Scared-y-cat

Here I am again wanting to say something. Actually, I will try my best to speak in general although the subject screams to be specified. Lol. I’m just waiting for Apple so we can have lunch, and I also thought about this one first thing when I woke up at Rashel’s. Parte chuva-choo-choo, kay bisan pigilan ko at the back of my mind aada it thought. I’m scared. Siguro kasi nag-agi naman gud ako hin mga sugad hini before and I can’t help but compare. I mean – I’ve always been the risk-taker pagdating sa ganito, pero habang tumatagal mas natatakot akong masaktan. Ang daming pumapasok sa isip ko na kailangan kong labanan. Mahirap, sa totoo lang, pero isa lang ang nasisiguro ko sa sarili ko (and this one I’ve proven before): hindi ako susuko. Hindi ko’to isusuko hangga’t aada pa it feeling; hangga’t makusog pa tak pagtuo. Wala man akong makita sa hinaharap, kahit minsan nakakalungkot ang sitwasyon namin, hindi parin ako bibitiw. I may be complaining a lot but I’m not going to back out of this.

Nakaya ko naman ipaglaban ng mahigit isang taon diba? Kaya ko.

Kaya lang, nahadlok ako.

Tao lang naman ako eh. Diri nga diri ako natapod hit akon padis, pero, di kasi maiwasan… harayo hiya. Kun baga damo nga elements it nakapalibot ha amon (ha iya didto ngan ha akon dinhi); if your mind ain’t that strong to handle those, pwede kang matalo. At alam mong isang pitik lang pwedeng masira ang lahat, lahat-lahat. Ikaw kasi it nagpapadalagan hit imo utok; we have control over our minds and things.

If you want it, you can get it; if you want it but it ain’t right – there, you have the willpower to decide.

And bisan ano it imo pili-on you will be responsible for that; not anybody else, not even things, because it was you. YOU took over the wheels of your own mind.

No I ain’t saying I know better, but it’s a little like ‘been there, done that’ kinda thing you know. So hindi ko maalis ang hindi mag-alala dahil alam kong posible, alam kong pwede yung mangyari. Depende pa rin sa tao, sa personalidad, sa pag-iisip, at iba pa. At hindi ko rin naman sinasabing tama ako; gusto ko lang aminin sa sarili ko na… natatakot ako.

Call me a scared-y-cat, but it’s true. Hindi ko naman pwedeng sabihin sa kanya; baka isipin niya wala akong tiwala sa kanya. Ayokong ipaalam na takot ako at kung bakit, dahil ayoko ring may mag-iba; ayokong isipin niya na feeling ko mas may alam ako sa ganitong bagay, at ang gusto ko kusa niya itong maisip at maranasan (kung sakali man) para una may matutunan siya – at pangalawa, nang makita naming dalawa kung paano niya haharapin yun kung saka-sakali sa unang pagkakataon.

It may not seem right for me to say that. I’m just being open. I think it helps to have this kind of mind-setting, somehow. And what’s left of me is to take it positively so as bad as it may appear or sound sometimes… it’s a learning process.

We can’t always have what we want – that’s true – not always, not everything; we don’t have the power to control situations however we want to; we don’t have the power to read other people’s minds and all that; and we can’t keep something that we don’t really own. Siguro ‘pag naitatak ko na iyan sa utak ko, hindi na ako matatakot. Pero sa ngayon, kahit alam ko iyan, siya ring dahilan kung bakit ako natatakot.

Natatakot akong baka isang araw paggising ko wala na siya. Baka isang araw makalimutan niya ang lahat. Bangin usa ka-adlaw diri na ako niya gusto. Mga sugad hito na butang angay ba ako mahadlok? This is present, my gosh, for goodness’ sake diri ako dapat maghuna-huna unta hin mga posible o diri posible! I guess usa gud la it ak buot ipasabot tak self – nahadlok ako mawara hiya ha akon. It’s like going back to that place I never wanted to go to. At wala kang magagawa kung dumating nga ang panahon na iyon, diba. I can fight for it – pero alam ko, hindi ko kakayaning mag-isa. Sa ganitong laban, dapat kaming dalawa. It’s always been like that for me. It has to be mutual.

As time passes, we will hear the phase calling…iyon…iyon ang kinatatakutan ko…gayunpaman, lalaban ako. Hindi pwedeng hindi. I swear even if this is the last time it could happen to me, even if it’s not – lalaban ako. It’s something I don’t usually do, something I’ve never done before (pwera na lang kung pamilya ang pag-uusapan); so this time, I’m not gonna lose it just like that. No I ain’t gonna give it up just like that.

Siguro nga tama ako tungkol sa isang bagay… pagdating sa 'chuva-choo-choo', lahat kaya kong subukan. And I swear to God this is going to be the first time! You know what I’m sayin’? Ito ang unang pagkakataon na malakas ang pakiramdam ko – how I want it, how I need it, how I own it; Ito ang unang pagkakataon nga masisirng ko nga ipaglalaban ko bisan ano nga balakid it aada hit amon atubangan. Hangga’t kaya ko, hangga’t ada hiya, hangga’t mahal namin ang isa’t-isa; I’m keeping it.

I’m scared…but it doesn’t mean I can’t be ready…

Letter 61

Dear God,

It's been a long time since you actually heard from me. I was probably a little musketeer then, hmm… No. It's been years since I went to the Catholic Church; some months since I attended the Christian Church. I think about you sometimes as a subject, and then I always ask myself if I'm doing wrong for being like this. I don't know where to go from all these paths in front of me - I'm a lost soul. There are those rare times I wonder about so many different beliefs from so many different places in the whole world. If you can read this blog, can you tell me what's going on? You can call me; I can't call you, I don't have your line. But we can Skype too :) I'm sure you've been waiting for me to contact you somehow.

God, I'm confused. I avoided that fact but I keep coming back to it. Why do you have to make things so complicated? :-O What are your plans? When I came to this world, I learned to believe in you; feelings were so strong to trust in you, respect you, and follow you. There were times when I forgot about you; prayed hard when I was in pain; thanked you when I was in so much joy. Do I really need to choose a place to belong from among these groups when it comes to faith? I probably wouldn’t write this if I didn’t have a twinge of faith in you. I never saw you, never even read the “Holy Bible”, but I grew up with faith in your existence.

I have so many questions. If I read the Bible to search for answers, how do I know I can trust what’s written in the book somehow? I talked to you a lot of times way back then; I want to know why people have to have different faith when they all believe that there’s God. I have respect to those beliefs, but I just want to know why they vary – I mean where could they be coming from… is it from you, really? Or just people making up everything and starting the Holy stories? But why would men start up nonsense like that if they never had any motivation? There must be something.

Then, there are people who don’t believe in you at all. They have their own points of view, their own theories, their own explanations, and indeed Science is ingenious. I’m lost for words to defend you when I’m confronted with that probably because I never knew much about my own faith. It got me thinking why I believed in something I never even knew much about; or why I believed things that was never proven. Some people would tell me that’s why it’s called “faith”; others would say I need to desire it, desire to know you, and desire to look into the different aspects to eventually discover where I truly belong.

I’m writing this letter not to disrespect any faith. I only wish to let out my thoughts about religion. I was a Catechist in school before, I taught children about Christian living. And now I realized I never actually practiced what I preached. Although, I was teaching them more of the basic ones that was taught to me in my first grader too, Genesis or the beginning. To be honest, I did not understand why Catholics had to do confessions of their sins through a priest; I did not understand why we had to be forced to hear the mass on first Fridays; I did not understand why people of different faith debate about the graven images and other Catholic practices; I did not understand why others aren’t open about all these differences… and they fight cold war, they ignore each other, they think they’re all right. I got tired of these, God. And I’m no longer hesitant to admit that.

If you’re indeed the God that you are, you’d know exactly what’s in this brain, and you’d see all questions and confusions aboard in it. In fact, I don’t need to tell you all these, but I needed to let it go. There were times I got pretty close to you; times that I felt like you answered all my prayers. There were times I neglected you; times I felt like it was pointless. And right here, right now I don’t know my stand. They tell me I need to make one, they tell me it’s better to believe anyway and I think I still do, but at times when they tell me I need to know what kind of faith I believe in I start to question why it has to be like that. And then I end up letting it all pass me by and be better this way – the confused way, the I-don’t-care-anymore way. Still, I don’t feel that it’s right. I feel like I don’t belong anywhere.