i’ve been wanting to have a quiet moment to hit the keys for quite a while but the inspiration is just never coming. it’s a bummer that my will to write had grossly weakened in reverse parallel to my mind that had learned to run like a pro… so many thoughts that i would have wanted memorialized, but only escaped on my watch — and there’s nothing to blame for this rust but my lazy bum.
but anyway, let me try. right this slow afternoon, as i turn off my music and engage in my caffeine, i stop for a moment and harness whatever of those thoughts remained in its receptacles.
2024, you magnificent bastard. i hated you and i love you. as you come to a close today, i blow my kisses while you send me off at the gates of sweet redemption, just when i thought we will be parting on a sour note.
the tremor
a few weeks ago, i found myself standing on the verge of a grand backsliding. it’s the worst that i have felt in a long time. an unfamiliar bad taste of ennui and boredom that stealthily and gradually stole my joy, made me question my reasons for staying, robbed me of my excitement and planted rotten seeds in my very fertile brain.
and then, while i was barely recovering, there’s that palpable threat which came slandering in a punctuating fashion. a threat to the harmony in the life which i had come to love that ignited all sorts of fears in me. fears on what may or may not come next. fears that the gold i thought are already in my hands are gonna go up in smoke in no time.
no, i don’t like it that things are moving. i don’t like the uncertainty. i don’t like where i was at. and the consistent waking up to such strong dislike of what’s happening (and not happening) had eaten away a portion of me little by little that one day, i can’t recognize myself anymore.
for weeks, i was so beside myself. i never realized that your head hurting with so much thinking could be quite literal and that’s when the awfulness of it all had started physically manifesting. i was unable to sleep and eat, i lost weight and my blood pressure was through the roofs. my head was so jaded, nothing is coming nor going. not the pep talk from the most selected, trusted people — not a prayer.
and only when i had that literal fear for whether i will still wake up from my sleep, that i knew i had to snap out of it and pull myself together — which in itself entailed mustering of herculean strength. there’s that phobia of talking to a doctor, which i purposely avoided for years, and which i have learned is still very much in my system (with my heart pounding so bad in the lobby while waiting for my turn, i honestly thought i would pass out). there’s that raw embarrassment of needing to inconvenience two people with my rants that only came running in stupid circles. there’s that shame of having people notice you, for once, so scattered, so weak, so messy.
it frightened me recognizing that i am, for the first time, dealing with this in an unfamiliar terrain — here, where i am essentially by myself, a thousand miles from my fortress. i know that the battle will be different and difficult… how do i win this?
and then the answer came, one uneventful ‘wednesday morning’, while i was pacing around my dining room during my sore attempt to again try and pray, i just felt this overwhelming grace envelope me. it is as if the clouds in my head have cleared, the walls collapsed and all the messages from friends, from books, from no less my very self, which for weeks have tried to penetrate and knock some sense into me, just came rushing all at once, in what i had imagined as a deluge of light-bulb moments. it came out of nowhere, no trigger whatsoever… or maybe, it’s those weeks-worth of desperate breath prayers begging for help, already receiving their share of rescue. what was that if not divine?
the calm
for a pretty long run, i truly felt and sincerely uttered so much gratitude for how my life turned out to be so good since moving here. brightly comparing to (and i don’t even need to get too far but barely just) three years ago, where i lay slumped in my newly finished bathroom floor, crying the unbearable emptiness out of my heart (the moment that gave birth to the third tattoo, which i’ve always loved sharing since).
the past two years have been the closest to the “success story” i’ve always joked about. i’ve claimed it as a breakthrough. an answered prayer to a person who struggled liking her life so much, but never lost faith along the way, anyway. the lesson had been to hang in there. you’re being heard, the message is delivered from that bathroom-floor — just you wait.
and that’s where my thought found me that fateful ‘wednesday morning’. and my question suddenly flipped from ‘why’ to ‘how dare i’. how dare i still doubt that i am in capable hands that will never forsake me? how dare i feel so bad to be leering at a situation that doesn’t fit my perfect narrative?
how dare i fail to recognize that this is a bathroom-floor situation right here! how dare i forget so easily how things were made to work out for me the last time?
for the first time in weeks, i was crying (still while pacing around my dining room) because of such light that came to me that just seemed to have suddenly unburdened me off most, if not all of my load. i felt saved. i felt like i was given a handy card to pull up — that is the dining-room moment — when the shit starts hitting the fan again (which it never quite did, at least not as intensely).
that in all things, God may be glorified
i have known that verse for quite a while but i have never felt its truest sense since after that morning, where a divine grace have taught me that if i can rejoice effortlessly through the joyful days, i should still be able to sing praise through the challenging phases. for the sole reason of faith, my life being a testament to it, that the plans laid out for me are out there, sitting unfathomably grand somewhere — one more time and always, just you wait.
the rebuild
this Christmas season, all the chance i got to pray, i let out my one sincere Christmas wish and that is for this light in my heart to never die. that i be tugged right back in, come any sign of stumble from this spiritual maturity (or miracle) that i claim i had been favoredly gifted. i thought i wanted nothing else but to be guided by the grace that comes with that message, now and only until forever.
thank you for the good work of Your hands that is my life
as the year ends, i come in peace with my old self, who i claim is set out to become only a better of its version, day each day.
sharing another Christmas gift i’ve received and i’ll probably write about (barring my lazy bum) another time.
here’s to a happy fresh start, my love 🍺
shaken, not stirred. 