Even as I say these words, I give you this promise.

I'm hardly the type of person who plans what to write. I just type or jot down and I don't stop until the words run out. I used to have just notebooks or pieces of paper scribbled with words, and phrases, or paragraphs, and poems. I love words. I think words can have so much impact and they don't often cost a dime (unless of course you go to the theatre, then you pay to see people spouting off words). People make their living off words; journalists, write stark or sensational news; authors, use words to draw us into their worlds; poets, are all a-rhyming; and so many various others, like screenwriters, ghostwriters, and the kind that writes the small print for the credit card companies and the banks, that I'm almost tempted to say, 'Yes, there is an App for that'.

I write on this blog stuff that mostly only make sense to me. Because I like writing for myself. I used to write letters and letters to my friends back in high school. All silly and ridiculous and serious the lot of them. I think words are lovely because they can be loverly, intimate; like they can curl up beside you and stay there for days, decades, and you would be able to still savor them even when they're just imprints on your shoulders. And then there're the kind that make you squirm, flinch away, because they sting even when the echoes are only heard from the depths of your soul. Because words are also unsafe. But there's so many kinds of words. Words of wisdom, words of anger, words of inquiry, words of passion, and words of doubt. Words and words of words.

I especially love the kind that leave you speechless. The kind that makes you pause, and just be there for you to really feel them. The words that touch you, the kind you can't unhear, whether they be right or wrong. Words that are like a balm that soothes. A lullaby that assures. Words that comfort when you need them.

I know she's bone tired; she hasn't been sleeping well. I hear him in the kitchen, making her coffee, tapping off the teaspoon. The weariness is in her voice when she asks quietly, "What would happen to me when you're no longer with me?" I hear him shift, his footfall loud on tiles as he walks to her. "Then I'll come back. I'll come back to you, my love".

Yes. He will. A reason why I love words is the emotions behind them as they are said. Even when you say the wrong ones, you redeem yourself as quickly as you say the right ones. Words of promise, of hope; I think they're the best kinds. Because they're the kinds you share with another, despite and because of how they shift lives. The kind of words that are looked forward to. The kind that means no more words need to be said. I long to say them. Out loud, and not just write them. But I'm saving the best for last, like the closing to a letter.

Sincerely,
Katrina

It's not only Alice who wishes for things to make sense

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with the golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams beneath your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
by William Butler Yeats, He Wishes for Cloths of Heaven

So far, all I do have are dreams, resumes, job applications that I have not heard back from, three more semesters to finish nursing school, all those years in between to build up me resume, volunteer work at school, at church, and at the hospital, and nightmares that appear to hold the majority of my common sense.

Don't you just hate it when your nightmares rise up against you and let you see the truth in it's bare form? I had one recently about how I was also a graduate and was in a job interview with the hospital that had given me my scholarship. The panel was asking me why they should hire me when my resume had nothing on it, and I could only stammer a feeble defense that they've already given me their money, that they've invested on me, so why shouldn't they just hire me. Ah, how I love how my brain interacts with the world. So I woke up with a deep inhale but still the fear remained and I carry it with me.

The world judges peoples by their resume, or their lack of one. And as I do not have the proof that I am qualified nor that I actually have these skills, I am not going to be hired. Such is life. I have this fear that I am lacking even as my loved ones assure me that I am more than enough as I am. And yet, again I look at the world as it looks at my non-existent job experience and I tremble. I have this fear that I will forever be at the mercy of my parents' estate. And I fear that one day they will look at me say, "Enough". I have this fear that I will never be able to reciprocate, never. And I have this fear that I will wake up alone in the world with no hope in the world. All because the world won't give me a chance when I have no former employer to back me up.

My mother despairs of me; "You have all these potential, your desire to work is there, but it's wasted". My high school professor once told me, "Kulang ka sa galit" (You lack anger). And I believe them. Everyone needs passion to live. A life without passion is not one I would call a life. I would say that you are going through the motions of life. I want a life of no regrets. But life forces us to grow up where the grown ups get to say what being a grown up is all about; owning your own home, your own car, your own spouse and kids, your own job, and your own debts. Sometimes I don't look forward to growing up and retiring when I'm sixty-five. It's a jumble of nightmares and daydreams for me, life and growing up.

For now, I'll be sending applications no matter if you're not hiring. I won't lose anything any way. But I'm hoping to gain a job. And hopefully by the time I graduate, three semesters from now, I won't be stammering any feeble answers to the panel, I won't be featured in a horrifying job interview nightmare, and my brain will keep the remaining sanity I have left intact. At least, there aren't any mad hatters or hookah-smoking caterpillars yet.