I want to write you all the words but I keep them in my heart

For a long while I have not visited this place for many reasons: lack of time, school, lack of energy, school, and lack of desire. Mostly, I just didn't know if I wanted to share my experiences, my failings, my utter glee, and my current self with the rest of the internet. So, a sudden hiatus from writing was warranted.

I did miss baring my soul to the universe. I feel that writing here is similar to shouting my feelings on a mountain top where there is not a lot of chance for someone else to hear me and respond. That, of course, is not true, but it is a delusion that I choose stick to.

I have run out of words. Or I have been silent too long that words have dried up and faded even before I can write them down. I miss handwritten letters and smudges and carefully folding of the papers before tucking them in neat envelopes. I miss conversations that occur on a silent canvas of parchment and ink stains and tear stains and tears on the margins. I miss waiting for a message that I can feel, crumple, smooth out and re-fold. I miss all of these simple things that I took for granted before and now I can only slightly recall the event I was so angry about that I wrote them out or the joyful experience that I carried on about and why you wrote these words. I miss the people we used to be when we wrote them even though we were rougher, more impatient, angrier, more childish, and different than the people today.

I want to write you all the words but I keep them in my heart instead because I have no time. I have your e-mail address. I am your friend on Facebook. I just liked your status. I follow your tweets. I read your blog. I text you all the time. I call you once a while. I have no extra money for the postage. I'll pray for you instead. I don't know what to say. I don't have your address. I don't think you'll care about my week. I don't want to wait too long for your reply. I have a list of things to do. I will do it tomorrow, or maybe next week when I have time. I don't have nice pens and paper. On and on.

I'm sorry that I missed years of your life now. I'm sorry for being a below average friend that we're not even friends anymore, we're down to mere acquaintances. I'm sorry to have been such a jerk that I waited for you to write but never wrote on my own. I'm sorry I stopped sending you letters. I'm sorry we're only friends online but not in real life. I'm sorry I depend on social networking to update myself on your life and not asked you myself how you are really doing. And I'm sorry that I'm blogging this now instead of telling you myself. Ironic, I know.

This a letter to remind me to write you all the words and to read all the words you write to me. This is a reminder to make memories with people instead of just waiting for them to upload and update about their life so I can 'like' them. This is a reminder not just to keep all the things in my heart but to touch other people's hearts.

A Year of Thanks, Almost

Dear _________,

Thank you. You have brought me so much this year that I apologize in advance knowing that I have forgotten about some, most of them. But I hope you know that all the things I am thankful for, and will, I have kept as treasures in my heart.

Thank you for your faith in me, your trust, and the love that abounds. Thank you for the prayers, and the kind words and thoughts, and thank you for the messages that made me smile, that me light up, that made me alive again. Thank you for your patience, and the guidance, the wit and the silly conversations via notes, the phone, e-mail, Facebook, and face to face. Thank you for the gentle and sometimes pointed reminders of things that I have missed, lessons I needed to learn, and encouragements that have held me together when I doubted.

Thank you, if you have not heard me say these words. Thank you. I am grateful for humbling me down, with tears, with hurt, with heartache, with disappointment, with loss that I have shared with amazing people, some individuals I only recall through vague initials or shared moments. I can only thank you for your strength, and your determined drive to endure. I can only stand back and bask on how much is out there, how little I give and how much I gain.

Thank you for being the wind beneath my wings. Thank you for laughing along with me. Thank you for taking the time out of your equally busy life to share a simple but heart-filling and heart-warming meal with me as we take this adventure together. Thank you for being there when I needed someone to chat with, even at 1 AM and you have responsibilities later. Thank you for remembering my birthday, and I am sorry if I greeted you late on yours. Just know, I meant my birthday wish with my whole heart.

Thanks for being firm with me, honest, and being a real friend. Thank you for keeping me in check, and prodding me, and saying no when I needed to hear it. Thank you though for reminding me to have fun, to ease my rigidity, and live this one life I have with intent and laughter. Thank you for going to the movies with me, for singing loudly along, and spending time to just hang-out. Thank you for taking pictures of me, with me, of us; proof that yes, those are real moments and not just hazy memories.

Thank you for reconciling with me. That was probably awkward and painful for us but what matters more is us being okay and mending. Thank you because even when I wasn't there for the worst parts of your life you don't hold those against me. I am sorry though, and I hope I will be a better friend, sister, daughter, aunt, grandchild, niece, classmate, and random stranger. Thank you because you inspire me to be better, and more. I love more now, and laugh more, and cry easier, and hug a little bit tighter. Thank you for teaching me how to be.

Thank you for being a mentor, a friend, my mom, my dad, my brother, my sister, my brother in law, my niece, my cousin, my uncle, my aunt, my grandmother, almost in-laws, comrades in school, and all those things in between, like being someone who knew what to do with my dead car batteries, or the person telling me directions after I got lost for the 3,127th time.

Thank you because even though I don't name names, you know I am thanking God for you, because hopefully I have already said those words to you at least once. If not, then I hope you know now.

Thank you God, for all these things, and all those people, and all those experiences that you have brought in my life to make me more, and better. And thank you, for so much more, for the love, there's so much love that I cannot help but smile and breathe deeper.

Thank you is just one tiny part of the huge balled-up tangle that I feel.

With the hope that you love always,
Kat.

Velleity

Velleity. It's a word I stumbled upon at 3 in the morning, after typing words on my laptop's Dictionary and clicking through words I have forgotten and have not encountered, and their origins in Latin, and Dutch, and French, and Old English, and Welsh. I found some amusing and most of them interesting, and then I remembered wanting to look up the word 'vellum', but 'velleity' came up first. And made me pause and wonder what it meant sounding it in my head and mouthing the words aloud. It means 'a wish or inclination not strong enough to lead to lead to action'. Like saying 'almost'; I almost won or I almost missed my TV show. But also not quite. There is a similarity in the sense that what was desired may or may not have been fulfilled, and in the case of 'almost' it is fifty-fifty but with 'velleity' it just never happens at all. What you thought of doing never translates into anything, there is no effort or even luck at all.

It's actually tragic, pathetic even; and this thought is what niggled at me, that lead me to think of how many times in a day that occurs, well at least in my life. Inaction, either deliberately or mistakenly. From there, the thought segued to Newton's Third Law of Motion, of how for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. I wondered whether my not having an action also results in an equal and opposite reaction or if that just cancels out like a math equation where you get zero if you add two zeroes together and such. (I guess the first law would apply to this so yeah). But more than physics and math and plain english, I thought of how much I don't want that to happen. That no matter how much I procrastinate and bemoan my current life as a student, I do not want to be inactive, non-productive, or not strong enough to make true my wishes and goals. And this is probably too philosophical or taking the context too deeply and out there, I will blame this whole thing on jasmine tea with strawberry lemonade for keeping me up with think-y thoughts. It's not about being successful or self-gratification, or Abraham Maslow's tier of self-actualization (some or most may argue differently), because I know that there is a part of me that can coast through life like a professional slacker (Hello, high school years of my life and then some). The part of me that is greatly disturbed is the person that I am now at 21, not me at 16 or me at 20, because I am seeing an incongruence at this current age and the past and I know that I have change. And will continue to change. (Just observe how differently I have been writing, grammar where are you and incorrect punctuation marks, hello.)

Slowly but progressively, I am changing, hopefully into a better and more pleasant something of a person. I no longer want my world or my life to be just about me because there are so many people in the world right now that I want to get to know, and help, and inspire, and be inspired by. I no longer want to be the person who's sister, or parent, or whoever else is holding their hand. I want to be the one who reaches out and comforts, be the shoulder to cry on, have the hands that hold someone else's. As optimistic, and idealistic, and uncynical (I blanked out on this word because it has not been part of my vocabulary for a year and some months now. And idealistic and cynical are totally antonyms anyway) as I sound right now, I am sorry I cannot help it and I do not want to. Because I have seen heartache after heartache, tears, and more-than-a-knee-jerk type of response to pain and loss, and I have felt the same and you have too. I cannot stop any of these but I can help and offer myself because I want to even when this is not enough and does not even come close to what you need, it's a start. The only way from here is up or to move forward. I don't want to just wish or have a notion intrigue me and have it remain a velleity. As easy as it is to give up without even trying, I do not want a life of regrets on things I could have done with people and for people.

There was a point to this before I just collapsed into a ramble and got into a tangent. I tend to talk about five things at once and confuse everyone even myself. So yeah. At the end, it's more of a declaration of personal intent really. So what's yours?

sentimentalities for a friend

I hope you take care of your heart
And I don't just mean physically or with what you eat,
Take care that you don't easily fall in love, too fast,
Too many times, that when you one day open your eyes
You'll see how worn out and patched up it is
Only it may be then that you'll blame it on love
When in fact love had nothing to do with any of it
I hope you take care of your heart
That should you fall out of love, you'll do it gracefully
Or as graceful someone could be while breaking hearts
As you side step the wreckage that yours won't be part of.
The moment you have an epiphany that cynicism is better,
It is not, pass, do not collect 200 dollars
Because cynicism will lead to years of bitterness
And a dozen or so of cats and moldy take-away.
I hope you take care of your heart
Guard it with your life so that when you finally receive
Someone else's heart, you'll have yours to give in turn
Baring out your scars and patches, while you map out theirs
Knowing each line of heartache, minding every last burns
Take comfort in the realization that this is a promise
To care for their heart as you've cared for yours
As you've fallen both in and out of love, broken a heart
Yours as much as another's, in both epiphany and stupidity
Since most of the time, one could appear to be the other
Because this promise has everything to do with love, and not just
Falling in to it or being in it, but in taking care of it.
I hope you take care of your heart so that you will know
When someone else starts taking care of it as much and more so than you.

I do it for love

I do believe that I'm two months into my vacation, or what I usually call/shout for joy in my head as "Freeeedddooooommmm". Yes, exactly like that.

I've spent time in San Francisco to see relatives, and Yosemite, and well, a place other than Arizona. I've spent time in hospitals that had nothing to do with my clinicals but with people I personally know being there, and oh for an interview, followed by medical appointment to see if I'm TB-free or something, and an orientation for the volunteer work I applied for. I've been in other places, like the library fifteen minutes away by car, and restaurants and shops, and movie theaters, and other places, like the post office and the FedEx store, sometimes to apply for work and more often to simply be a patron. I've read books, some new, some old, some borrowed, and some bought. And then there were the days when I slept for hours and hours, and didn't the next day, and then took naps. I guess I've been having fun, no, no. I am having fun.

I'd have been in Canada to see my sister and my cousins, and their babies, but that wasn't what happened. Instead I'm currently in California, though not in daisy dukes or bikini tops. I don't have those in my luggage. And I'm not really here for vacation. I'm here to help my aunt around the house since she had a fracture on her leg and it's less painful to stay on the bed than on her feet. Although currently I'm more house-sitting than anything since she hasn't left the hospital since she got injured while working there.

Solitude wasn't really a problem until I ran out of books, could not get a decent Wi-Fi signal that didn't require a password, and couldn't use her car since I needed a remote for the community's gate to get back in. For days it was wake up, fix bed, bathroom, open computer, cook/eat, wash dishes, computer, cook/eat/dishes, throw trash out, and bathroom breaks in between. The first time I tried watching TV I just got sore, teary eyes. I wasn't used to watching TV for long hours since I started school. The radio was okay to tune into until it wasn't anymore. Oh, and the telephone rang all the time. Fun. My cellphone ran out of battery and the parentals brought my charger home since they thought it was their charger. This whole thing felt like being dumped in the Wonderland, but a silent and solitary type of Wonderland.

If I sound like I'm complaining, I'm not. Honestly, I'm more amused than any other emotion. I was reminded of being a high school student and alone in a house in a middle of a farm with a lone wooden bridge connecting it to the town that was in the middle of other small towns up north continents away from where I am now. I had no internet, no functioning computer, no telephone, barely a flicker of a cellphone signal, and barely a signal from the TV's satellite dish. I called it the Land of Nothingness. And it was fun. I could be alone with my books with no one to bother me whether I did the dishes or cooked a full meal.

I survived that and I'm surviving this because I find it fun to figure out ways to be resourceful, and in getting lost when I take walks, and figuring out how much weight I can carry when I walk back from the grocery store, and enjoying how much better cook I am, and how much obsessive I can be when I clean, and how vigilant I can be against spiders (HATE THEM), and ants (Admire them from outside the house), and just learning how to be okay with just being with myself again. I'm finding that I've grown so much more compared to when I was a high schooler, and that makes me smile. I hope five years from now, I can look back and still smile at the fact that I've grown wiser and better than when I was twenty-one.

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

The problem with love is that it's not blind.

Or... La la lala la lala la... I can't hear you.

At this moment, pardon my childishness. It's my way, kind of, to cope. The other thing that was bugging me (read: taken over my brain when I refuse to entertain it) keeps bugging me. Aside from the emotional slash vague slash sudden crazy post I made previously, there is this other less emotional slash less vague slash crazier stuff that has been going on in my dull life.

So, I'm single. And I am totally cool with the fact that I have no boyfriend, that I am unattached, and the fact that it's easier that way with less drama. I am at the point of my short life span where I don't particularly think I need a boyfriend, because first of all, Hello Nursing School (defined as Hello, I have no life). The other reasons are, there is still a loyalty for the last person I dated that abounds, and that I'm a selfish brat that just doesn't want the hassle of dating. Yeah, I went there.

The ironic thing about my being single is everyone else seems to have a problem with my being a single, dateless loser. Not that they said it in those terms, but one friend remarked "Are you gonna wait til you're thirty, is that your game plan?", and another said, "Not that I'm rushing you, but when are you gonna have a boyfriend?" My response "I don't know...I haven't really spent much time on thinking about it". Honestly, close friends are fine with the harping but when my clinical group and my clinical instructor start trying to set me up, that's when my spidey-sense tingle and get my hackles rising.

All I can think of is "Why?". I mean, what is the issue? I clearly don't have an issue with my being single, so shouldn't my desire to not have a boyfriend for the foreseeable future be their deciding factor? Sheesh, they're like bored fairies trying to match make me into misery. I have no problem with people who are happy in their relationships, their marriages, their "mutual understandings" (whatever that means), etc. I am happy for all of you. It's great that you are with the person you love. But seriously, just because you are all sparkly like a vampire in love, doesn't mean the rest of us non-sparkling humans want to catch the spring fever you're exuding. In fact, I am actively dodging love-mones and sparkle.

Ok, I'll stop with the hostile sarcasm now. So, yeah, I went and did another soap box. Maybe it's the fact that a classmate of mine is setting me up with someone and making promises in my name and being giggly about it. If you know me at all you know that the more someone is pushing me to do something (that I do not appreciate) the more I dig my heels in. I appreciate that you guys are looking out for me, but seriously don't ask the guy for his number and expect me to call him. Sometimes, being a friend means respecting your friend's decisions even when you don't agree with it.

So, be a love, okay, and don't keep trying to maneuver me into a love life. It ain't happening now so just wait for it. Don't jump the gun on MY love life. The moment it happens then you'll be the third to know. Until then, just be a friend. That's what I need more of right now anyway.

A side effect from caring

There's been two types of adjectives that have been predominantly applied to me when I was growing up: one being aloof; the other being nice. Many people who meet me at first confide to me later on that they thought I was snobbish and reserved. I can honestly say that when I don't smile, I don't look very friendly; but really who does? When they get to know me better, that is when people start applying the term nice. They figure out that I don't actually bite people nor do I bide my time thinking ill of them.

Honestly, they're not too far when they call me both aloof and nice. I know for a fact that I can be not nice, that I can be this person who does not care. I have seen myself stare blankly as someone cried in front of me. I have rolled my eyes and mocked someone's sob story. I should empathize but no, I just don't care sometimes. But then again, a lot of people tell me their problems and I listen, and I comfort, and I help. I have hugged someone as they cried their eyes out, tucked someone in bed as they felt utter misery, and helped someone to their feet as they wished to try again. I have cried with people and cried for people with the same eyes that mocked and stared.

Anyone has a propensity to choose apathy over niceness any day of the week, and vice versa. Lately though, I've been more apt to care. I've cringed over hateful words, my heart clenches as I hear contempt in people's voices, and I have stilled in horror as people choose to stop caring. I find myself horrified at the thought of becoming this crybaby who is affected by every little sign of discord. Apathy is so much more easier a mask. No tears, no cooing or false sympathies. No drama. Such is a life I want. No complications. But caring has this way of insinuating itself between the cracks and insisting that it matters.

And it does, I suppose. It does when it's about my family, and the people I love, and then it starts extending to the people I just met, and to the people I have yet to learn about. And I get lost. My world that consists of me and a handful of people are expanding to let more in. And it terrifies me to care about all these other people when I hardly know how to care for all of me. I know that no matter how much I care for people, it cannot change the world. Caring cannot change someone's opinion, or create more food, or reduce global warming, or grow back someone's hair.

But one of the most annoying things that happens when a person cares is the persistent desire to hope. That tomorrow everything will be better, that life will be easier, that there's more to come. I care because I want to love with something bigger than my body, more than my cells can hold, greater than my mind can dream of. There's only one of me but I can have a love that renews more than what is possible, more than what is expected of me, and more than what I expect of myself.

To Darla, I love you. A lot. I first loved you with a selfish reason of not wanting to let you go. But I know that I never will; that some special guy can sweep you off your feet and take you away with him, but I'll hold you forever in my heart. I love you not because you are my sister. I love you because of your own person. You're not all perfect, and neither am I. You're not all squishy and huggable, but the parts of you that are, are more than enough to love everyone else that you wish to.

To Kuya, I love you. I've admired you before I loved you. And I hated you before I learned how to love you. But in the end, I love you, and that's mostly what matters. The rest of the thing that matters is the fact that you will always be the person who riles me up, makes me mad as spit, and then pets me to calm me down. We're complicated. You're the older brother who never got a manual on how to figure out a younger sibling. And I'm the younger sibling who never got the memo on playing nice. All in all, we're a pair. But seeing you grow up, I know that you'll even make a greater pair that special girl who'll keep you on your toes and make you laugh the loudest and the longest. Don't ever change.

To Sister. You're my greatest friend. And I don't ever need to tell you what's what for you to figure out how I feel. There's many reasons why I looked up to you when I was growing up. And there were many reasons why I desperately wanted to hold on to us. But I've learned that it's not about letting go, because neither you nor I have. It's about extending the reigns to someone else until we come full circle and our world becomes smaller. You are grace and strength and air. And you have all of yourself to offer. I thank you for that.

To Momi. Thank you. Without you, I wouldn't be. I want you to know that I haven't always understood you and I haven't always wanted to understand you. But now I do. You're so much more than what other people see in you. You're so much more than what other people will think of you. Your family, they are only one part of you. They are not you. I hope you understand that your strength is one thing that makes you stand apart from others, but one thing else is your freedom. You know where your freedom lies, and I hope that later you'll find comfort in knowing that your love hasn't been in vain. And it hasn't. Those seeds you've sown that didn't seem to grow, they're still budding. And so are you.

To Papa. Papa, I love you. For every hug that you've given me, I repay you three-fold. For every prayer that you've said for me, I offer God five more. For every laughter and tears of joy, I ask Him for a thousand more. And for every lesson you've taught me, I will honor them all. For every fear and anger that you've felt for me, I say an assurance. And for every word of discipline and pat of my hair as I cried, I bow my head in humility. And for that day when you put my hands together as I accepted God, I put my hands together as I thank the one who did the same for you. Thank you, Papa.

To Kuya Ancho, I bless you as your sister and as my brother. There's many things that could have gone wrong between your meeting my sister and your permanence with us. But the years have passed by more than a decade now and still your roots have dug in and stayed entwined with ours. You're a tree of such patience and of such passion, and you've spent and shared so much of both not only with Manang but with us. Thank you for showing us the dazzle of vibrant colors. You've brought so much to us and we haven't caught up to yet.

To Baba. Babalove. You're still my sweet. You've grown like a rose, like a mountain. You're both spring and lightning. I missed so much of your growing up but I don't regret that much. Because you have such great parents and people who love around you. And they all love you. I miss hugging you and making you laugh with silly jokes and fixing your hair because it always needs fixing. I miss how your eyes twinkle and how your lips quirk in a reluctant smile, then a full fledged laugh, even as you try to knit your eyebrows together and look stern. I miss your curiosity and your ability to go on for days and days, and days like a whirlwind that plays with the leaves and then I miss how you simply know confidently how to be. I miss many things. But I miss the fun that we create together. Always have fun, Ba. All the time. Remember that having fun is a choice too.

I can make more lists of these. I can write down more love for all the world to see. I can do all these and still have love to spare. But right now, this is enough. Because these are the words that I've held closed in my heart for so long and today, I set them free. If you read this then you know that I love you, always will, even when I'm no longer here to agree. Even when it's not from my lips that you hear it. Even when it hurts more said out loud than whispered quietly in the back of your mind. Even then. Because love like this isn't the kind that goes away. This stains and holds deeper when you rub at it. It holds your hand tightly in the crowds, and pokes you on the sides 'til you frown, and it keeps at you until you bat it with your hands. My love is annoying, let's just say that. But that's because it's the kind that is persistently hopeful that when you wake up tomorrow, it's to a lighter and better day.