celebrating nanay

Every beetle is a gazelle in the eyes of its mother.  ~Moorish Proverb

(i liked it obviously because of the mention of the gazelle, but moreso because i simply agree. 

moms exaggerate. moms overestimate.ü)

i thank God for mothers. 

just imagine how they consciously gave up their figures to bear a human life inside them. waistlines expand to i don’t know how much. the discomfort of carrying around a bulging stomach for 9 loooong months. the unimaginable labor pain they had to go through just so that cute little thing will be able to see the world, and later on experience it's beauty and madness. and the never-ending distinct role they play to their little ones' lives.

i thank God for nanay. 

at a tender age of 21, with ate, she marked her journey to motherhood. then i came around right before she mastered the motherhood tricks, sooner than she expected, sometime in her 22^{nd year}. 

i’ll be turning 24 this year, and it still blows my mind away everytime i think about how young nanay was when she had ate and me. she was at the prime of her youth when she had to learn what it is to become selfless, to have her life no longer her own, but a life owned by some little girls. in spite and despite of my oldtime “tampo” and a couple of stale “sama ng loob”, no matter how many sweet good moms i bump into, no matter how different our views, personalities and life strategies are, eventhough what i have is a love-hate relationship with her, i honestly say, cliché as it may be, i wouldn’t exchange her for anyone else.

i don't have a perfect mom, and it's just fit and fair because i'm not a perfect daughter either.

lucky for me though, i have the best! (even if i am not the best, myself.)

and today i celebrate her beauty and madness (just like the world she allowed me to see, experience and explore).

dreams, crystalized and revised.

to belong to the twenty-something crowd is crazy. not in a bad way though, i say a plesant crazy way. 

as john ryan recabar (one of the best and extinct men bloggers i follow) put it, “we are in such a perfect time to commit mistakes for we can always reason out “hey! i’m only twenty-something”. so why don’t we risk, commit mistake for we are in the best time of our lives to learn lessons from flops done and still get away with it with a smile.”

being twenty-something is equally the best time of dreaming tall dreams, having multiple plans, as many as we can, as much as our minds can conceive, and uncaring whether they are all parallel or not, doable or otherwise; for twenty-somethings don’t have a concept of impossible.

i had that realization since i started creating my dreams one after the other, scrapping off some later on, and making new ones over and over again. and it feels good doing that, dreaming, then planning the best course of action to take in achieving them.

on a superficial level, i dream of having my own macbook air laptop. i even promised myself that i won’t settle on anything else. but to have a laptop is an immediate necessity for me (i want to be able to blog often, and probably get an online-home-based job) and i still don’t have enough resources to acquire my dream one. so i concede, i consider getting a sony vaio netbook instead. my macbook dream will take a backseat for a while.

on a more serious and long-term note, i dream of enrolling in graduate school this year, get my master’s degree in language education, continue my tutorial job, eventually put up my own tutorial center, with ate and/or my friend joicee, save up, continue making mutual fund investments, drop off being an employee to any company, and become an entrepreneur.

until..

..recently there is an open opportunity and possibility of working in singapore. and i started reconsidering things and tweaking my dreams and plans this way and that. and i realized that the adjustments just fit. i’ll be able to save-up quicker, and aim for my original dreams in lesser time. 

so yes, i'll change course. 

and i'll celebrate my being twenty-something.

and i'll never get tired of dreaming and aiming.

sweet pleasures♥

whoever said that life is unfair is dead wrong. life is fair. life is simple. life is sweet. life is fun. 

life is hard, possibly, but the fact that it is just adds to the fun. sure, there are "bad hair" days when i also feel a heavy sinking feeling, but it has been my daily target to surround myself with good vibes. this means finding even the slightest joy in an even simplest thing. so, inspired by marc's thoughts and insights, i'm listing down my actual mundane experiences (mostly recurring, others i know i will re-experience) of life's simple pleasures, and enjoying recounting them in the process.

1. having someone pronounce my name wrong but utters it so sweetly i don't bother correcting him/her anymore. 

2. finding money i totally forgot i hid in between pages of a book, or in a pocket of a freshly washed clothe (*clothing).

3. smelling coffee's distinct aroma right before taking a delicious sip.

4. making momentary eye contact with a cute stranger. (which rarely happens, since i look away as fast as i can)

5. making a steady eye contact with a cute baby. (no smile is more disarming than a baby's toothless grin)

6. getting a short haircut after keeping my hair long, and not regretting it.

7. receiving a text message right in time when i check my  phone.

8. getting half of the work done at the very first hour of shift.

9. hearing a childhood favorite song and realizing i still remember the lyrics from start to finish.

10. turning the alarm clock off on friday nights.(oh, so love the feel of it.)

11. singing heartfelt worship songs with eyes closed at kerygma feast.

12. walking along a quiet ayala street with tets, early in the morning on a weekend. (yes teresa, special mention. you know you are my favorite walking buddy)

13. hearing a fellow jeep/fx commuter say thank you as i pass over  his/her fare or change.

14. seeing random, touching, or downright cheesy posts from friends on my facebook wall.

15. drinking a glass of ice-cold water "all-the-way-down" on a hot summer day..

16. overhearing a funny joke that i can't help but giggle silently, or sometimes loudly about.

17. hearing actual birds chirping early in the morning while waking up next to someone i love. (i can't believe i really had that awesome experience. sweet heavens, I HAD. I HAD!ü)

18. eating a very tasty new dish that i can't help but say "saraaaaap" over and over again.

19. crossing a spotless street, with no cars  in sight within a mile's distance.

20. being spaced out, enoying a comfortable silence (looking out to nothing in particular with absolutely nothing in mind.)

the list is limitless. i can even go on and on, and on. point is, life has many of these. they are there for us to experience, enjoy fully and appreciate genuinely. they don't have to be grand, outstanding or special. most of them are disguised as ordinary moments that we sometimes let them pass that easy, that we let them go unnoticed and uncelebrated. 

the next time someone passes your fare to manong driver, say an audible "thank you." it's not his/her job to do that for you, but does so just the same.ü 

delicious ambiguity♥

...life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment, and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. delicious ambiguity.

                                               -Gilda Radner

          i live by my planner. i started using one back when i was in senior high and i never stopped using since. as new year comes and goes, i'm always enthusiastic and excited as to how my next planner would look like, and what new plans will i be writing, and eventually be pursuing for real.


          so, am i highly-organized and planned? no. do i get frustrated when some tasks and things-to-do don't materialize? not even. though i feel a slight genuine sense of fulfillment every time i see all plans carried out for the day, i find it fascinating to see some things checked and several others crossed out on each page, each day.


          even if i have things scheduled accordingly, i make sure i leave an ample room for flexibility: a sudden turn, a change of plan, a random action.


          i particularly love this past sunday experience wherein i got to taste life's sweet combination: planned and unplanned moments, expectations and surprises.


♥ date with nanay, ate and joicee
          this is the planned part: to get nanay attend kerygma feast with me and ate, along with joicee, and to give them a lunch treat after. this will always be one of my fondest memory dating these special ladies.


nanay in between her girls, after the feast.





gaizee and joicee



scrumptious meal we shared at shakey's

♥ "unasked-for" prayer
          sometimes, i'm glad ate has that charming (sometimes irritating) persistence of a child. she insisted to have our picture taken with bro. obet cabrillas, the pasig k-feast preacher. after the quick photo op, he offered, to our surprise and joy, "can i pray for you?" not only did we get a nice shot with this awesome man, we also got a sincere surprise pray-over from him.

♥ impromptu haircut
          apparently, this is the unplanned part. and i thought, sometimes, all it takes is a random idea and a willing friend to jump in and join you in that idea. the random idea: get a haircut. the willing friend: joicee. originally, we dreamt of having long curly locks. eventually, we gave up that dream for a better dream.

before



...and after.



 ...all these, and more, are what life is all about.

this is why life is worth living for...and blogging about.ü