Thoughts As Mother's Day Approaches (2)

Two years, one week and one day ago I took this picture of the girls. . .

I look at it again tonight filled with love and deep yearning, that I may hold them all in my arms sooner than tomorrow.

Through the years, I have been very hard on myself because I felt, that I have let manic-depression rule over my life, thus short-changing my daughters, whom I all have wished for all of my life, of a mother they deserve.

Luckily, I have been blessed with family, friends, and random wonderful kind-hearted people, whom I all have met throughout my journey to healing, who all have helped me in my struggles, and have not let me give up.

When  feelings of helplessness, fear, and all the myriad emotions, that one goes through when the dark moments revisit, I look at the images of my daughters, of moments captured that I would not like to forget, and after a while I see them in my mind, and their eyes, and see, to them, I am just the best that they could ever have as a mother.

I try to hold on to that image because not believing it is giving in to the darkness of my mind, and not the light of love of my daughters.

BlogNote 0:09 AM (this is actually more a note for me, so I will not forget...)

I almost did not write today, and spent half an hour in the bathroom crying, purging all the negative feelings I was having over myself before I literally shook my head, and made myself focus on "simply being there", no matter how I feel, and no matter what thoughts will pour out on the keyboard and on to the computer screen.

Yeah, 365 are not free from tears.

Warming-Up for the WordCount Blogathon

"I always loved running...it was something you could do by yourself, and under your own power. You could go in any direction, fast or slow as you wanted, fighting the wind if you felt like it, seeking out new sights just on the strength of your feet and the courage of your lungs."
Jesse Owens

Today, in search of inspiration, I googled quotes using the keyword marathon, and came upon the above quote, which I liked best.

I could replace the word "running" with writing, replace "the wind" with self-doubts, "feet" with imagination and "lungs" with will, then it will read for me:

I always loved writing...it was something you could do by yourself, and under your own power.  You could go in any direction, fast or slow as you wanted, fighting self-doubts as they come, seeking out new sights just on the strength of your imagination and the courage of your will.

 This quote could also apply to biking, my other passion but that is another topic altogether.

When I think of this year's WordCount Blogathon (my first!) , I automatically have to think on how I can compare it to running a marathon.  An endevour I would very much like to do in the future.

I feel that with patience and persistance, I could train for a marathon, and with will I could join and eventually finish it.  I started training 5 years ago, and every year I had to give up my training due to health and other personal reasons.  Still, I have never given up on this goal.  Someday soon, it will be achieved.

This somehow mirrors my dream to be a writer.  I know with patience and persistance I could create a body of work worthy of being recognized.  But I have had to battle health and other personal issues in my life many times during the last two decades,  that at one point the stress of it all disabled me to even write a simple personal letter.

In 2006 when I discovered blogging it was like learning to stand up again after what seems like half a lifetime paralysis, and as the years passed with anonymous writing online, I learned how to walk slowly back towards the path of my dream.  The first quarter of the year of writing on this page felt like a joyous jog.  With the participation in A to Z Blogging Challenge 2011, it was like running a half-marathon in preparation for  the WordCount Blogathon 2011.

I guess with this post, it is like waving at the other participants of this event just after we all left the starting point of this blogathon, and saying, "Hey! It feels good to be writing with all of you!"

When you wave back, what will you be telling me? ☺

365~ self-portrait for today, entitled: catching the last ray of the setting sun

Crunchy

please click on image for better view ☺

Crunchy comfort food!  Don't you just love it when your partner knows when words are needed, or when the right time to give you a hug ? But most specially, don't you feel ever so blessed  when he knows exactly  when words and hugs will simply not comfort fast enough, in the way KFC will?

P and the littlest went to IKEA again today to get the rest of our wooden flooring for the balcony.  On their way home P called to ask how how many chicken legs and strips he should bring back.

Back home everyone picnicked on the couch and it seems the misunderstandings of the day were not that huge anymore.  Child-rearing is a blessing; the challenging moments could sometimes seem to be in abundance, though.

Thank goodness for a supportive partner, the calming powers of an afternoon nap, and yeah the comfort on chewing on chicken legs because chewing on a question you would rather ask a child psychology is rather pointless.

Is it really the 26th of March?!?  Is it really the day we have to give up one hour of weekend sleep?!?  As much as I look forward to May school break (what I think about when the hours are adjusted), I want that one hour of more sleep!

In the end, I have to focus on all the good things from the weekend, and not on one incident of disharmony from today.  Tomorrow is another day to do things better, and tomorrow will be an hour earlier! ☺

Littlest' Lens

Please click on the image to have a better view

Today's post is another attempt to move my blogging time to the a.m. part of the day!  Here is hoping I will be able to be consistent on this the entire week because I do NEED to sleep earlier than way past midnight.

I took a  couple of pictures on my way back home after bringing back the girl's to school.  The weather outside is fantabulous!!!  It is still cool though, but what the heck, the sun is out beaming wonderful sunshine!

Never did I imagine that sunshine will be a cause of celebration in my life having grown up in a tropical country and growing up with the habit of taking an umbrella to shield myself not from the rain but from the sun.  Life can be entertaining when you muse about it from different perspectives of your life.

Speaking of perspectives, the littlest shot today's 365~ self-portrait!  Sooo proud of her.  This is not the first picture she shot of me.  She actually took a picture of P last week or two weeks ago.  I'll post it some other time.  I guess, this is one very lucid example that when you want your young to be creative, the best way is to simply practice creativity yourself, and they'll follow.  Littlest (3 y.o) asked me very politely "Mom, take a picture?" and then  took the camera in the hand like she's been doing it forever, and manipulated it that  after taking the simple picture, she was able to view the result right after and showed it to me for approval.  Did I say, I am so proud?!!!

I could not help tweaking the image a bit in picnik (I used the Threshold feature in edit mode) to make it appear as if I was frozen (couch+chill + relaxing~ cool chillaxing) because I felt blah and it showed on my complexion; I am making a mental note today to start moisturizing my dry face, which I neglected in the couple of weeks I was sick.

It was great being back on the saddle again.  I had a mini-anxiety attack as I woke up, thinking about the bike route to the girl's school.  The nausea felt so bad but luckily P knows better now how to talk me out of it.  Lucky for him since he could sleep in, and not bring them in my stead. Kidding aside, I am RELIEVED that my panic and anxiety attacks are getting more under control.  More on that some other time. 

taken on the way back home from a visit in Loosdrecht, 5 May 2010

I am simply full of bliss that I am well again, and I cannot repeat that enough after the terrible two weeks!  Cannot wait to tank some sun, and so I am ending this entry with three quotes to affirm the day positively (also to shoo away remnants of negative thoughts I suffered from while fighting depression, which is always the side effect of being ill for a long period):

I’ve learned that making a ‘living’ is not the same thing as making a ’life.’
Maya Angelou

 Love and do what you like.
Saint Augustine

I know you’ve heard it a thousand times before. But it’s true – hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don’t love something, then don’t do it.
Ray Bradbury

Wishing you all a magnificent week!

Writing & Travelling Heals

One of the reasons I joined FB is for self-therapy. There have simply been too many rapid changes in my life, and not enough peace to work through them. In the past, my tendecy is to work on personal issues alone. Of course, there are more than enough love ones, who were and are willing to listen, lend a helping hand, a comforting shoulder to lean on. But it was my nature to want to sort things out on my own.

It seems contrary to state this, this occurs to me while writing what I wrote , but I am in the core a very private person. They say life to be fully savoured should be balanced. I needed to learn how to be open again. Blogging seems to be the answer to that need.

Without going into much details, I would like to share that almost 2 years (on the 23rd of March) into using this medium - what is in general considered as a social networking site - as my online journal, album (personal/family) I have reaped a lot of positive changes in my life, which in turn has benefited my beloved family.

I once received a letter from a friend, whom I worked with during college, telling me that our friendship, hopefully will not have walls, no floors and no ceilings. I still laugh whenever I recall those words. It was probably between the years 1990-91 or 1991-92. The last couple of years before I left the Philippines.

Walls. It is very easy to build up walls around one-self. Sometimes, it is so easy to slip into building walls around one-self, that one realizes too late until one feels the result of closing one-self in.

What I needed to re-affirm for myself, and was able to in the almost two years of using FB, is that everyone goes through almost the same life phases, and almost everyone has the same dreams, goals, longings.

We all have different ways of travelling through life, different pace, different tempo. But all the same, we will all encounter road blocks, and challenges to overcome on the way to fulfill whatever it is that motivates us to wake up every single day.

Why am I writing all these thoughts, and why do I have all these thoughts?

I guess the result of being ill the last few days, and now feeling a whole lot better. It reminds me clearly about the relativity of time.

Also because I have been meaning to share pictures of our trip to Berlin but never got around it. Lately, I have been looking through them again, and I no longer feel so emotional about sharing.

I was 7 or 8 y.o. when I dreamed of going to Berlin. I visited it for the first time 1993, almost half a year after turning 21 (well, near it...we were in Berlin Potsdam with my German language classmate during a school trip). Then 1996, with my German husband. Easter 2006, eldest and middle daughter came along for the first time. 2009, with P and the littlest.

The Brandenburg Gate is very prominent in the history of Germany, Europe and the world.

It played a prominent role in my childhood imagination and visualisation of living life in Europe. Ironically enough, it bared silent witness to my simple life going through many transition.

Now, I look forward to going many times through this gate with an open heart, and an open mind to the future ahead.  Perhaps like the millions of visitors in awe of the freedom and hope this landmark represents.