Leaving: A Sound Judgment

I have been contemplating about leaving these past few days.

Before, I already decided to stay. But things turned around again and this time I really decided to leave.

For how many years, I have enjoyed working there, with people I have already considered my friends and family. But things there are not the same as before. I must admit that I am not happy there anymore. Gone is the enthusiasm and joy that I used to feel. Probably because I don't have many friends there anymore. Even my so-called bestfriend somehow has already changed.

I need a change in my environment. I need to go out of my comfort zone now. Probably, leaving and saying goodbye will be the soundest decision I could make. I will go to the next level of my life.

I will miss everything. I will miss everyone. But life has to move on. I need to move on and move forward.

Maybe my complacent world is being shaken for me to wake up from a very long and comfortable "slumber" in my career. I need to move on and try another world. A world very much different from what I have now.

So Confused

I don't know. I am vacillating with my decisions. One day, I am decided the next day not again.
My mind is like a roller-coaster having its ups and downs.
I already set my mind to leave my workplace before; then again I changed my mind and just opted to stay. But then again here comes the feeling that I want to leave again.
I feel like I am not appreciated anymore. That I am just one of the "employees." My superiors just don't appreciate the job that I am doing. I am quite bored already with all the routines I am doing everyday. It is like I am already living my life monotonously.
I want to reinvent myself. But how can that be if I am stuck in that place all because of money?
My brother already got his salary from public school. Not that bad since he is just starting. In my case, I have already started seven years ago and still here I am trying to find where will I truly fit in.
I love teaching. It is just that I am inside the same circle for how many years already.
I love the people there in my workplace but I guess things are not the way they were anymore. People are not the same as they were before.
I am staying there because I just want to save money and to put things in the right places. Or seemingly so.
I don't know where my future is. Only God knows. Maybe I just depended on myself too much that is why I am like this.
Maybe I have become so slacked with my job that is why I am like this.
Maybe I need to grow more, I need to see myself more in a different light.
Weekly, I am doing my lesson plans. The same boring lesson plans that if you would just look at it closely is not really that important. All you need to do is to connect with the pupils, make them understand what you want them to get. I am not undermining the importance of lesson plans but then how can other schools achieve without becoming so obsessive-compulsive with their lesson plans?
Plans. They do change most of the time. Even lesson plans do. I am just bored with it yet it is part of the package, a parcel included in what they pay me for.
I am just tired. I need a breath of fresh air. I think I am not growing anymore there. I think I just go around by the same tree over and over again.
I don't know. I guess I don't want to stay anymore. But still, months are still coming. Many days are still up ahead. Who knows things might just have a positive turn around. But I am still not sure. I will just prepare that's all.
So here's my Plan B. I will secure all the necessary documents, I will prepare and make sure that everything is accounted for. Anyway, I have friends who will help me and most of all God Who sees me everyday.
Lord, I am confused again. Help me. I am scared that there might probably no item for me, that I might just be a "floating" teacher. Yet Lord, I know You only want what is best for me. Is transferring an option now?
I have been seeing my friend in public lately, talking with her most of the time. My brother already received his salary and I think that's good. Are these the signs?
Lord, help me. My family supports me. My mother, my brother and my husband. Are these the signs? Am I just being stubborn?
It would be a very great leap of faith if I would take this opportunity. Help me Lord. Show me where can I apply, please.
Help me Father. Help me to decide. Help me please.

A Tale of The Little Dad

Once there was a little boy. He was in school and he listened to his teacher intently. Albeit his small frame and stature, his mind could easily comprehend what the teacher was talking about.
The teacher gave an instruction. They had to bring out their coloring materials and their sketch pad for they would have an activity. A drawing activity.
The boy happily got his things and waited for his teacher's directions. The teacher asked the class to draw something. She asked them to draw about the members of their family, label them and write a short story about them.
The little boy was a bit stunned. His fingers could not move. For a while his mind seemed to drift somewhere else. For a while he seemed to be looking for something. Or someone.
His tiny hands started to draw. Figures were made. For a while he was lost in his own world. He drew of a big house with a mountain backdrop. He thought of the color of the roof, the walls and the gates. He conjured images of the garden bursting with colors and surrounded with lush, green trees with the sun smiling down at them and a rainbow arching behind. Everything was falling into pieces. Then he came to his family. He drew his mother. The figure was as big as the house. Probably because his mother had a very close and intimate proximity in his own little world. Then he drew his younger brother and himself. His figure was obviously bigger than that of his brother but the proximity between him, his brother and his mother was really very close and huddled together. Especially his mom who got the biggest space among everything else. Then came the part for his dad. Suddenly, he did not know what to do. He tried to remember everything but there were only vague images. Sudden and fleeting images of his father carrying him, playing with him, reading stories for him. He was confused. He started to ask himself why. Why with mother, I could easily think of good and happy things, of happy times? Why were her pictures in my mind clear as if they were really happening at the time? Why with dad, everything seemed to be covered by smoke, everything was not seen clearly, everything was incomplete?
Yet, he had to follow teacher. She said draw members of the family. So as best as he could, he tried to draw a figure. A small figure. A figure just a little bigger than the little boy's. Upon closer look, the figure seemed to be far away and on the other side of the house. While the other three were huddled together, the dad's figure was obviously separated from them.
Then the boy stopped drawing. He thought it was all that he could do and that he did it right. He went to his teacher and had her check his work. The teacher was quite pleased with the boy's job and read the description he wrote under:

"This is our house. It is beautiful. There is a beautiful garden. I see the sun is happy. My brother and I are happy. Our mommy is with us. She takes care of us everyday. She is beautiful. She loves us very much.
That is our daddy. I can't remember his face very much. He works in Singapore. He is only with us for a short time. He goes to the airport and rides the airplane many times. Before, my mommy and I would cry because he would go away again. But I am a big boy now. Sometimes, when he goes away, I don't cry anymore. I don't know why. Sometimes I miss him, sometimes I don't. All I see is my mommy. She is very big and beautiful and kind. She loves me and my brother. We are a happy family even if we don't have daddy."

Lost Enthusiasm

I feel like I lost my enthusiasm already.

I do not know but I feel like I am already jaded and that people around me are just being pretentious of what's happening to them.

We have just finished our spiritual retreat but I feel more tired than refreshed. I just do not know. Maybe I am not so happy with where I am now.

I am happy with my husband. I am happy with my family and even if we don't have much money we don't experience lack and we get to pay the bills on time.

I am about to start my life as a student again even if it is only in a technical school.

I already had my period which meant that my ovaries are still functioning but deep inside I am hurting though I may not admit it.

I miss some of my friends. Those who are already not with us in the workplace. That's why I have been so sad.

I should have grieved. I should have expressed my emotions more when I lost them. I should have cried then.

Yet, I must accept the fact that they all went their own ways and that maybe they were just with me for a season.

All I need to do is to move on and to just simply move on.

I know it is not going to be that easy for me but by God's grace I will be healed from my feeling of lost.

Our life is really like a book. We are the main characters of our own books. People come to be the secondary characters but most of them have only an appointed time and when their time comes to leave, then  they will whether we like it or not. Life is really like that. We are also secondary characters of one's book. At our appointed time, we will also leave also.

This is not being a pessimist. I am just being realistic. Maybe they left a space in our life so that new characters can occupy them. And we'll be facing another chapter again.

I believe that I can move on. I am just sad but not devastated. Now I understand why I had been sad and did not care about others around me. I know me so well...(^^,)

As He Is

As he is...

I will accept him as he is.

I have been setting my expectations and standards too high.

Somehow, I have been pressuring him albeit subtly to be the ideal man that I have always wanted to have. Or the person that I have always wanted to be.

I have been placing him under pressure to be the person that I could engage intellectual and high-society talks with when in fact, he could not.

And probably could never be.

Not because he does not want to but to be practically honest he is not wired to be that way.

He is the type of person who only wants a very simple life. A simple existence as long as he is doing well, he is not sick, he eats enough to survive, he works and he sleeps. Of course he has his social life, he has his social circle and interests as well but not like mine.

In fact, we have very few things in common.

He is not into music; music has been a second life to me. He is not into books though he reads from time to time but not like the ones I enjoy reading. Reading for him is like a necessity; for me it's both a need and want.

He is not into paintings, maybe he has not yet heard about Van Gogh, Degas and Monet and classical music sounds boring to him when in fact all of these just stimulate my mind and my being.

We are indeed two worlds apart, so polarized yet so united.

Why? Because we cannot be without the other.

He takes good care of me. He understands my tantrums and puts up with my emotional outburst. He is the only one who I want to be with for he knows exactly how to handle my semi-volatile nature.

He is the only who can accept and understand me well. Though he may not become the intellectual giant that I dream of him to be.

He loves me. For him that's simple. Yet, I think I am just making things so overly complicated.

I don't know. I pray we can work things out. We can patch up our differences until we meet halfway.

I should not depend on him completely for my own happiness and fulfillment. I think I should take off the pressure of him.

Maybe, this is one way I can fully understand what love is all about. We don't have to be so alike.

We only have to understand each other and meet in the middle.

Post- "Looking Back" Post

Yes.

I was actually writing mine, technically typing last December 31, 2012. But I was too preoccupied because my fiance was beside me.

My fiance. He was actually the "highlight" of the year that was. From being such a sad girl waiting and looking for someone to love and to love me to a woman only waiting to be married 11 months from now.

He is not my ideal man. His grammar amuses me at times and his pronunciation sounds funny because he is from the Visayan region. He does not earn that much, just enough to get himself by.he did not even finish college. Far from the lawyer, doctor or engineer I was dreaming about. But he is a good man. A patient man. One who silently puts up with me, my bitchiness and my tantrums.

I did not love him at first. I actually disgusted him. He was just a friend, someone who I would talk to whenever I would feel sad and crave for attention especially from a man. I was in love with another man before him and I was not really taking him seriously.

But he was persistent. He felt something in his heart the first time he saw me. Though I was the noisiest and bitchiest girl he encountered, still he persisted and pursued me like crazy.

I really did not like him at first. Our second date was a disaster for that was the time I rejected him. I saw how pained he was, how sad he was that day but I did not care. I just went home and resolved not to talk with him again nor communicate with him again.

I even wanted to change my sim card again for the nth time but because I was thinking of the other man I was in love with that he might not be able to contact me again, I did not.

I thought he would stop but he did not. So I gave him my worst treatment. How I insulted him, said bad words to him and looked down on him. I talked with him condescendingly. But he endured everything. Sometimes I wanted to share with him some of my pride so he could have some.

I was still talking to the man I was initially in love with until he stopped communicating with me.

That opened the door for him. He gave me promises, he showered me with attention no one has ever given me before.

I was already confused that time. Torn between the man I loved and the man who loves me. Many people told me to choose the one who loved me for I could easily love that person.

I took that risk. And since then, I knew I did the right thing.

Of course, our relationship had its ups and downs. I had lots of expectations and ideals. I had to deal with a lot of issues in my life and I was even confronted by the past when the man I was first in love with came back. We were so close to fall apart already but I just could not let him go. He just could not let me go. We just could not let each other go.

We still had our ups and downs. I know there will still be many along the way. We stumbled, we were tempted, we did bad and silly things together. But we are still together. Five months after, we still love each other so much. And this is not just something romantic. This is really a choice, something real.

I am praying for our relationship this 2013. May God give our relationship grace and blessings. May we become more obedient and loving to Him. May He become the center of our relationship.

This relationship has brought out and I believe will still bring out the worst and the best in me. And I am thankful because I had him last year. And soon, we will be man and wife. I am praying for our relationship to become a blessing to others especially those around us.

I am thankful for everything. I am thankful for the past for it led me to my present. And I will still make the most out of my present for it will make or break the future we are still yet to see and anticipates the most. By God's grace. And by His blessings.

I am thankful for the answered prayer. He is not perfect, he is not who I really had in my mind but I think God in His loving and infinite wisdom gave him to me because he is the right one for me. The one who perfectly fits my personality.

I am thankful Lord. For the year that was. I am thankful. And this year, we will look forward to the blessings You are still yet to bestow on us.

Thank You Lord. For him.