Author: Rochkirstin Santos-Sioco

Nervous. Happy. Excited. I am all of those things. All at once. So much so that I can’t keep a steady hand and I poke my wand into my eye. My mascara wand, that is.

In three hours, we’ll be seeing each other after four months. But it takes me more than three hours to get prepared, clean up the black streak on my face, gather my things and leave the house. Locking the door behind me, I walked towards the bus station.

Whenever there were groups of people coming out of the airport gate, my heart thudded. After a few minutes and a confirmation call, finally I saw him standing in the Arrival area. I walked towards him. I could hear my mind debating with itself.

What do I say?

Hello would be a good start.

Oh for God’s sake don’t just smile. Just say something.

Before I could make myself utter any words at all, his face broke into a big smile. A warm, welcoming smile that echoed in my eyes.

I hugged him. Musta? I asked. It’s been a long time.

My nervousness dissolved instantly. I closed my eyes and smiled.

I am home.

Dear Weekend,

You are due to arrive tomorrow, but I wanted to take a moment to let you know just how much I am looking forward to you being here. So much so that thoughts of you have had me a little too distracted to focus fully on work. I just need, need, need, my Friday morning smile and if there was any way in which those can happen every single day, I would be a very happy girl.

I want you to know that when you do get here, we are going to have a wonderful time. When you are around, the conversation never stops and the laughter comes easily. Whatever we end up doing, I am always happy just being in your company.

Just hurry up and get here! 😀

Anxiously yours,
Roch

Another page has turned on the calendar, June now, not May. Mental stress? It’s an unwelcome visitor but in this busy corporate world, we can’t help to have it come by. Now I’m walking down the line that divides me somewhere in my mind.

In this story of my life, I am the protagonist. I am the hero. I am every lesson I’ve ever learned and the finish line of every race. I am laughs that make stomachs ache, rainbows after storms and the overwhelming relief of crying out sorrows. I am getting the right answer after trying, trying, [endless] trying without giving up. I am on the inside of an inside joke and outside the boundaries of reality. I am sunflowers and daisies and birdsong on a spring breeze. I am the helping hand and the shoulder to lean on. I am the cheerleader, the coach, the team player and the water girl. I am the sunrise as well as the sunset. I am the magic that sparks like electricity in the atmosphere.

In this story of my life, I am the antagonist. I am the villain. I am the obstacles to overcome and the tears cried in vain. I am the slump of shoulders in defeat. I am every mistake I’ve ever made and every regret that fights off sleep. I am droughts and floods and earthquakes. I am the foot subtly stuck out to trip. I am tangled lies and twisted tongues. I am the snake hiding in the grass waiting, waiting, waiting to strike. I am termites feasting on destruction. I am forgetting lines, dates, pants. I am an all-nighter for an assignment due last week. I am the shame in giving up and the weight of the world. I am the ghost. I am the monster. I am the terror that sends chills racing down spines.

In this story of my life, I am the extras. I am watching it all pass from the sidelines. I am the overlooked, the unheard and the never-before-seen. I am the heat waves shimmering above hot asphalt and the balloon riding the wind. I am the space between then and now. I am a placeholder. I am windblown hair. I am the stand-in just famous enough to be ignored. I am the shadow. I am the reflection. I am the tick, tick, ticking of the clock in the background.

In this story of my life, I am me.

But here’s where the lines blur: Do you ever wonder about how much of us are we and how much is based on other people? Like what parts of our personality would be the same no matter what place and time we were born into and which parts developed because of the environment we found ourselves in?

Do personality traits that are completely us, unadulterated by any outside forces, exist? Is everything we are based off of who we know, what we’ve seen and where we’ve been?

After all, do you think this makes any difference? Me neither.

June has 30 days. Each day can bring us one step closer to our goal, or push us one step back. We have 30 chances to fail, or to succeed. Let’s succeed—page by page, pound by pound.

Is the world going to be over today (May 21, 2011)?

Don’t dream it’s over. Or: Don’t dream. It’s over. My vote? The latter. Well, it’s almost 10PM now, and the world did not end. Here are some funny pictures of people who were convinced it’s going to end today at 6PM.

My two cents: It may not end, literally. The disasters may be a wake-up call for us to change—change that may mark an “end” to an era. We must change our ways for the better and for the sake of the world. Every little bit helps. Mother nature is enforcing her powers and keeping the world in balance.

The disasters have caused many deaths. The disasters will also bring people together to help one another. They also show that people do not own and rule the world. We are merely living here and we have taken too much from Earth, and now Mother nature is taking back from us. What has been destroyed paves the way for a new, better and brighter future where we live in harmony with the living.

Then again, I thank those people who believed and kept on insisting onto others that the awaited “phenomenon” is true. I had sheer entertainment. The news articles made me ponder on what my last words in my last breath on earth will be. For the record, it’s “I love you, always”—to those I love—until the world we know becomes a forgotten history in the books of aliens.

This end-of-the-world theory also made me think that life’s imagery cannot compare to that which the mind envisions. Reality is a mere distraction when imagination abounds with the genius of a little dream or some interpretation from the Bible or reading on what happens in the future in time.

Everything in our world renders no more than a passing glance as the eyes of the make believer shift inward to gaze upon the vast landscape of his newfound fantasy!

Despite this, we are still free to explore beyond the realm of logic and become lost and entirely detached from all rational matters, psychologically separated from the rigging of an artless world. Our thoughts might be endless and overflowing, subjective by an emotional luxury of personal freedom—a freedom that not only nourishes the fruit of vision, but also serves as the vine by which it thrives.

So, will the world ever end? Only God knows. We, on the other hand, may discover some answers hither and tither by living the question.

Just live, you know. Just love.

Does the title even make sense? Fear of the Fearless?

I just thought it might be interesting to look at it literally. Moving on, this post talks about my only fear, which might be also interesting for those who are interested to know. 🙂

I have this innate ability to recognize the monsters parading around in human guise (life lessons). Every one of us has a base fear; one or more things that curdle our stomach, fears which crawl beneath the skin like an itch they can’t scratch. Ignoring the itch won’t make it stop nor halt the fear. Why does it scare us so much, is there more reality and suffrage in view within the horrifying than anything else?

Here begins my little story for you. I fear I can’t provide a good life for my family and myself, and so I accept any challenge in every door that opens which I think is good. I try my hardest to “disguise” and live as someone brave to set forth in doing many things.

Three months ago I had this little tiny nudge: a nudge to shift, to relaunch, to step up to the plate of my life. I said yes, awaiting my next milestone. Actually, I said “okay” because saying yes to something you can’t see…well, that’s just terrifying.

And because “okay” is really just a thinly veiled “Okay, I’m having doubts, but I’ll try to tentatively trust.” Life answered in return with, “Okay, I hear your doubts, so we’ll take this slow.”

So, for the past months, I inched in. There were a few moments of “Um…” or even one or two of “Eek!” but mostly I walked a comfortable little path. I took the plunge and started anyway. Now I am riding along. I accepted new people and new means. I opened my whole heart and soul to receive them. Life rushed in.

Looking back, I see what I thought was pain, obstacles and stress. But you know what I see now? Strength training.

I can put it like weight lifting. You put resistance on your muscles to build them. When you say “Yes!” (and really mean it), life begins its job of giving you opportunities that would teach you to grow.

This can feel tiring, overwhelming, even painful at times because it’s usually going to start with the discovery and healing of all the things that are going to get in your way of what comes next. You can call it struggle, but only one perspective is going to get you through it. Only one is going to keep you standing tall: you yourself.

Side talk: As I’m living this costly lifestyle, where I take my lunch out every work day, pay my own room rent and utilities, pay my sister’s tuition, buy myself groceries, toiletries and top-up load for my EZ-Link card (transportation), I cannot afford to spend for other things for myself anymore.

I realized that in order to save more, I’d have to cook and prepare lunch in the morning and have it as a packed meal and walk to the nearest station instead of taking a bus or train where the nearest grocery is. This would save me half my budget for food and some for transportation. For these own so-called “policies,” I’d have stronger sense of self-control and self-discipline.

Eventually, I’ll be finding this fear as one that gives way to opposing emotions, courage, compassion and hope. All of what we perceive–the ugly demographic to the beautiful poetic—go hand in hand. We short sight ourselves when we refuse to acknowledge far more emotional baggage exist in one form or another in our lives.

Most people would obsess about the outline, but they can’t be bothered to color inside the lines. We obsess with our happily-ever-after and never quite appreciate the darker aspects we trespass on the journey.

Life is a multifaceted compromise made of a colorful humanity. There is no black and white drawn ideology. We can draw in, outside, over the lines if we so choose.

I end this post with a quote from Kahlil Gibran I found in the Internet galaxy:

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”

The trick is to find the beauty in the wreckage while still aware of the broken pieces left lying about then from there, grow stronger, open your heart to adapt and expand your capabilities.