i spent too much time raiding windmills.

As the skies weep quiet tears this early noon, a treasure trove of memories fill my head; images that only I recall.

I distinctly remember that random phone call, when my dad was shutting the front door and double-checking if the house lights were on and off in the right places. It was November, 1998. For some reason, I knew your phone number. I dialled it, you answered, and I told you, out of the blue, that I was depressed.

Then you made me laugh. And that was how it started.

You were my summer vacations, my semestral breaks, my Christmas masses and my Easter Sundays. We defied all logic when we brought out the best in each other. I was at my happiest, at my prettiest, in my most carpe diem moments when I was with you. And I think that's how you felt, too. We shone brightest like supernovas with every magical triumph. And the euphoria stayed so long it seemed we could fly for all eternity.

But vacations end. The pixie dust settles to the ground. And the flight touches down after soaring so high. We are left with our normal selves to face the bitterness of life, and the world does not stop too long for us. What happens when the silver lining is covered in dark clouds, words of hope echo in despair, and the one person you turn to for inspiration becomes the one who reminds you of your brokenness?

We are forced to wake up, and grow up. And the heroes that we have been to each other are reduced to mere mortals who live troubled lives.

A part of me died today. It was the child in me that stared wide-eyed with idealism that maybe if I wished hard enough, I didn't have to grow up. It was also the part of me that kept an image of you that was no longer there.

I still believe in your greatness. You have taught me to go beyond myself, and I hope I will still do the same for you. Live on, and cherish what we have shared. Your love is the closest I have ever been to a miracle. For now, I will keep the memory of it as the last footnote of the book of my youth.

But I hope that someday soon, I will see you again as I did many times over, smiling, gleaming, as the sun on the first morning of my summer vacation.

just give me till then to give up this fight.

Naku, Manny. I worry for you when you push your luck.

*************

An officemate confided in me that she was praying to God for a sign for her wish to be granted. She added to her prayer, "Lord, kung magbibigay ka naman ng sign, pwede linawin mo naman ng konti."

I told her, "Malinaw naman palagi. Tayo lang ang nagpupumilit na palabuin lahat."

The truth is, we always get what we pray for. Not at the time we think is right, not in the circumstance we find most convenient, not with the person/s whom we feel would give us an "easier" time. But we are granted our wishes, in the context of the "big picture".

We are allowed to savor triumphs -- the fulfillment of a dream, the gleaming finish line at the end of a long race -- in order for us to celebrate the glory of the human spirit. Yet it is an equally significant (albeit rather poignant) reminder of the resplendent soul when one braves tragedies and failures. Unfortunately, since these events are painful, they are taken for granted as blessings and we often don't look beyond the bleak reality of such events.

My father, the same 81-year-old survivor of a quintuple bypass and a gastric tumor operation a few months back, met a vehicular accident this week, with him behind the wheel and Mom as his passenger. The car, which ran on high speed in reverse, crashed into a closed school gate which completely folded its trunk accordion-style. His injuries are not unlike a boxer's after a gruelling fight: a bloody nose that now slightly tilts to one side, burst lips and a swollen eye. While eating hospital rations on his last night of confinement, he mumbles:

"Siguro pwede na natin ipakuha yung CRV sa casa. Matagal na natapos yung baha, ayos na yun. Wala akong ma-drive eh."

@()%*_(#&*%*$!&%@*@#&???

I breathed deeply and told him that what just happened to him and Mom is a gentle reminder that he should take things easy from now on. "Maraming nangyayari na sa inyo na yun ang sinasabi, Dad. Dapat siguro makinig na tayo." He fell quiet, finished his meal and prepared for bed. Two days after his discharge from the Lung Center, he still has trouble sleeping. He is anxious, denying the fact that things have changed. He now tries to calm himself by watching the Pacquiao-Cotto fight in their bedroom.

Apart from the denial of a sign is the underlying self-pity that cripples us when we are beset with bad news. We find ourselves frustrated that things are not moving as planned, stumped and in despair that we have reached rock-bottom, that we are beyond salvation.

We forget that it is a blessing. It is a divine nudge that tells us we are not alone, that our lives could never be totally planned by us. It is a roadblock that protects us from a ravine, to lead us to a longer detour that will, still, eventually take us to our destination.

So now, as I await the longest days of my life to end and present me with my fate, I pray. I admit that I am helpless. And I succumb to this helplessness with faith that like all storms we have braved in the past, I will be saved.

Heaven help me.

pag-uulayaw.

a line from "The King and I" comes to mind.

it's both thrilling and head-cracking when someone comes over to see you in a heartbeat, and leaves you in the next. all because i craved for a cup of hot chocolate.

there is no escape.

i'm hooked.

loving you is like food to my soul.

i've been receiving messages lately from people around me, telling me i've lost touch for the past few days. emotions have run around the spectrum from near-rage to tearful compassion because of my failure to answer calls or urgent email. honestly, i don't really know what to say.

i want to say sorry, but it's more of feeling sorry for myself. the self-pity is agonizing and is close to becoming psychosomatic. i want to get away from it all and tell myself i don't deserve to be shoved into a world of responsibilities i'm too young for. i want to turn off my 3 phones and drive out of town incognito. i wanted a grand party for my birthday but nobody really thought 30 was a big deal. i'm almost about to eat some worms.

yet seeing my mom tonight, bringing my dad to the bathroom to help him go about his business, threw all the pathetic feelings away. here was a woman who is probably the least acknowledged for everything she has done for us. last year she lost the chance to continue a private consultancy when she took the role of nurse for daddy who was recovering from his heart bypass. mother's day and her birthday were spent at the hospital, with daddy not even noticing each occasion because he was too weak to remember anything. this was heartbreaking, since my dad had always doted on my mom prior to the operation. nowadays, she is only comforted by the hope that somewhere beneath the tantrums and the helplessness is the man who is madly in love with her, the daddy she fell in love with.

she is sick herself, not having had a decent night's sleep on an uncomfortable watcher's cot for the past week. yet she always sets it all aside for him, feeding him bland soup that the hospital requires him to eat, talking to the doctors and nurses, going to daddy's office to get his salary and work assignments, while giving us detailed orders daily on how to run the house in her absence. i remember a night many years ago when she was watching TV in their bedroom with us and i asked her,

"ma, sino nagluluto ng ulam ngayon?"

"ako," she replied.

"eh pano nangyari yon, andito ka nanonood ng TV tapos nagluluto ka pa rin?", i wondered aloud as a bewildered 6 year old.

"eh di parang si superman," she said, winking at my dad.

i believed her then, because our dinners always tasted better when she was around, even if i didn't see her cut vegetables or put raw meat in the pot to cook.

i still believe in her now. she's the quiet strength that has kept this family together. she inspires daddy to get well and is truly there to ease any pain he feels in a way no son or daughter could ever give. and she demonstrates with every unappreciated act of service to her family, what "unconditional love" really is.

while we pray for dad's recovery, i also whisper a special prayer for mom, that she may always remember that she is loved by all of us. if i could only be half the woman she is, i would be fulfilled.

i can feel your halo.

As I write this, I'm having mixed feelings about a lot of things.

I'm juggling between sleeping and making this entry, staying home and going back to the hospital to be with Mom and Dad, laughing and crying, and feeling old and responsible while feeling as helpless as a baby.

We call on everyone again to join us in prayer for Dad's health. He hadn't been eating much since early this week, and we thought it was just hyperacidity and the generally somber mood of the week (with Tita Cory and the gloomy weather). He had a blood test last Thursday, and results were out yesterday showing that his hemoglobin levels were low.

He has already undergone blood transfusion and was scheduled for a routinary endoscopy just to check for ulcers which may have caused his lack of appetite and upset stomach. What the doctors saw was a mass that only allowed 1/8 of his stomach's space for food to go in. A CT scan was also requested today, results of which will be ready tomorrow.

As of now, we really are at a loss as to how to approach this new crisis in Dad's life. We are praying for guidance and enlightenment, and perhaps another miracle.

We know how powerful your prayers have been in the past, so now I ask each and every one of you to join us again in lifting this to our Lord. We've conquered this monster before, and we will win once more!!!

I could go crazy on a night like tonight...

Maybe it was the large coffee I had from Dunkin' Donuts, or the exhilaration of finally getting a new pc monitor and installing it tonight. (And the dread of the coming due date of my ballooning credit card balance.)

It could also be the fact that I'm commemorating so many special days for the past and in the coming days.

Or, it's because the end of the month is near and reaching my quota is almost a reality but could still slip from my hands.

Whatever it is, I am again at a period of reckoning. It is not so much as deciding -- where to go, what to do or whom to cherish -- as it is admitting to myself and to everyone that choices have already been made.

Soon, it seems only appropriate for me to lose the right to stay in my youth. Twentysomethings are understandably fickle, dependent, zealous and pretty much the same as they were in their teens. Awkwardly, people of this age are also groomed to take on new responsibilities, and to act like adults. I'd like to think of it as "act" being the operative word, as in portraying a role distinct from the person one truly is.

It's overwhelming to realise that as I reach 30, it is expected of me not to just act, but, more importantly, to be an adult. I've attempted to mature as quickly as necessarily possible, albeit clumsily. Mistakes which could have been forgivable a few years back are now downright embarrassing to commit, and I feel that at some point I should have something of substance to show for myself.

Someone thought about that too right here. Has "thirtysomething" turned into "thirtynothing"? Tell me if you agree with it or not :)

The thing is, I could go on and on with a litany of things I have not yet accomplished, but it will not speak of who I have become. Some days I rouse from slumber, complaining in my head about how I got here or why I'm still here, but most days I wake up just feeling grateful to be here (and to be here with you), because for the longest time I had been wandering aimlessly along a path I did not carve myself, one that was thought to come naturally for a person growing up. Somewhere along this path, I discovered self-reinvention, found a ticket to inspiration, and took a roadtrip to a twisted, blindsided highway. I can't say I haven't looked back since, but I sure could declare I'm better off here than where I used to be. How it is for me to be more sure of myself while I am at my most unfamiliar, is, indeed, a mystery.

Ok, the caffeine is wearing off. Time to reacquaint myself with my bed lest it refuse me as an intruder... ;P

Kenny's Open Urbanite Run 2009 - night runners, wanna join? :)

Link