Hibernation

I went into hibernation for more than a month.

Of course I still went to work but spent most of my time reading, listening to music, rants and stories of friends whom I haven’t gotten in touch with. In my spare time, I indulged in every guilty pleasure of watching the TV to see my current crush wearing a vest which in fact for me is just a bolero (Hint. He’s is just so majika-l). I slept. A lot. I guess I was trying to be still but at the same time I’m making an effort to run away from the everyday hustle and bustle of life. I even went out of the country for a while with friends to just literally get away from routine work and activities of my day in and day out existence.

Yes. Existence. That’s what I was feeling for some time now. I’m plainly existing when I should be living.

In the past weeks, a lot of things have happened to me. Physically, I gained weight which I’ve been striving for the past year. Mentally and psychologically, I’ve grown old as I’ve been trying to raise my mother. (So the saying ‘Ang hirap magpalaki ng magulang!). I always thought that parenting is a two-way street. But I never surmised there will come a time when the child would have to stop and grow fast enough to parent the mother. My mom and I are at that difficult stage now. I’m teaching her how to cope with how the world has been running and at the same time ruining itself. I am helping her catch up, throw her old-school perception of what the world was when she was young. She’s nearing her sixties. All the insecurities, fear of being alone and growing old are creeping up. While I am in the course of drinking my bitter sweet cup of quarter-life crisis, I am trying to assure my mother that indeed she should see that the cup that life is offering her is indeed half full.

Spiritually, I’ve been growing drastically. I’ve been exploring my faith in a way that I haven’t done before. I think I’m done being spoon-fed with beliefs and gospels. It may have made me lazy in trying to look for the answers on my own. I’ve been good in advising people with what God was thinking when shit happens but I cannot understand my own shit occurrence. So I thought I should read more to know more. And for the first time I’m reading the Bible from cover to cover. I always felt that growing up in a Catholic school and in the presence of a mother who knows all the saints and brings me to Manaoag at least once a year weren’t enough. Everything I did as part of my faith was consoling and relieving but wasn’t filling me to the brim. I’ve been praying more now not because I need something or I need to rant and ask Him why ‘the hell’ and why not ‘the heaven’ things are happening. I plainly need to pray just like I need to breathe the polluted air around me to survive. There are Christian rituals and practices and readings. But I’m working on having a more relational faith rather than a faith filled with rituals. Some people are telling me that maybe I need a new religion. But I think it’s more of a renewal of faith that is needed. It’s crazy and I cannot seem to find the words to capture how I’m going through all these but slowly, it’s proving itself very much worth it.

My April and most of my May were spent in hibernation and I feel it’s time well-spent. I’m glad I did this. I’m glad I stopped and decided to slow-down a bit. If you think about it, everyday seems like a race and we're always trying to catch that big wave. Sometimes it’s just better to just watch the waves form and crash to the shore and let the others do the chasing. So for a time, I did exactly this. Now, I’m waking up from my hibernation to welcome the changes that are ahead. I constantly pray that I’ll have the energy to ride the waves that the future will bring. Something’s telling me June and July will be BIG months. My zzzzzzzzzz-ing will soon be over. Well, I’ll leave it up to Him. Only He knows. All I can say for now is…bring it on! I’m ready! :)