One. There’ll be days like this my momma said.
No, really, my mom DID say I had it coming. I won’t waste time writing about the details of these past few months, because no amount of words will do it justice. But I WILL talk about what I learned. So that in the future, I can just hand my future heartbroken daughter a LINK to this blog instead of creating a whole poem just for her. Poetry is not one of my strengths and time is not on my side.
Two. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.
It’s funny how we just block out every single flashing, BLARING warning sign when we’re following our hearts, and I don’t just mean where relationships are concerned. I’m talking about any situation that requires a certain degree of passion and commitment. Then you hit a dead end, or worse, you end up in a terrible trainwreck of a situation, and you realize that you never really had ANYTHING figured out. A good friend once told me that in the crappiest of situations you can be sad, but you can’t STAY sad (de Rivera, 2011). He may have picked out a random cliche just to put an end to my constant bawling, but I’ve always believed that cliches are over-used for a reason. And cliches tend to stick.
And so I came up with a plan to “remind myself how much I like the taste of LIFE”:
1. Talk about the crappy situation everyday for a week or two to your closest friends, then after two weeks just STOP. Completely. Thinking about things leads you to talking about things. Talking to people makes them feed you words, which leads to new thoughts and, therefore, more talking. At some point, you just need to stop.
2. Approach someone you’ve never talked to and ask them about random things, no matter how superficial or irrelevant (e.g. What’s your favorite boyband?). When they respond, REALLY listen to what they’re saying, you’ll pick up something interesting AND possibly gain a new friend.
3. When you look at your immediate surroundings, surely every single thing will remind you of that crappy thing that happened to you. So throw aside your “memory goggles” and look at the place you’re in as it is NOW. Observe and you will realize that EVERYTHING is so amazingly different.
4. Plan out your week. Structure is always a good thing, but leave out an hour or two for something new and spontaneous. Today, I took a different route on the way home. It was completely useless and time-consuming, but also completely THRILLING.
Three. Don’t you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining.
I was once told that I apologize too much. At this point in my life, I will apologize for my actions. I will apologize even for things I did not do. But I will not apologize for being who I am, and for loving and believing almost to a fault.
The book I’m reading now says that every person has a WORD. A word that encompasses who you are. And after thinking about it the entire day (that’s an exaggeration, it was probably just during that MRT ride from Quezon Ave to Magallanes), I realized that all I’ve really done this entire time is BELIEVE. Because at the end of the day, even the smallest shred of belief in ANYTHING - in yourself, in people, in the universe, in love - should be enough to keep you going.
P.S. Thank you Mia Macapagal for sharing this awesome video with me. :)
