Grace is Gone

Lately, my mind’s been toying with a lot of things, a lot of possibilities; some lingering, others fleeting. I don’t know anything else to do with them but to jot them down and hopefully act on things that matter the most and are more urgent. Here are some of those that I entertained (well, I will be censoring some, for fear of exposing myself too much..)

• Naka-book na daw si Papi ng March 25. I wonder what time his flight is, kc kung 12 nn ang flight nya, then 18 hours daw ung flight, de dadating sha dito 6pm, plus 5hrs kc Qatar time yun, so 11pm ang dating nya, 1hr na lang bday na ni Darren.
• Ano kaya iniisip ng mga taong hindi ko nirereplyan agad? Iniisip kya nila I’m too busy, I don’t care, I’m ignoring them…sana maisip nila tulog ako, haha, tas nabasa ko ung text nila nung naalimpungatan ako, tas nakatulog ako ulet, then forgot all about it when I really woke up.
• Kelangan ko na magbayad ng rent, Feb 2 na. End of the month dapat yun. Tangina naman kc yung mga kahati ko, leche. Alam naman nang wala silang pera hindi pa naghagilap bago magkatapusan. Asa nanaman sila na aabunohan ko yun! Kumuha na lang sana ako ng sarili kong unit.
• Kung kukuha ako ng sarili kong unit, dapat 3 bedroom, kc maliliit ang sala/dining rm (imposible yata magkaron ng pareho sa size ng unit dito..). kc isa para sa men ni papi, isa para sa kids, at shempre, para sa yaya, haha. alangan sa sala ko patulugin un..or tabi sila ni dar, ang weirdo nun.. At oo, ang mahal nun. P7500 2-bedrm pa lang yun, may monty dues pa..
• Gusto ko mag-open ng foodcart. pero ndi ko alam kung san ko ilalagay. yung mga lecheng kelangan ko makausap ang hirap timing-an. O baka nagdadahilan lang. ampotah.
• Ang hirap talaga ng umaasa sa iba. bwiset.
• Naniniwala ka ba na may mangyayaring action pag ang sagot sa yo ng inutusan mo eh, “Mamaya. or maya-maya”? For example, Tapon mo na ung basura, punong-puno na. Mamaya. Anong oras mo ba kakausapin mommy mo, kala ko ba hihiram ka pera? Maya-maya. Nakakagigil. Parang gusto ko manulak para lang masabing “kumilos” sila. 
• Naiwan kong nakasaksak yung laptop. At naka-standby lang sha. Shet. At walang uuwi ngayon sa bahay..goodluck.
• Ano nanaman idadahilan ko sa Feb 9. Itutuloy ko na kaya yun or tyatyagain ko na kasi kelangan? Kc walang pera ang mga tao pambayad ng rent. Leche. Kelangan ako lagi gagawa.
• Pano na kaya yung bahay pag umuwi si Papi, shempre wala na ko dun para asikasuhin ang mga bills at magligpit. Mga lecheng un. Maiilit kme ng hindi oras, puro gamit ko panaman andun. Baka hindi na lang kme bigla papasukin.
• Gusto ko manabunot.
• Bakit ang mga lalaki walang ibang gusto kundi sex?! Sex pag masaya, sex pag malungkot. Sex pag bagong gising, sex bago matulog. Sex pag magkaaway, sex pag magkasundo. Sex pag pagod. Sex pag gutom, sex pag busog..Sex pag walang pera, sex pag bagong sweldo. Kahit inaaway na sila ng GF nila, ampotah sex pa din pala iniisip. Minsan talaga yung utak nalalaglag eh..nakakabwiset lang 
• Diba sex lang naman yun pag may partner ka? And tv doesn’t count as a partner. Haha.
• Pumunta si Jenna sa bahay nung isang arw. nakita ang washing machine, nasa sala, kalinya ng TV at bookshelf. Ibenta ko na lang daw dahil hindi ko naman ginagamit. Sabi ko, ayoko dahil may sentimental value un sa ken. It’s actually one of the first items i got when i moved out of my mom’s house nung 25 ako. Yung fridge and dining table, i sold it na out of need for money and space. Yung ibang gamit ko, hiniram, arbor na pala, dahil masisira nila..gaya nung isang side table and electric fan ko. Ay nako.

Yeah, I know, most of it are actually rantings. Sana mabasa nga ng mga concerned! Hahaha..yeah right. As if may pakelam sila. whatever.

On a spur of the moment trip home to get my daughter and go swiming with her, I saw him.  There he was, in a red jersey, driving his motorbike, as if in slow motion.  Even with a helmet on, I recognized his milky complexion, and the boiling of my blood was a definite give-away.

Even with the windows rolled up, his stench overpowered me. The Ex who left two months before the wedding.  Thank goodness he did, otherwise I would’ve been so miserable right now because of his womanizing and incapability to provide, I would’ve killed myself by now.  But then why, after more than two years, am I still so angry at him I wanna skin him alive?

I’ve been watching reruns of the Sex and the City recently and Carrie Bradshaw once said, “Maybe we only obsess about relationships that feel unfinished.”

The first few weeks, or probably even months, without him, yes, I felt it was unfinished, that there was no closure.  Hell, that was the very reason why I ended up with him for the second time.  But now I just don’t think I ever forgave him. I thought I did, but I never did let go of that small anger.  Even after months of spiritual healing, prayers, and a few rebound relationships, it is still there, like a braindead patient just being kept alive by a ventilator, although it had no apparent reason to live anymore. 

In the last episode I watched, Carrie posed a question that I have a hard time answering if the question pertains to him; “When a relationship dies, do we ever really give up the ghost or are we forever haunted by ghosts of relationships past? Can you ever really forgive if yu can’t forget?”

I have a lot of exes I loath but none as much as I hold for him.  One might argue that if you stil feel something, negatively or otherwise, that you still actually care for him.  Well I beg to differ, all I feel for him are synonyms of anger, disgust, remorse, apathy, and hatred.  But my eyes still look fr him, and I see him everywhere, even if I know that he is not there.  When I did see him, the preppy, perky, and upbeat personality I picked up from work got drained an I again became dark and gloomy for a second there.  If he really was in slow motion, I would have had time to reach out of the cab window and wring his neck until his eyes turned glassy and popped out. Then I would’ve stomped on it till it breaks to pieces and I would’ve made him eat it so all his digestive innards would be screwed, just so like his life.

CHORVAH has its etymology from the Greek word cheorvamus meaning “for lack of the right word to say”, or “in place of anything you want to express but cannot verbalize.” Ibig sabihin pala, siya ay parang “aloha” sa wikang Hawaiiano, which can mean many, many things.

Variations: Chuvah, Chenes, Chenelyn, Churla

“Chorvah” can be used as:

Verb: can replace any verb
“Chorvah lang ng chorvah!”

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to    visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups — porcelain, plastic,    glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite –telling them to help themselves to the coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: “If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.

Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink.

What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups… And then you began eyeing each other’s cups.

Now consider this: Life is the coffee; the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, and the type of cup we have does not define, nor change the quality of Life we live.

Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee God has provided us.”God brews the coffee, not the cups…….. . Enjoy your coffee!
 

“The happiest people don’t have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything they have.”

Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God.

ADVICE ABOUT MEN

• Don’t imagine you can change a man - unless he’s in nappies.
• What do you do if your boyfriend walks out? You shut the door.
• If they put a man on the moon - they should be able to put them all up there.
• Never let your man’s mind wander - it’s too little to be out alone.
• Go for the younger man. You might as well, they never mature anyway.
• Men are all the same - they just have different faces, so that you can tell them apart.
• Definition of a bachelor: a man who has missed the opportunity to make some woman miserable.
• Women don’t make fools of men - most of them are the do-it-yourself types.
• Best way to get a man to do something is to suggest he is too old for it.
• Love is blind, but marriage is a real eye-opener.
• If you want a committed man, look in a mental hospital.
• The children of Israel wandered around the desert for 40 years. Even in Biblical times, men wouldn’t ask for directions.
• If he asks what sort of books you’re interested in, tell him cheque books.
• Remember a sense of humor does not mean that you tell him jokes, it means that you laugh at his.
• Sadly, all men are created equal.

Men are like….

Laxatives…They irritate the crap out of you.
Bananas…The older they get, the less firm they are.
Weather…Nothing can be done to change them.
Blenders…You need One, but you’re not quite sure why.
Chocolate Bars…Sweet, smooth, & they usually head right for your hips.
Commercials…You can’t believe a word they say.
Department Stores…Their clothes are always 1/2 off!
Government Bonds…They take soooooooo long to mature.
Mascara…They usually run at the first sign of emotion.
Popcorn…They satisfy you, but only for a little while.
Snowstorms…You never know when they’re coming, how many inches you’ll get or how long it will last.
Lava Lamps…Fun to look at, but not very bright.
Parking Spots…All the good ones are taken, the rest are handicapped.

For all those men who say, Why buy a cow when you can get milk for free?

Here’s an update for you: Nowadays, 80% of women are against marriage, Because women realize it’s not worth buying an entire pig just to get a little sausage.

Meaningful Speech by Pulitzer Prize winner Anna Quindlen at the graduation ceremony of an American university where she was awarded an Honorary PhD.
Worth reading !!”I’m a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is all I know. Don’t Ever confuse the two, your life and your work. You will walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has. There will be hundreds of people out there with your same degree: there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or your life on a bus, or in a car, or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank accounts but also your soul.

People don’t talk about the soul very much anymore. It’s so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is cold comfort on a winter’s night, or when you’re sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you’ve received your test results and they’re not so good.

Here is my resume: I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never to let my work stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider myself the centre of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh. I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they say. I am a good friend to my friends and they to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cut out. But I call them on the phone, and I meet them for lunch. I would be rotten, at best mediocre at my job if those other things were not true.

You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are. So here’s what I wanted to tell you today: Get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger pay cheque, the larger house. Do you think you’d care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast?

Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze at the seaside, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water, or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a sweet with her thumb and first finger.

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Pick up the phone. Send an email. Write a letter. Get a life in which you are generous. And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Take money you would have spent on beer and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister. All of you want to do well. But if you do not do good too, then doing well will never be enough.

It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, and our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the color of our kids’ eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. It is so easy to exist instead of to live.

I learned to live many years ago. I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get. I learned to look at all the good in the world and try to give some of it back because I believed in it, completely and utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned. By telling them this: Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby’s ear.

Read in the back yard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived”.

Pamela Lansden, Reader’s Digest Aug 1993

As I boarded the plane for my cross-country flight, I was pleased to see I might have two seats all to myself.  Exhausted and grateful for the extra room, i buckled my seatbelt and nodded off.

I was entering a state of semi-com when just before our departure, I looked up and saw the flight attendant and a small blonde blur clutching a fluorescent green and blue knapsack. Oh great, I groaned to myself I bet he’s a brat. He climbed over me, took the seat and turned to the window. I went back to sleep.

The flight was well underway as I came to and saw that my seatmate was watching me wake up.  I introduced myself and made the routine inquiries kids suffer through. Age: 8. Grade: 3rd. I asked if his parents were on board, "no."

Suddenly his big, blue eyes were locked on mine, forbidding me to turn away. His expression was strangely stiff, and I realized he was trying to control the muscles in his face.  The harder he tried to hold his chin up, the more it quivered.

"What’s wrong?" I asked. By then tears were no secret between us.  His watery gaze unbroken, he answered my question with the rawest, most emotionally naked statement I have ever heard, “I want my mommy.”

The boy had said goodbye to his mother at the airport and was en route to his father, who had custody of him.  “I just miss her so much,” he said as his little chest quaked with each sob. “She cried, too,” he told me, as though to defend his outpouring of emotion by putting himself in the best of all possible company.  This explained the youngster’s late entry on the plane, and conjured up a parting too painful to dwell on.

“This is ridiculous. I can’t cry the whole trip,” he said. Interrupting the sobs that had interrupted his telling me how he and his mom had stayed up late, taken taxis, seen a movie, shopped at the city’s best toy store and spent all the money his dad had given him. Putting on a brave face, he tried to talk of other things, but he kept coming back to the realization that the plane was carrying him farther and farther from his mom. “I just wish she were here,” he kept saying.

I asked if he could tell his dad how he felt. “He’d just say, ‘Why do you care?’ he doesn’t even like her,” the boy said. “I miss her a lot, but I can’t go on crying,” he continued, wiping his eyes with the wet sleeve of his sweater.

Clumsily, I offered him the few truths I have learned about turbulent times.  Life can be really hard. And you’ll always feel better after you’ve felt bad.  But I didn’t know how to tell him there are no ready palliatives for the sweet sorrows of goodbyes.

This child is one of the many who travel solo from one home to another, the lost baggage of parents who couldn’t stand each other and now have to divide their offspring between them.  Perhaps it’s not fair of me to question the domestic arrangements of others.  Yet as I listened to the heart of this 8 year old, I couldn’t help but wonder if these parents might have tried harder had they seen this pain.  And I remembered how the notion of “staying together for the kids’ sake” had been laughed off the face of the marital map by the time I was the boy’s age and growing up in a broken home.

Maybe two adults bowing to something smaller and something larger than themselves wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Sitting next to my new friend, I thought it made a lot of sense.

There are times when we long to be able to help someone whom we love very much, but we can do nothing. Circumstances will not allow us to approach them, or the person is closed off to any gesture of solidarity and support.

Then all we are left with is love. At such time when we can do nothing else, we can still love – without expecting any reward or change or gratitude. 

If we can do this, the energy of love will begin to transform the universe about us. Whenever this energy appears, it always achieves its ends.  “Time does not transform man. Will-power does not transform man.  Love transforms,” says Henry Drummond. 

I read in the newspaper about a little girl in Brasilia who was brutally beaten by her parents. As a result, she lost all physical movement, as well as the ability to speak.

Once admitted to hospital, she was cared for by a nurse who said to her everyday: “I love you.” Although the doctor assured her that the child could not hear and that all her efforts were in vain, the nurse continued to say: “Don’t forget, I love you.” 

Three weeks later, the child recovered the power of movement.  Four weeks later she could again talk and smile.  The nurse never gave any interviews, and the newspaper did not publish her name, but let me set this down here, so that we never forget: LOVE CURES.

Love transforms and love cures; but, sometimes, love builds deadly traps and can end up destroying a person who had resolved to give him/herself completely.  What is this complex feeling with deep down is the only reason we continue to live, struggle and improve?

It will be irresponsible for me to attempt to define it, because I, along with every other human being can only feel it.  Thousands of books have been put on, films produced, poems composed, sculptures carved out of wood or marble; and yet all any artist can convey is the idea of a feeling, not the feeling itself.

But I have learned that this feeling is present in the small things, and manifests itself in the most insignificant of our actions. It is necessary, therefore, to keep love always in mind, regardless of whether or not we take action.  Picking up the phone and saying the affectionate words we have been postponing. Opening the door to someone who needs our help. Accepting a job. Leaving a job. Taking a decision that we were putting off for later. Asking forgiveness for a mistake we made and which keeps wiggling at us. Demanding a right that is ours. Opening an account at the local florist’s, which is a far more important shop than the jeweler’s. Putting music on really loud when the person u love is far away , and turning the volume down when he/she is near. Knowing when to say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ because love works with all our energies. Discovering a sport that can be played by two. Not following any recipe, not even those contained in this paragraph because love requires creativity.  

And when none of this is possible, when all that remains is loneliness, then remember this story that a reader once sent to me.

A rose dreamed day and night about bees, but no bee ever landed on her petals.

The flower, however, continued to dream. During the long nights, she imagined a heaven full of bees, which flew down to bestow fond kisses on her.  By doing this, she was able to last until the next day when she opened again to the light of the sun.

One night, the moon, who knew of the rose’s loneliness, asked: “aren’t you tired of waiting?”

“Possibly, but I have to keep trying.”

“Why?”

“Because if I don’t remain open, I will simply fade away.”  At times, when loneliness seems to crush all beauty, the only way to resist is to remain open.

A friend of mine returns from Morocco with a beautiful story about a missionary, who, as soon as he arrived in Marrakesh, decided that he would go for a walk every morning in the desert that lay just outside the city. The first time he did this, he noticed a man lying down, with his ear pressed to the ground and stroking the sand with one hand.

‘He’s obliviously mad,’ the missionary said to himself.

But the scene was repeated everyday, and after a month, intrigued by this strange behaviour, he decided to speak to the stranger. With great difficulty, since he was not yet fluent in Arabic, he knelt down by his side.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m keeping the desert company and offering it consolation for its loneliness and its tears.’

‘I didn’t know the desert was capable of tears.’

‘It weeps everyday because it dreams of being useful to people, and of being transformed into a vast garden where they could grow cereal crops, and flowers, and graze sheep.’

‘Well, tell the desert that it is performing an important duty,’ said the missionary. ‘Whenever I walk in the desert, I understand man’s true size, because its vast open space reminds me of how small we are compared with God. When I look at its sands, I imagine all the millions of people in the world who were born equal, even if the world has not always been fair to all of them. Its mountains help me to meditate, and when I see the sun coming up over the horizon, my soul fills with joy and I feel closer to the Creator.’

The missionary left the man and returned to his daily tasks. Imagine his surprise when, next morning, he found the man in the same place and in the same position.

‘Did you tell the desert everything that I said?’

The man nodded.

‘And it’s still weeping?’

‘I can hear every sob. Now it’s weeping because it has spent thousands of years thinking that it was completely useless and wasted all the time blaspheming against God and its own fate.’

‘Well, tell the desert that even though we human beings have a much shorter lifespan, we also spend much of our time thinking we’re useless. We rarely discover our true destiny, and feel that God has been unjust to us.  When the moment finally comes, and something happens that reveals to us the reason we were born, we think it’s too late to change our life and continue to suffer, and, like the desert blame ourselves for the time we have wasted.’

‘I don’t know if the desert will hear that,’ said the man. ‘He’s accustomed to pain, and can’t see things any other way.’

‘Let’s do what I always do when I sense that people have lost all hope. Let us pray.’

The two men knelt down and prayed. One turned towards Mecca because he was a Muslim, and the other put his hands together in prayer because he was a Catholic.  They each prayed ti their own God, who has always been the same God, even though people insist on calling him by different names.

The following day, when the missionary went for his usual morning walk, the man was no longer there. In the place where he used to embrace the earth, the sand seemed wet, for a small spring had started bubbling up there.  In the months that followed, the spring grew, and the inhabitants of the city built a well there.

The Bedouin call the place ‘The Well of the Desert’s Tears.’ They say that anyone who drinks fom its waters will find a way of transforming the reason for his suffering into the reason for his joy, and will end up finding his true destiny.