Life Balance | One of those things you can't leave home without

Today is one of those days when I realized that I can be quiet and still without flinching. I can be quiet and still and remain content.  And I can sit endlessly and hold a pen and paper on my head and jot down all the words that attempt to escape my thoughts.  It's been a while since the quiet has settled in like this.  I'd normally go for my public blog for this one but right now, I think I'd rather just have this small space.  This small micro-window that's almost as invisible as the next period coming.  

But who knows where this writing will lead?  

After having scribbled some words on my journal I realized that my complicated personality and complicated life has been all woven and defined by: obligations.   The call of duty from being a youth minister to being my parents' daughter to being the head of a business unit (previously the head of human resource department) to being a "child of God".  I am very much threatened by the idea that I will not live up to the expectations of all these people who perceive me to be very capable and intact and self-directed.  

I mean, I can be.  I sometimes am.  But beyond this "call of duty" is this girl who has had some dreams that have been forsaken.  A writer.  A playwright.  A songwriter.  A pianist.  A composer.  A lover.  The vulnerable parts of myself that I take time to call by name today.  Along with a sip from a glass of wine that will keep coming until I have myself a piece of Dear Darla (perhaps? ) pizza from Yellow Cab by myself.

Yes, I write the most sensitive things that cannot be viewed by the world here.  In these "blank paper pages" where I can capture my thoughts faster by clicking the keyboard instead of drawing swirled lines with a pen on paper.  I capture them here because it's like that space, a silent one and publicity is too loud to hear yourself in.  I want a public self.  I want to be publicly known as a writer.  I want to be publicly known as "someone". But I also want to intimately know -- myself.  

I think my journey for the past 3 years has been veering away from that goal of knowing myself intimately.  After 10 failed relationships and the last one dying on me, I vowed myself that I will never let myself love another completely until I talk some sense into me.  But I was wrong.  Love called out to me in many different faces.  It punched and kick me until I had drop dead nothing to give.  This love came in the face of Christ.  He called me to serve (most of the time less than grateful) young people who took almost 24 hours of my time for one whole year.  The act of serving has taken so many different forms from spending time with them, to hanging out with them, to finding them jobs, to guiding them through their life's transitions, to dreaming futures with them, to investing in them.  From there I realized that the love I felt then was mostly coming from a "need to receive".  Meeting Christ taught me about the "need to give".  

But in giving I realized now that being human as I am, I'll never be able to give completely.  The past few years have been those years wherein I've slowly raised the red flag saying "I'm running out!" please don't expect much.  But no, the world keeps expecting once you start giving.  Just yesterday, I was expected to add more to the budget of our production team's Christmas party.  I gave them 2000 pesos.  One thousand of which came from what the team won during the company Christmas party and the other half was from my own pocket.  

Oh I've given more.  And I didn't mind.  I didn't mind that my own savings didn't really reach a certain goal.  I was "living on God's provision".  But I'm realizing now that it's been so irresponsible of me.  I should save.  I should keep a tab on everything that I'm giving.  I should not just give mindlessly.  I should not give just so I can feel good after having given.  Which has been the story of my life the past 5 years.  No six.  Oh, yes, five.

So, I thought today that I'd make some lists.  Lists that would tell me how much I've wasted and how much I can still make better.  I was thinking about this bluetooth keyboard I bought that was supposed to help me use my iPad more until I realized that I don't really use the iPad for typing.  I use it for reading.  I realized that I needed to write more than I tell myself to.  I realized that hearing myself is most especially important to me when things get really busy.  And I need to talk to someone and just talk.  I don't need analyzing or fixing.  I just need to talk.  

These things that I've mentioned are just a few but I'm going to probably start on that list until I dig myself up a resolution for the coming year.  Starting with life balance.  

Lucerne Switzerland 2005