Liv in a Life Well-Lived

I must write this down before I forget about it. Or I must write it down, perhaps, to forget. Everyone has done at least one thing they will never forgive themselves for doing. Regardless of how many hundred people will tell you that it wasn’t your fault and it was God’s will, there is one will well within your control, and the unforgivable thing was that you didn’t use its full potential. Yours. I will never forgive myself for falling apart when my father died. My father’s strength was our family’s strength, and when we lost him, I allowed myself to wallow. I allowed myself to be taken away by the tsunami of horror and grief, forgetting that there may be people hurting more than I was. After his death, I may have subconsciously decided to disengage from life. Sure, once in a while, I resurface. But in my sorrow, I alienated the people who needed me more. My mother, for instance, who knew my father far longer than I did, must have been in more physical pain. And her health, to everyone...

When the final words come What will it say? When the accounting is done What will it prove? When my time is complete What will I show? My heart ceases to beat What will they know?

Leo Allen Pangilinan is my former student in DLSU and has remained a "blog" buddy all these years. From Ryan Yam's blog: Leo has been missing since Feb. 10, 5:00PM. He was last seen leaving his house at Baesa, QC for work, but he never arrived at his workplace at Ortigas. He was wearing khaki pants and a red striped short-sleeved polo shirt.He is 22 years old, around 5’4” to 5’5” tall and 120-130lbs. If you have any information on his whereabouts, please contact these numbers ASAP: Rea Carpio 09163992674. Bea Tabuñar 09173260415 Rose Tan 09178297673 Please help find Leo and by reposting in your blogs, sites, and Twitters.Prayers for his safety are much appreciated.Thanks and God bless.

Were you one of them? Oh, don't be coy. You know that growing up you got your way most of the time. What did it take for you to bend your parents' iron will again? I've heard there are countless of ways. The pretty-please dopey eyed look, the i'll-pray-every-night-promise, the you-know-you-love-me mini dominatrix/dominator, or the you-don't-give-me-enough-time-anyway-so-buy-me-what-I-want mojo? Let me tell you mine. I was the "straight-laced, straight-As in exchange for anything I want" kind of kid. C'mon, I know it sounds devious, but it makes perfect honest sense. Who can deny you anything when you've given everything to be the best in the one thing your parents value? For my family, school rules. Hey, I was born to a couple of pedagogues, so get off my geeky case. Good grades equate to pocketbooks and Teen Beat magazines cum Sunday. Housework? Well, how can I study if I'm worrying about washing the dishes, right? Besides Ate "Fill-in-...

Oh dear God almighty. This movie only works because it makes you believe in hell and you are deep in it. . I deeply love Paul Bettany and his inked, muscled self, but loyalty could only get to a certain point and beyond it lies a dark region where no one ever returns. I think I have toed the demarcation line, but decided to remain on this side of sanity. . Legion. WTF? . I admit, the trailers already gave me the foreboding that this movie will be difficult to like. Desert + midwestern accents + zombies = Go do the math. But Mr. Bettany can reanimate a 100-year-old Egyptian Mummy by just raising a sexy eyebrow, (in my opinion) and thus, I truly believed he will "save" this movie from it's B-movie sad existence. . Well, let me present the points and you decide if I was gravely mistaken or just almost right. . Exhibit A - The modern Joseph and Mary are named Jip and Charlie, respectively. He a slow, nice kid, and she a waitress / ho. I get the "regular kind of people...

My goal for my 30th birthday is to save Php 200,000++ for a trip to London and maybe part of Europe. I already did the hard math and figured out that I would need to save Php 6,000 per month to reach my goal. Shouldn’t be a problem, right? Rrrrright. Let me just put that aside right after I buy the Rolls Royce and the vacation house in Cebu. God, what happened? I’m hitting 28 in a few more days and I’m disillusioned to say the least. Ten years ago, I thought 28 was ancient and I would have my own car by now, living a fast-paced jetsetter lifestyle as an international development consultant, and engaged. Age does skew things a bit, doesn’t it? Now, barely a week before the calendar awards me another year, all I have is an ailing laptop, a days-old half-eaten croissant, and lots of bills to pay. I’m tired of being “on a limited budget”. I have to unlearn creating an adverse correlation between poverty and happiness. Because not doing something I hate does make me relatively happier than ...

I have a huge confession to make. I have always been a fat kid. No, of course that’s not the confession. Everybody with half a functioning eye can see that. My confession is, for someone who has always been fat, in my head I’m just the right size. Not the right size for clothes, definitely. Topshop, Mango and Zara are alien boutiques to me, with their current styles and cuts catering to the toddler-sized up to swallowed-half-a-peach-pit kinda fat (which isn’t fat at all). I’m not the right size for health either, it now turns out. Whenever I go to the doctor, I just nod my head on auto-pilot. They scare me, true, but death doesn’t, so here we have a critical impasse. But to me, I’m just the right size for me. You wouldn’t agree of course. But you haven’t lived your life comforted by the knowledge that no hearty gale of wind will bring you down. I like the feeling of being firmly on the ground, practically screwed unto it. This works for me because my idea of spreading my wings and flyi...

Last night, I woke up screaming my guts out. In my dreams which felt too real, I saw a burglar trying to infiltrate the house. I was shouting for help, but my mouth couldn’t fully form the words. I was trying to scream at the burglar, but all I was capable of making were muffled sounds of protest. When I woke up, of course, I was in bed, drenched in cold sweat, and the night quiet as the dead. Geez. Welcome to my slow descent towards paranoia. I wish I could say this is the first time this has happened. But no, every night brings new terrors to me. Ever since our yard was broken into, and our water pump and some electronics we foolishly left outside were taken, I never fully trusted the security of our place. True, the house itself is practically impregnable, and with what our 3 dogs who would bark at a moving leaf may be enough to provide alarm. But I think the night terrors are due to other deeper sources; and when I talk of security, I’m just skimming the surface when I say it’s jus...