to earn as much as I do.  I'm getting to blend in the society. I guess, people are starting to recognized my existence. I've got to make new friends... those of benefits and those who can only smile at me. I'm not boasting or anything because I don't think this is something I could boast... actually, this is something my parents could boast. They worked hard to make a person out of me. It's their sacrifices that makes me what they want their child to be.

But as being me... who wants to have their life planned out for them?

I know what I can boast.

I'm already twenty three and the previous year had been my year. I found myself and decided to live in it. I wrote and wrote and I find my own infinity. I want to become a writer and all of me shouts of it. Writing and creating worlds and characters makes me alive and breathing. That was the "me" I am searching all my life. And I knew that I was born for it.

I've been through a lot. There are times when I would ask myself if I can keep standing through the storms. But at the end of the day, the storms always calm down, leaving me fiercer and firmer on my ground. I quit the game of making people like me. Somehow, what they say about me doesn't bother me anymore. I've learned to own myself.

Like what I'm always saying, I don't know what tomorrow brings me. But I do know that I will always be that girl from a long time ago. I will always believe in magic. I will always believe that despite everything, the world isn't really an awful place. I've learned to accept that I will grow old, but I don't have to grow up.

I guess it's a happy birthday to me then :)

GAZING GAME

I had my eyes focused on him for quite some time now.

He was tall and lean and handsome.

Then I learned that he's writing too. A hobby that was very close to my heart. I'm reading his works for almost a year now.

People don't interest me that much. I have many trust issues and I don't let just anyone in. For me to notice him, is like me watching quantum mechanics in national geographic channel.

I'm excited, thrilled and terrified.

Excited because it's a new experience for me. Love has the power to make the colors of my world more vivid. I imagine myself nourishing this feeling. I'll add him on facebook, chat with him and make it my goal to know him better. I'll talk with him and listen well. I always listen well since I realized that people loved to talk about themselves. Then I'll feel comfortable and allow him to see the broken pieces of me, hoping that he'll be the balm I need to be whole again. I imagine myself loving him in ways I alone can give. I imagine him returning my feelings. Thrilled because maybe the world will be a better place for me if I fall inlove with him. He will make my heart race just by his smile and intense stare. He will be the world for me and I will make sure to love him everyday. Isn't it what everyone of us wants? We want someone with whom we can give our hearts to, hoping that they'll never return it to us. We all been there, lying in bed, wide awake, wondering when and how that someone will come to our lives. Love is such a complicated thing.

But I am terrified.

Terrified to know that if I allow myself to love him... what then? Will he love me back? Will he accept me? The naked and raw me? Me as the weird? as the dreamer? as the skeptic? Can he embrace the fact that I'm a believer of all things wonderful? That I don't do make-ups and flirt? That parties bored me?  That there are days when I just want to be alone? That I'm different?

I don't know. Maybe he wouldn't. He couldn't.

After all, who would pick a daisy in a field of elegant roses.

I had my eyes on him for quite some time now.

A part of me wishes that he'll return my gaze and he'll know that I'm admiring him. The other part prays that he wouldn't. Because I don't want to let him in.

But who knows? Maybe if it's him, I might discover a hidden courage in me. Then I'll be brave and allow myself to love. Maybe if it's him, I'll be willing to take a risk.

CHOOSE BRAVERY

Have you ever faced a seemingly impossible situation when you thought you couldn't get out of it alive and kicking? I mean, have you ever been in the middle of the storm and you really believe that there's no way out and all you have and all that's left to do is be brave?

I have.

I think we all have.

I think we all have our moments in life when we were shoved in the depths of hell with no choices, no help, nothing... And all we are allowed to do is be brave.

Bravery must be the finest virtue of all. You couldn't be kind if you don't have the courage to show kindness in a world that's teaching us that our own happiness should come first. You couldn't be honest if you don't have the courage to speak the truth, likewise all the other virtues would come out of you if you have the courage to embrace them.

We were born with fear, I guess. Fear isn't something we just learned as we grow up but it's inherent in us. We are creatures who fear something one way or another. But bravery withstand fear. When we choose to be brave, we win against it. We conquer our fears. We conquer ourselves. We conquer that which makes us humans. And we became better than we are before. We became more and more who we really are. It takes courage to show who you are, isn't it?

When there's nothing left, my friends... we could still be brave.

IT DIES WITH TIME

A month ago, I was just anticipating a family friend's wedding. I've never attended a wedding before and this event really excites me because me and my sister will be on the entourage.  Everything happened fast.  I've gone from anticipating to preparing,  to being right there to witness two hearts getting weave as one.

The whole day was magical.  Relatives from my mother's hometown came.  I wore that elegant apple green cocktail dress.  The pictures were taken.  The couple exchanged their vows like those romantic ones I thought I will only watched in movies.  I love the place.  The calm breeze brushing on my cheeks and the peacefulness of the woods from afar.  My... if only I could freeze time and live in that moment forever.

And then the night came. Along with it, is the end of the event. The couple was now husband and wife. People who attended went back home. Tomorrow, everything will resume. I have to go back work my ass and try to live my life. Again.

.
.
.

As each day passed, I am slowly realizing how time changes things--- as in really changes things. I'm old enough to contemplate my own mortality and I know this sounds too weird but... I know and I feel that I amstartkng to die little by little each day. There are things I now couldn't do the way I do them when I was sixteen. I feel tired more often. And my first times are now being used up. There are more white hair in my parents' head than they  have before. Little kids from the neighborhood began going to school. My highschool friends are now either getting married or having a baby and I'm starting to drift away from home. The way adults are supposed to when they become adults. Things are changing. I am becoming how I imagine I will become back to the days when all my worries just consists of how will my crush notice me. I feel old. Things around me starts to age and I'm starting to age. Patients are dying. The time is passing. The hands of the clock ticking.

It hurts. Maybe because I'm noticing things. Maybe because I'm aware that time goes by. Because I know that time is cruel and that it wouldn't wait for anyone and because I know that I wouldn't be able to hold a single thing forever. Not even the ones I love. Nor the things I created. When I think about it, I see that there's really nothing in this world that I could hold to... everything will either get destroyed or forgotten. Everything... at the end of it all, will be eaten up by oblivion.

I wonder if it will be different if I will be able to live forever. What life does immortality offers? How would it be if my body will never grow old and my heart wouldn't stop beating?

Alot of screenwriters tend to convey that there's no meaning in forever. That because we're humans, and that we're doomed, everything becomes beautiful. That the gods envy us because we're not in their position to endure eternity. We appreciate the people we love because we're aware that time changes things, even feelings. We know how to treasure moments because as mortals, we know that each seconds is a gift we could never get back once it passed by. We have meaning because we know we'll eventually die.

But what meaning is there in having everything you have taken away from you. What is there in risking your heart to love someone when you know you couldn't have that person from here beyond? Why should we live in the present when all that we are is everything thay happened to us in the past?

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us..." (Lord of the Ring)

Yeah. Seasons die afer another.

COME FOOL ME

I am here, sitting comfortably at the back of the bus... feeling all longing because I'm about to spend the coming nights away from home.

Lonely? Yes. My work requires sacrifice. Sacrifice is such a sad word. I need to sacrifice every comfort I have, in order to gain the things I want. After all, we cannot get what we want if we will not be willing to give up a thing or two.

Heartaches. I don't know but I keep thinking about that word for days now. I see people suffer. I hear people dreading the long nights. The tears. The piercing pain. They're all afraid of what's going to happen from here. And I can't help but asked... why do we have heartaches? Why do we experience it? Why are we all frighten to have our hearts broken?

They say that the cause of all our hurts is expectations. We expect so much from the world. We expect it to be kind to us because we're fragile. We expect life to go smooth. We expect people to love us the way we love them--or more, if needs to be. We expect that we wouldn't get sick, that we would be happy, that there will be no goodbyes and that the sky will always be that blue and clear. I think expectation is a weak word to use. I prefer to believe that the cause of all our heartaches is our way of fooling ourselves.

Expectations and fool are not synonymous. Expectations is the belief that something will or is likely to happen while fool is a harmless person lacking in powers of understanding.

The world is a cruel place. It will always be a dimension that favors the fittest--the ones adaptive to change. We know it all, and yet we fool ourselves that it will show us mercy. We, humans, are mortal creatures. We don't have bodies that can live forever and yet we fool ourselves that we wouldn't be sick--that we couldn't get sick. We know we don't have eyes that can see the future and yet we say to ourselves that tomorrow we will chase our dreams, that later we will love our family more than we already had, that there's so much time ahead, that life will wait for us... until we find ourselves on the other side of that "so much". We know these things and yet we fool ourselves that the worst wouldn't come for us. I don't know. Like I said before, I cannot offer anyone answers. I will always long for ways to alleviate human pain, but I have accepted that I will never be able to, because I also suffer. I, also, fool myself enough.

And here I am, looking beyond the horizon. I can see the vast, towering trees from the window and I can feel my fingers itching to paint them. But the sun was more memorable to me at this very moment. I sit here, alone, with the setting sun bleeding above. As if telling me she understand.

OF THE SHINING STARS

As the days passed by, the older I get, all the while as I see dreams coming true... the more I am convinced that I was not born to spend my life contained in what others call "normal."

I was born to go places-- to see the world. I was born to dance under the light of a thousand stars. I was born to take bath in rivers, in falls and under the rain. I was born to know people. People who live their lives completely different from mine and from what I knew of how life can be live. People who see things. People close to nature, those that can hear the earth whisper. People who really lives. I was born to climb mountains and shout at the clouds. I was born to take part, not in politics, not in the society, not in my profession, but of the universe. I have always believe I am a child of the stars.

At the same time, I am getting more convinced that I was born to spend my life in solitude. Solitude lets me hear myself. Solitude allows me to write.

Dreams are scary and cruel, aren't they? And yes, they are always worth fighting for.

MAD WORLD

Because of the tragedies that's happening everywhere this past few months, someone had asked me if I do believe in justice.

Justice. According to Miriam-Webster Dictionary installed in my android, justice is the process of using laws to fairly judge and punish crimes and criminals. Fairly. Fair. Treating people in a way that does not favor some over others. I like to think justice is similar to the phrase getting what we deserve.

I can answer him without second thought. No. I don't.

I like to think myself as an observer. I see things, more than what is visible. I hear things. I notice them. I watch and analyze people, and for me, justice is an illusion created by humans to cope with all the cruelty we experience. For all I care,there are only two kinds of people in this world: those who gets what they don't deserve and those who don't get what they deserve. The powerful and wealthy are the ones who create laws that favors them. There are those who never gets punish for all the crimes they committed and there are those who suffer for the sins they never made. There's no justice. Not at least in this world.

I don't believe in equality. We don't always get the same things as others did. I don't believe in peace. There is no peace in this world. Not in this lifetime. As long as there is love, there will be hate. As long as we continue to hurt each other there will be war and injustice. As long as classifications exist, we would never achieve true peace. Muslims and Christians. Idealist and realist. The wealthy and the savages. The deprived and those who cannot ask for more.

This is a cruel world we live in. But don't you think it's funny? That the world is still a beautiful place despite everything?

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

I remember this one girl who asked Pope Francis, during his visit and mass in Luneta, a very thought provoking question: Why do bad things happen to little children like her? I remember her pushing back tears and trying her best to untie that tight knot in her throat. I remember how she embraced the highest official of the catholic church, as if doing so will answer all her questions. I can almost hear her asked with all earnest the follow-up questions: Why does God allow worst things to happen to them? Why do some of them get rape, abuse and murdered? They're children. They're defenseless. They do nothing wrong. They are only victims of society. Why? Why? Why?

And I remember myself asking the same question when my sister died.

She was adorable. She was kind. She can't even hurt an insect (except kill a flying cockroach). There's a lot of things she hadn't witness yet. There are a lot of great things for her ahead. She's yet to experience first love, first dance and first heartache. She's supposed to graduate, to go to college, to spend many nights making researches.

And I can't help but feel guilty.

Since she was born, I tried my best to protect her from all kinds of pain as I can and I came to hate many things. I hated myself for not noticing the symptoms even if I'm in my second year studying nursing. I hated myself for watching her suffer for almost two weeks. I hated myself when the nurses brought her lifeless body for us to see---the fact that I didn't dare whispered goodbye twenty minutes after she died. She could have heard me if I did. I hated myself for still breathing months after the funeral. It should have been me. It should have been me who died because I'm the stronger one. I'm the eldest and it's my responsibility to protect my siblings. I'm the one who can tolerate pain and sadness and loneliness. I'm the one who did many wrong. I should have been the one who lied on that deathbed. It's supposed to be me.

But it isn't.

The sudden sickness took her away and I was left in the darkness, despising my own existence. I'm the one left walking alone in that path of self-destruction. I'm the one filled with unanswered questions. And you know what's worst? I'm the one left to live. I came to realize that we all have our own tragedies. That little girl I mentioned earlier is that she lost her parents. Some have to endure different kinds of sickness and human cruelty. My parent's tragedy is that they lost one of their child. Mine is that... I have to live.

Why does God allowed it all? We didn't kill anyone. We're not the ones sitting in corrupted government chairs stealing millions from starving people. Why? Why does God allow bad things to happen to us?


After almost three years of trying to understand it all, I am still offered no definite answer. I read many stories, christians and self-help books. I listened to sermons and true to life sharesBut nothing ever made sense. I found myself digging for more questions. But I came to arrive on a conclusion. I became focused on asking that I failed to see that because God is God... He has no obligation to explain Himself to me. His ways are not my ways and His thoughts are not my thoughts. He's everlasting and flawless and powerful.  I am but a mere fragile creature in His story.

I never had any intention of forgetting what happen to my sister but I came to accept everything. I accepted that I will not be given any answers. Not at least in this lifetime. Nor will I hear some divine explanation from Him. No. He doesn't have to explain Himself to me. And that's how I started forgiving myself. That's how I regain my courage to still go on, to move, to dream dreams for the both of us. I think that because it should have been me who died, I owe my sister a life. If I cannot live for myself, I have to live for her. I have to find a reason to live because I'm the one left in here. I'm the stronger one, am I? I have to live no matter what. I end up looking forward to meeting her again with all the wonderful stories I experienced. I decided to fill my life with stories because one day, we will sit across each other and talk for eternity.



I'm not claiming I undestand everything. If that little girl will read this and accepted that God really allow bad things to happen to us the way I did... I don't know. I'm offering her nothing. I do hope she realize that God is God. And I do hope she lives. May she lives a good life.

THE WRITER IN ME

Mark Twain once said that the two most important day in our lives are the day when we're born and the day we found out why. I guess I already arrived on the day that I found out why.

I was born to write stories.

I was born with an insatiable appetite to understand the world because I'm going to write it down.

Please don't think that I'm deluding myself or anything, but I recently made up two short stories and two novellas. I just tried it out to know if I can really come up with ideas, characters and words and who would have believed that I actually did. As of now I'm also drilling myself in self-taught grammar and style course, alternating with creative writing and reading The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson (the second installment of Millennium Trilogy). I joined NaNoWriMo last November 2014 and submitted a novel with 50,000 words---self-edited.

I know my achievements couldn't yet be compared to those who already made a debut with their first novel in the industry, but for someone like me, with a degree in Nursing, with no formal education in English and creative writing and a non-native English speaker, finishing stories made me feel as if I'm... there. Walking on the road that I never even dare set foot years ago for fear that it will be a pointless thing to do. I was just that book geek with an old soul who admires Mary Shelley and Sidney Sheldon, pressing her nose between the pages of that dusty book and daydreaming that one day, I will be holding a book like that with my name on the cover.

I'm not over confident or having symptoms of schizophrenia but who knows, maybe one day, I will be able to come up with a novel worthy to be printed and send to entertain thousands of people.

Okay, enough of the lucid dreams. Allow me to dig deeper my thoughts about this topic.

The first question is: Why do I want to write?

Yeah, because I want fame and fortune blah-blah-blah. Who would not anyway? But I think those reasons are shallow and lame. No one in their right minds would sit on a chair, grab a pen and fill an blank notebook with words only Zeus knows where to pick up. I think writers are writers because there's a story inside them that's aching to come out. There are scenes inside their heads that wakes them up at three in the morning begging to be given appropriate words. There's a group of people fighting in their minds whispering "Hey dude, I know you want to know me, oh suck the denial, I know you do!." I think maybe writers are writers not because money or pile of books that needs signature or sex or the promise of immortality that compels them to write in the first place but because they really do have something to say and if they don't say it on paper, they'll die.

Yes that goes with me too. I want to write because even if its difficult, even if its a craft that needs commitment, even if its only possible that blood would literally flows from my eyes like tears because hunting for the right words is that hard... writing is who I am and I have found myself because of it. I feel free, admitting this truth to myself as well.

I always know that I'm different. People says that I've changed because I become a loner and isolate myself these past few years but I don't think I do. I just become myself. I just woke up one day and took off all the clothes I'm wearing so I will fit in the society and accepted the dress that I've been ignoring for too long. I slipped it on and saw someone smiling back at me when I looked in the mirror. "Oh! Who would have known you're that gorgeous!"

I guess no one really decides to be a writer. Not even me. I decided to become a nurse and work in a hospital. You decide to be an engineer or a soldier or scavenger but you cannot decide to be a writer. Writing is like being in love. You stop telling yourself that you're not falling for someone, that it takes more than just a pretty face to make your heart beat like crazy and you step out into the light and admits that you're in love. And when you do, you start to see the world from a different point of view and without knowing it; you're already letting yourself live.

For the first time in my twenty two years of life, I can finally say tht I'm alive. Half of me died together with my sister three years ago but I realize that even before that I'm not really living. Writing gives me a sense of purpose that I never thought I will be allowed to have. It's like I'm only starting to take my first breath ever since I was born. I am living at last instead of mere existing.

The follow up question is: What is my goal in writing?
I know the answer by heart. I want to inspire people. Isn't that the goal of everything we do? God has given us talents in hope that we will use it in the best ways. Don't interrupt me by saying that writing is a way to escape oblivion because I believe that no matter what we do, no one can ever escape such fate. It's more like I want to be someone everyone around me didn't dare imagine. I want to prove to those pessimist and yes, even to myself, that we can always rise above ourselves and be someone we always want to be. If we really want it that badly.

The second question will go like: Am I really sure about taking this endeavor?
I know you can relate to me if I say that I'm aware of having only one lifetime to live and if we invest ourselves to something that doesn't have seventy percent success rate...

I am also aware that it's easier to dream of having a mansion, three luxury cars, nine zeros in bank account, handsome and stunning husband and three lovely children added up with the world's most expensive dog out there but, I don't know. Maybe there are these kinds of things that you wanted so much you'll be willing to see yourself risking everything just to see it come true. I don't care if I'm the only one who believes that tomorrow, I will walk inside my favorite bookstore and stop on that beautiful work, I, myself had written. I have arrived to the point where I no longer care if my family or friends will be please and approve what I'm doing and of what I'm going to do. As long as I can see it as vividly as it can be, I don't care if it's lame or pointless in anyone's eyes.

I made this entry during my break before starting the third chapter of my new story. My goal for this month is to come up with 70,000 words and I'm willing to sprinkle salt in my open wound to reach it (suck the metaphor). I'm not saying it's a story worth a million dollar contract now. I'm still working it out and I know there's still a mile to go before I can produce a marketable work. All I know now is that I'm willing to go as far as my dreams can take me. There's no turning back, the only choice left is going ahead.

I pray that this endeavor will be a good one and if I stumble I'll make sure to read this entry and remind myself of the happiness I have in writing. Like I said, I'm not there yet, but I'm closer to it than I was yesterday. I'm not sure if I'm going to win though but I know I'll never lose. As Paulo Coelho said, only those who give up are defeated. If that's the case then, I'll die trying.