Halcyon

Searching for Traquility Ramblings, reviews and random thoughts about life from a a teenager suffering from Peter Pan Syndrome.

[smileaboutsomething]

It’s wonderful when we both take breaks from the world and just take time to listen to each other and ask questions about seemingly mundane things that change through time: favorite memories, how we describe each other, things that are valuable to us, etc. Simple questions which transcend into strangely intimate answers. 

It’s a powerful experience to be able to genuinely listen and care about what the other has to say, even more so the act of being listened to by someone who would not judge you by your vulnerabilities.

It has occurred to me that no matter how much we think we know people, there are always going to be parts of them that will change before we are able to fully understand them. The conscious effort to love someone through moments of misunderstanding determines if we can manage to get through it. 

Perhaps, through everything, it is really is friendship that keeps relationships stable. At the end of the day, it’s really just finding someone willing to be willing to genuinely listen to us when the whole world doesn’t seem to care. 

[smileaboutsomething]

In the 5 years we’ve been together, occasionally I ask myself if I would have still dated him if we had met a little later than high school. Intermittently, there has been both yes and no, depending on which tumultuous period of life I’m in. 

I had been conditioned by society for a long time that I had act, look or be a certain way to be deserving of love. It was strange to have someone who so early on decided that he didn’t need me to fulfill a checklist before he could love me, a man who had forgiven me even for the wrong things that I have not done yet. Every so often, I feel an itch to get away from him. It’s as if my body can’t accept the fact someone could tolerate my being so insanely difficult without any sign of wanting to give up. 

I’ve had men offer expensive dinners, trips abroad or the occassional gifts, but never really one like him. One that offered his heart out so bare that I could hear the beat resonate in my own head. It was the kind of love that was terrifying, because it demanded so little but gave so much. It was an inexplainable kind of attachment, as if his tenderness was wrapped around the roots of my very being. I was no longer afraid to be struck down by reaching too high because the ground beneath my feet felt safe, solid, and secure.

Perhaps, I never really understood what it meant to be loved in this way before. I’ve never understood what it meant to find it so easy to give up conveniences for a few moments with another, what it meant to make plans around another’s life and to find a great joy with just the possibility of being held in their arms.

Perhaps, if I were to be judged by anything I have learned in this life, I hope it would be how much I have learned to love.

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

I need you as the one luminous point in my madness.

Henry Miller, from a letter to Anaïs Nin featured in A Literate Passion: Letters Of Anaïs Nin & Henry Miller (1932 - 1953)

[smileaboutsomething]

Life is absurd.

Reading Albert Camus made a lot of sense to me, even more than Marcel’s Phenomenology of Hope, 

There comes a distinct moment in our lives, a moment of lucidity, that makes see life from a bigger scale and makes whatever we are doing or worrying about seem meaningless. I have quite a lot of those moments.

Whenever I hear news about needless suffering, I’m always a little apprehensive if it makes sense to believe in a God that would permit something so cruel. There’s always the argument that God does so in order to build people, but too much suffering is more likely to break them. Why would a loving God, in all His glory, allow people to break? Then again, if suffering were not at random, then our relationship would have been a matter of transaction: If I do a good thing, then good things would happen to me. If I am a shitty person, shit things will happen to me. In order to be able to exercise free will, God chooses people whose lives tend to become shit. There is another argument asking if God favors the other more. Why are other people less likely to experience a certain degree of suffering that can break them, while others do not? Does that mean he has bigger plans for others? I have not come into peace with this yet.

I guess the question of meaninglessness is so apt sometimes. In the face of our mortality, people are either avoidant, acceptant or try very hard to create a way for them to be immortalized in their own right. But really, what is it for? Why are we so afraid of death that we try to prolong it as long as possible? Why pay millions for therapies to delay the inevitable? Why do we build walls around our nations and hurt other people so that we may live better lives that will only end in death? Why not just kill yourself?

For me, suicide isn’t an option because you only take out one side of the equation. Life is not any less absurd when you die, you just die. It’s a coward’s way out. Brave are those who live what they believe to be meaningless lives simply because they are chasing after a moment of lucidity where things make sense, even if that moment never really comes. 

There is a death that is diminishing, and one that creates new life. For the man condemned to death, life can be all the more meaningful. Meaningful not in the sense that we fight to be the best at everything, better than everyone, to do everything, or to be remembered. Meaningful because we choose to go on despite the moments that tell us that nothing really does make sense, but we’re willing to keep living for the moment until it does.

[smileaboutsomething]

Maybe human beings cannot believe in God

because we wouldn’t recognize unconditional love even if we were slapped with it in the face.

[spiritualinspiration2]

[smileaboutsomething]

Thoughts on Fitness

1. Take care of your body, but don't be too obsessed with it. You are not only your body, but you cannot be separated from it either.

2. Your body is not a problem that needs to be fixed whether through strategic dressing or crash dieting. You wear what fits you and what you feel comfortable in.

3. Fitness should always be towards celebrating what you can do, not so you fit into a societally approved figure.

4. Don't force yourself to work out in the gym. Take classes, swim, hike, or do whatever brings you joy and makes you stronger.

5. Your body is a vessel to do great things with, most of which that are not defined by your waist line, BMI or vital statistics.  

[spiritualinspiration2]

As believers in Jesus, we are called to be His ambassadors or representatives in the earth. In the natural, ambassadors are privileged. They are diplomats with the highest rank. They walk in the authority of the name of the one who sent them.

As God’s ambassadors on this earth, we walk in His power and authority. We are to promote relationship with Him. The Bible also calls us “ministers of reconciliation,” which means we are the ones to bring the message of hope in Jesus to the world. When you see yourself as God’s ambassador, it will change the way you think. It will change the way you act. It will change the way you approach people.

Today, remember, that you are a representative of Almighty God. Look for ways to promote relationship with Him. Speak words of healing that will draw people. Show kindness because it’s His kindness that leads people to repentance. Look for ways to bless others as we work together to build His kingdom.

[smileaboutsomething]

I have a TV guesting the morning after my flight gets in from Manila, and a press conference the next day.  The press releases from my first presscon is going to come out in a week or two. 

With the parade and the coronation looming, it has been one event after another. I’m thankful for the opportunity. Viva La Señora dela Candelaria!

[smileaboutsomething]

This uniqueness and singleness which distinguishes each individual and gives a meaning to his existence has a bearing on creative work as much as it does on human love. When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear in all its magnitude. A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throwaway his life. He knows the “why” for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any “how.”

Viktor Frankl (via smileaboutsomething)

[smileaboutsomething]

Most people don’t know this, but I literally was praying to St. Joseph during the time that I met my current boyfriend. Back then, I would have never imagined that I would find someone who would look at me the way Patrick does every single day that we’re together, even after nearly five years. He’s grown into quite the young man, and I am excited to see who he’s going to become in the future. I would have never imagined growing older with such a wonderful person. 

[smileaboutsomething]

I’ve never been one of those people who hold on to things. I let go of feelings, dreams and people quite easily. I’ve learned that putting pressure on good things to last longer than they should only ruin relationships. I’ve come into terms that not all great things are meant to last, and that is okay.

Perhaps, this is because I have been putting all my energy into discovering myself the past few years of college life. Reading old articles about my experiences at the beginning of it, with my anxieties about going away from friends, shifting degrees, deciding one org over another, makes me kind of laugh now. Things have somehow worked out, better than I hope it would. 

It was a long process of stepping outside of the box I’ve built for myself growing up. Leaving everyone’s expectations at the door, and simply going with what felt right at the time. I like myself more today than I ever had in my entire life. I never expected to become who I am now, and I am proud of everything that I’ve become and all that I’ve had to overcome to get here.

With the threshold of another turning point in my life looming, Graduation, I’m trying to ease my anxiety by reminding myself that there will come another point in my life that things will feel like they have fallen miraculously into place. Until then, I will keep working and keep praying until it does.

[smileaboutsomething]

I never thought I’d be the type of person to get job offers so early in my college life, an entire semester before graduation and I already feel the weight of my adult choices sinking in. While I am in the process of discerning, I am both humbled and anxious of the thought of working for someone else, at least for the time being.

From the looks of it, I don’t think I will accept the job in New York. Not yet, at least. There is an offer locally, a Management Trainee position, that I can not seem to pass by. Unexpected as it was, beyond the compensation plan and promise of growth, there is something in my gut that tells me that there is something I must learn from this type of corporate work. 

I understand that the whole premise of corporate is that I am expendable, replaceable and only as sexy as my ability to produce quality work. I know that the end of the day, corporate is not my end goal, my dream or my highest good. But I understand that at this point, it is a necessary step to gain the skills I need to succeed in the fields that I want to thrive in, in the distant future.

I pray for the grace to choose the path that God wills me to.

[tessalivesandbreathesbooks]

When you consider things like the stars, our affairs don’t seem to matter very much, do they?

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven (via tessalivesandbreathesbooks)

[smileaboutsomething]

I am not your ego booster.

[smileaboutsomething]

The next few months

are going to be a whirlwind adventure.

Photoshoots, press conferences, TV interviews. 

[smileaboutsomething]

My greatest strength is that I’m not afraid to die.

I’m more afraid to live long enough to lose the fire from my eyes.