This is going to be one hell of a ride!

When I first created this blog, almost 3 years ago, I meant it to be a happy place where I can gush about the things that make my world colorful and worth every difficult day. Looking back and re-reading my past posts, I will have to admit, I have only been partially successful.

I have always been a transparent person, whatever I was going through, people could always read it off me like some page of a book. Which is why, I suppose, due to the recent events, I chose to deactivate my Facebook account and be a social network recluse for just a little while.

How’s it going? Well..not very good. This is just day 3 of my first and real alone time in years and already I am feeling the familiar heaviness of heart and mind. There are hours when I feel that I have made the right decision, that I was right in making a stand the way I did. And yet there are those when the emptiness seems to engulf me and it is all I could do not to scream and go do something stupid.

It is never an easy thing accepting a relationship’s brutal ending. In my short life, I have gone through four and of those four, one was extra painful and difficult to get over. Not because the guy was so ideal or because he was so kind and generous. Believe me, I had all the right reasons for letting go. Yet, he was the most difficult to forget and it took me the better part of a year and a half before I was finally able to function happily without him.

I have a bad feeling that this one is going to be the same. I can no longer count the times when we have broken up, when I threw him out of the house and he left in a huff with all his belongings in tow. I wish I could say that all the screaming and the blaming has left me numb. Perhaps to a certain degree it has, but today, when all the indignations have been set aside, I am feeling the emptiness of being alone and it is not such a pretty picture after all.

Part of me is regretting that I have chosen to raise my unborn child alone. Yes, it is the modern times and yes, single mothers are now being accepted as normal part of the society. I suppose there is that part of me that still wanted a complete family, not only for myself but also for the kid. But then again, I was not going to trap myself in a miserable marriage just to be able to hold my head high and say yes, i am a respectably married woman with children born within the legalities of a marriage contract.

The last year has not been a walk in the park. If I were to describe it, I’d say it has been an uphill battle– trying to keep the relationship, making our similarities work against our differences, understanding our individual attitudes and coming up with a truce line when clearly there wasn’t going to be one.

For now, I am glad it’s over. That everyday won’t have to feel like I’m walking on a minefield, where a wrong step may cause me to lose my head. As to whether i will feel this consistently in the coming days, that remains to be seen.

 

This just in :)

Ever since I started posting for this blog, I have kept in mind that this is purely for sharing my interest in books, movies and dogs, nothing personal and nothing that inspires an online brawl. So far, I’d like to think that I have managed to keep the major things private, while there have been a few rants, for the most part, I’ve kept the gory details all to myself and the people directly involved.

In the next few months, however, as I transition from one milestone into another, this blog will transform itself. No longer will it be an impersonal account of what makes my world go round. Yes, it will still contain snippets and what-nots about my favorite things in the world but apart from that, it will now include raves and hurrahs for the people that I will be working closely with in the next 12 months or so– as one of my lifelong dreams come true.

Do stay tuned. In the meantime, here’s a preview of what’s brewing:

 

Going on a Book Binge

The days are going by like a blur these days, what with the long hours I spend at work and me living for the very few moments when I’m actually FREE to indulge. Because those moments are very few and far between, and because I don’t see an opportunity to actually go on a vacation in the near future, I decided I was going to indulge the old fashioned way. So, on a recent trip to my favorite used books shop, I went on a mad book binge and bought myself some new friends.

I call them friends for the very simple reason that they do exactly as my real human companions are wont to do, if they were in the same city as I am:

1. They allow me several hours of respite from the all too harsh realities of my current life.
2. They comfort me and remind me that compared to others, I am lucky.
3. They keep my mind away from food, which is all that I’ve been obsessing about ever since I realized I’ve successfully gained back the 10 lbs that I lost last year. Thankfully, despite the rigors at work, it still leaves me with enough energy to exercise, or maybe I’m just that determined not to look frumpy (whatever!) so now I’m back to losing them and fighting like hell to keep them off.
4. And most of all, they transport me to some exciting new place, for the cheap cost of a bowl of un-buttered popcorn and the sweetest fruit juice I could find at the nearest convenience store.

I’ve gone through three of them and while I thoroughly enjoyed each one, I find that I’m too lazy for now to post reviews. Maybe I will find time to do so, during the weekend. For now, this will have to suffice.

 

 

Waiting for Giant George, the Gentle Giant

I first met Giant George while checking out Life with Dogs. Now, if you have been following my recently resurrected blog, then you would know that sometime during the first quarter of this year, I lost contact with my golden retriever, thanks to the selfishness of he who must not be named. To console myself, everyday I’d stare at online photos and replay videos of dogs and their silly antics and somehow one click led to another and here I am, a resident lurker of Life with Dogs.

This page saved me, no doubt about it. Every morning, I’d log in to my Facebook account and I’d eagerly scroll through my news feed until I’d find their latest post for the day. Whether it’s a video, an article or a simple picture, they never fail to make me smile, cry or laugh out loud with their sweetest, most adorable posts about my favorite species. Thanks to this website, I’ve been able to deal with the pain of losing touch with my Bones and in the process made new friends with the second best kind of people– dog lovers

Oh, and yes, about the book.  It’s already been released in the United States but I’ve yet to find it here in our local bookstores.  A few interesting facts about the enormous baby on the cover:

• He is 6 years old and was the runt of his litter.
• He owns his very own QUEEN SIZED mattress
• He currently holds the record for largest dog in the planet, as well as the tallest.
•  He is 100 lbs heavier than the average Great Dane
•  He is single after having had his heart broken by a Labrador who goes by the name Bella.

1. photo credits
2. photo credits
3. photo credits

 

Papa, the Book Enthusiast

When I was growing up, I didn’t always see Papa immersed in a book. In fact, he was always working–either for a living or to fix something that needed repair in our crumbling house. But our living room, despite the fact that it was tiny and cramped, housed a huge book case with shelves and shelves of educational books, well-thumbed and well read by all members of our family. Whenever there was something that we, my brother and I, asked of him to which he didn’t know the answer, he would always point us towards the direction of this book case. In some rare times when he was not doing anything, Papa would pull out the correct volume of encyclopedia but leave us to sift through the pages and find the answers on our own.

He was like that. He nurtured without crippling our abilities to stand on our own. He taught but gave us the chance to make our own mistakes. Unlike my mom who supervised the completion of our daily homework, Papa left us to struggle with our math and science problems. He paid close attention to our grades, he always listened to Mama’s reports about them and he made sure we had everything we needed to get good ones, including those that were considered luxuries in our little province, like the very expensive ten volume set of Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopedia. Now this may not be a big deal  for those of you who live in the United States or somewhere equally progressive but in the Philippines, not all of the kids in rural elementary schools have this advantage. Quality educational books are hard to come by and the book to student ratio is about 3:1.

But I digress. Back to my dad and his enthusiasm for books. Like I said, he himself wasn’t a bookworm. All his life, he had to work for what he needed and there was little room for non-necessities like books. So when it came his time to raise kids, he made sure we had all the opportunities to learn things he never had the money for. He bought us books instead of toys and encouraged us to learn instead of wait. Looking back, I have the feeling that had he been born to affluent parents he would have loved nothing else than to lose himself in books and the knowledge that they brought. But because he didn’t, he made sure we could.

Thank you, Pa. We love you, dearly.

Encyclopedia Photo grabbed here

 

missing my cooper’s big brother..

EVERY SINGLE DAY! I know  harboring such negative feelings for a person you used to shared a life with is self destructive but him being responsible for this separation makes it an everyday struggle for me not to wish the guy all the horrible pain that life can throw his way.

’nuff said.

 

never mind the walk in closet

Because I am so forlorn without my piles of books and their lovely, old world scent, I am cheering myself up with imaginations of one day housing them in some magnificent wooden shelves, complete with a comfortable couch where I can spend all morning (or afternoon) leafing through the pages of  old and new favorites.

I swear, when I am rich and I no longer have to work my butt off, these will be significant parts of my dream home:

Inspiring aren’t they? I used to think that I’d never need any reminders to take a break from the fast paced world and just shut everything electronic and curl up with a novel or two. Oh, but how wrong I was. So yeah, the first photo will serve that purpose, not to mention be a very interesting conversation piece. Maybe I’d change the color of the walls to something more eye catching. Purple, perhaps?

photo credit

photo credit