Monday, October 24, 2011

The Day I Fall in Love

by: James Ingram 
     Dolly Parton 


Just an ordinary day
Started out the same old way
Then I looked into your eyes and knew
Today would be a first for me
The day I fall in love

On the day I fall in love
Sky will be a perfect blue
And I'll give my heart forever more
To someone who is just like you
The day I fall in love

People all say love is wonderful
That the bells will ring
The birds will sing
The skies will open
I wonder where's that great big symphony
Roll over Beethoven
Won't you play with me

And I'll never promise to be true to anyone
Unless it's you
Unless it's you
The day I fall in love

Just an ordinary day
Started out the same old way
Then I looked into your eyes and knew
Today will be a first for me
A first for me
The day I fall in love
I know you'll be there
Ooh....I know...
The day I fall in love



Listen here

Monday, October 17, 2011

The Quest



For four years, I have been in a quest. A quest of finding something, that would give meaning and purpose to my life. A justification to my existence. A reason for living. So I set on the different experiences  greatly hoping  that I would find that very thing that is missing.

Profession. I set out and left my little city in the hopes of pursuing my profession in another place, would be the answer. Never dreaming of coming back and settling in a stagnant place such as what I have. I battled in that big city in trying to live a decent respected life. Sought for employment and once I find a good company to submit my papers, I end up asking myself, is this what I want for the rest of my life? Will this employment make me happy? No. So I ended that search by coming back to my hometown with a song in my heart "I'm coming home, to a place where I belong".  And so I went home, excited for I know that my happiness is just there waiting to be recognized by me.

Coming back home was a shattering and painful experience. I did not know that there would no longer be a home I could go back to. My already lost self just got lost deeper. I tried battling it. Tried to live an ordinary life. Found an employment, actively joined in my Christian community, went out and partied with friends, read books, found crushes, but then again at the end of the day, same questions rush through my mind. So, I gave up the pretence and followed what my heart is telling me to do.

Do nothing. For ten months, I made my world stop. I eat, sleep and watch tv. I lavished in what Italians call The sweetness of doing nothing. The only thing left that I do, is the service I give to my community. Another experience I embarked believing that in it I would be able to end my search because I know that in this, I am good, excellent. Through this experience, I met a lot of friends, listened to their problems, listened to mine. Found new adventures, found new learning.  Yet, none of those, took me closer to my search. None of them knew what it is I have been missing . They know me for sure, they know what other people know about me, and they know me for what I was willing to show them and what I was willing to share to them. None recognized the internal battle I was going through for the struggles had been successfully masked by what people easily recognize as a reason for happiness, the successes, the upbringing, the character, the friends, the status, the family. All of these had been effective facades.

Then came Someone. An experience of love which I embarked believing that maybe a relationship is what's missing. I loved this experience. The many first times, the rush of emotion, the smile it brings to my lips, the hugs and kisses that warms my heart. A new experience of being able to think and care for someone other than yourself.  An experience with the hopes that could lead me to the end of my search. I failed to realized at the beginning, that it is love that had brought me to this search. Failing to do that, I  failed to acknowledge that it is love that has brought me to loosing myself, a common characteristic of a person in love. So , instead of getting closer to the answer, the more I got lost. For one characteristic of love is loosing your balance. I got lost and this time I brought someone with me. We both got lost.

Everybody needs affection. It makes people do funny things. Everyone gets like that at beginning of a  relationship. Want too much happiness, too much pleasure. Until you make yourself sick. And we were truly like that in our relationship. At the time when we were sick, we were living in misery but we are so afraid to let go because of the emotions we felt and the closeness to finding and ending our quest. It was love that led me to this quest, only to find out that at the end, it would also love that would help me identify the road I should take on to find the answers to my quest.

As I watched Eat.Pray.Love of Julia Roberts, I finally found that road. It is not Profession, Family, Friends, Service nor Love. But all in one package. A Balanced Life. That is what I have been searching for. I never thought that only in a movie will I be able to put into words that of which took me years to identify.

Now I would truly be able to have one direction in this quest to find that balanced life of mine. And like Liz Gilbert (Julia Roberts) I would try to live in the Physics of the Quest that:

If you're brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting
Which can be anything, from your house to old bitter resentments
And set out on a truth seeking journey either externally or internally
And if your are truly willing to regard everything
That happens to you on that journey as a clue
And if you accept everyone you meet along the way  as a teacher
And if you are prepared most of all
To face and forgive some very difficult realities about yourself
Then the truth will not be withheld from you.

For now, I would continue on with my internal journey to finding the truth, the balance life, I so dream about. Hopeful that along this quest I will find many teachers to help me face the realities about life, and about myself.