So yay, I lost weight! Yesterday, I was able to fit into a pair of pants I last wore two years ago and I didn't even have to suck my tummy in.

I know that when you're very very overweight, a couple of pounds might not be noticeable but nevertheless, I'm happy!

I have noticed the difference two weeks ago but just kept things to myself because I know that instead of encouragement, I will be met with the usual, "You're still too fat!" and I've hated that since time immemorial. And just as I expected, I was indeed told that what few pounds I lost were close to insignificant because apparently, I'm still too fat and big.

But today, I don't care what other people say. I have made progress and any tiny bit of progress is nonetheless progress in itself. I am happy and proud and I plan to keep on losing more.

And look! My arms are definitely smaller and I have a bit of a waist now, too!

Glorious mornings
To wake up fully rested and happy with the gentle lull of serenity covering you, making you smile a quiet smile. To know that you're free from the shackles of yesterday's pain, frustrations and sins. To know that forgiveness was received and grace has been renewed with blessings abundant and free.  To love and be loved again.


Bonsai Trees
Growing bonsai trees aren't easy to say the least. One must have the patience to wait for decades of years and the dedication and perseverance to go on. Unlike with most plants, the result with bonsai trees can take decades of training. I think bonsai trees are one of the priceless things in life a person can cultivate. You cannot put a price tag on time. It almost takes as much love and commitment as rearing your own children. I am happy I started young. I have learned to be patient, knowing that patience builds character and just as so, beautiful cracking trunks and hardy, twisted and even wind-swept branches.


Photographs
Next to paper and pen, I believe the greatest invention of mankind would be cameras. Such an awe to capture naked realities and candid life at such an ease as pushing a button. I'm thinking that probably, centuries from now, future generations will call our epoch the era of photography. They will be able to tell I loved him and you and you and you and loved doing this and this and that by the photographs they'll uncover of the things and people I've taken.

on late nights
alone and dark
the rain whispers
do you count
the gentle beats
the pitter platter
drop
drop
drop
the tears of the sky
they fall

and when you wake up
sin-kissed lids
fluttering lashes
the flickering visions
the half sighs of realization
tomorrow has come
today
the bed is empty beside me
today

because
i love you
perfection is attained
and bliss
it's throbbing breathing state of life
and all I see
the embrace of dawn and dusk
and everything else is you
you
my magnificent obsession
because
love covers a multitude of sin
you

every day is a step closer
to the promise
of forever
and ever after

I'll sing you to sleep
and I
I'll be the keeper of your heart
your dream come true
and I
I am yours

How can I say thanks
for the things You have done for me?
Things so undeserved,
yet You gave to prove Your love for me;
the voices of a million angels
could not express my gratitude.
All that I am and ever hope to be,
I owe it all to Thee.

To God be the glory,
to God be the glory,
to God be the glory
for the things He has done.
With His blood He has saved me,
with His power He has raised me;
to God be the glory
for the things He has done.

Just let me live my life,
let it pleasing, Lord to Thee,
and if I gain any praise,
let it go to Calvary.

-----------

I'm not sure who wrote or sang this song first but it's really beautiful. So much to be thankful for, so many things I've carelessly taken for granted...I owe it all to God.

Everything I do, be it the impossible perfection of every unattainable good deed and intentions will never ever amount to anything more than the nothing that they all are and ever will be.

For the love overflowing and strong, it broke through time just to bless our lost souls, for the mercies unfailing and faithful, the grace beautiful and undeserved, the life of abundance and love, the friendship, family and the gift of music, the magnificent beauty of words, the rich and heart-felt laughter all melodic and sublime, the radiant breathing poetry of him, a fraction of heaven too grand and breath taking to embrace, and oh, the love. A lifetime of praise and adoration can never fully express my utmost gratitude for the undeserved love. For heaven and salvation, for truth and repentance, for forgiveness and unmerited faithfulness. 

May this life not shame You, may everything I do bring glory to You. May this life be a living testament to Your unfailing grace and mercy so that people may come to the knowledge of Your saving grace. May You bless other people through me and the life I live and that I won't cause pain to people around me.

POET©

There are people born cursed
to love only but never be loved.
Whose pure affections be returned
with plucked petals pierced by thorns.
To where promises remain as dreams
stringed with tears to drown the heart.

For as much as they all know
love is a vessel still to be waited on
the docks where they can feel, hear and see
a glimpse of the sea of tears
now called fate.
Its cold breath tangling their hairs,
stinging their skins.
Its cries drowning the frail, beating of their hearts,
screaming bargain for love
(only) to be requited with castles of sands.

Such a feeble excuse for existence
to only sing requiems for love.
Such an irony to build an empire of words
from such a small word as love,
causing people to reel with emotion
yet remain oblivious to the feeling.

For the seemingly longest of times,
surviving through
vision-starved dreams
and lucid desperations.
Though how can you tell
if the joys and pains
and the burning regrets,
if, are they at all real?

djf
11/21/08
12:28pm

I find it quite amusing how my sister gets bothered everytime she'd see candy wrappers or biscuit pouches or banana peels inside the bathroom's trashcan. I, of course finds it so, just because I am the culprit. She'd always bellow out, "Who's the sicko that loves to eat in the toilet?!"

Hahaha.

I eat when I'd stay up at night while whisking time away in front of the PC. By the time I'd decide to go to bed, I'd be too lazy to walk all the way to the kitchen especially that the entire house is already dark and the light switch is all the way across the room. The closest trashcan I could find is the one inside the bathroom, next to the toilet.

I don't see the point in her getting all worked up just because they're not the kind of trash one would get to normally see next to the toilet. What? Trash is trash, right?

Anyways, here are some of the pictures from Watzie's visit two weeks ago. Had a great time with her.

Here's Watz and I at The Showroom. Look at how tiny she is next to me. Tee hee. She's gunna bite my knee caps off if she finds out I called her tiny.
But really, she is.

Here's the lovely hot spring at Mambukal Mountain Resort where I took her on her last day here. It was a fun experience for both of us.

Another picture of the hot spring from another angle. Watz needed to change the camera's settings because using the normal setting would only make you take foggy and almost ghosty-like  pictures due to the steam. You can smell sulfur everywhere. The water is directed into the pool from a nearby volcano.

And here's a picture of both Watzie and I. She had a small tripod with her and it was a hoot watching her make the tripod work, which it didn't. Hahaha. Epic failure. She had to run all the way from the rock where she placed her camera and rush back into the steaming pool. Look at how she looks like she's about to burst into tears. I told her she's turning into a lobster.

There aren't much picture of her since she won't let me take pictures of her because according to her, she's "shy". I have totally NO idea where she got that silly notion.  I have been friends with her for over 4 years now, I think and this'll be the second time we've seen each other. The first time was when I came to Manila and now, she came here. Meeting each other half-way, don'tcha think?

I wish you know yourself better than the mere guesses you do and the feeble attempts of individuality and rather be sure of who you are and what you want.

Your skepticism and unbelief has blinded you from the truth that you have been desperately groping for. You could have turned and found love begging on her knees for you to see her yet you decided not to. You exploited time in your futile attempts at understanding when you don't really believe. Do you know that time alone can really see and appreciate love in her truest sense?

Science doesn't have the answers for everything and cannot be trusted for absolutes. For what can be true today in science may very well be a lie the next. Did you really expect science to understand love? What a tragic funny fool you are.

 Please do not ask me questions you know I'm mincing my words to answer. Do not ask me questions I have spent the last decade of my life showing you the answers to. I don't want to break you so please don't ask me.

I wish you happiness and contentment. A love that's sure and true. May you find yourself at your own expense. Live and let live.

To whom much is given, much is also expected.

Expectations. This has been the cause of my many anguish since I was a kid. Some of the expectations from decades ago still haunts me. I guess, in some ways, it is flattering to know that people look up to me and expect me to do great things, both in having a career and in my personal life.

These days, I am struggling with my personal demons, the burden of living up to the expectation that I am the "mature" kid in my family.

Sometimes, I want to be the immature one. I want to be selfish and sulk and throw tantrums. I want to be a brat and pout. I want to be careless and inconsiderate. I want to play and be pampered. I want to be doted and have my elder siblings do things for me. All the things I never had. All the the things I had to give up and grow beyond their maturity level because I am expected to. And I am tired.

I remember when I was 6. My brother spent all of his allowance on computer games and took my money and my sandwich for himself. I starved that day and had to stand in a jeep all the way home because I had no money left. When we got home, I cried and told my mom on him, thinking that they'd reprimand him but was surprised to be the one who got the reprimanding. Until now, I still couldn't understand why. The bullying of my allowance lasted all through out my elementary years. I got called names, too. The ugly fat pig.

When I was in fifth grade, I had to accompany my bother to La Salle and enroll him in college. I thought it was a normal practice, then. No wonder everybody was staring at me.

When I was in high school, there was a time I loved wearing these really baggy shirts that I'd buy from Vintage stores and my brother would always take them and wear them. He'd return them with ink stains or torn hems/sleeves and when I'd get mad, I'd get reprimanded. Why? Because he's the eldest child and he deserves all "respect" - NO MATTER WHAT. That I am the lowly youngest and that I should understand and have patience with him. It wasn't until college that I learned how twisted my family "rules" were.

Another high school scene. I saved my allowance for months so I could buy my very own [cheap] radio and listen to music that I like. One day, my sister and I were listening to my radio when my brother barged into the room and announced he wants to take the radio. I said no but he persisted. He snatched the radio and took out the tape we were listening to and threw it away. I called him jerk and he threw the radio at me and it fell on the floor after it hit me and shattered to pieces. I got reprimanded  for hours for "fighting against my brother" and spent four hours kneeling on mung beans.

Yet another high school scene. My sister, her bf and I went to the mall. They decided to ditch me in the arcade while they go and watch a movie. I waited there for 4 hours and never saw then again. I didn't have any money so I walked all the way to my mom's office for 30 minutes and asked the guard to lend me money. It was dark by the time I got home and I can see my parents were fuming already even from afar off. Turned out my sister forgot about me and left me there at the mall. To say that I got a reprimand would be an understatement. According to them, I should take better care of my OLDER sister and not be careless. I didn't understand it until now. Needless to say, another four hours kneeling on mung beans.

The list is endless but these particular memories are the ones that's etched and is burning in my mind. And I cannot help but feel bad. And now that we're all older and supposed to have matured and grown, it's still the same story. I get blamed for their faults and for the chores they didn't do.

A huge fight broke out last Monday because my brother didn't make his bed. It  was supposed to be my job to make sure he does. SERIOUSLY. I finally asked why. Why? Why? Why for all those times I've been robbed of my childhood innocence. Why? And the answer that blew me away was, "Because you are the only mature and trust worthy of them all."

Wow.

Seriously, I still don't get it. But when I can help it, I'd rather not think of these things. They make me bitter. Times like these I wish I'm jaded.

I despise this, this need so great.

I would love to think that I am, that I can, that I will and that I can stand on my own, turn away and never look back.

But alone in my thoughts, when robbed of the majesty of light, when feeble chatters and needless want grow mighty and consuming, I still always find myself crumbling, so insecure and filled with doubt.

Oh, but where I am weak there mirrors your strength. And when I cry, there I realize I am most blessed that I feel, that I hurt and that I bleed.

I am a human being, made of flesh and blood. I am not stone. I am a woman. (And perhaps the insecurity and state of being so emotionally needy all the time springs from the cold pit of men's insensitivity.)

----

Not of my flesh,
nor bone of my bone,
but still miraculously my own.
Never forget for a single
minute, you didn't grow
under my heart - but in it.

~@~
Fleur Heylinger