It’s been awhile since I have shopped for myself. Not that I have alot of spares, but its been really awhile since I have shopped for anything for me. Let’s say its almost a year already.

I have not been very good with rewarding myself. Its been awhile since I did or bought anything for myself. But this weekend, my children and I went to the mall and I noticed Book Sale and I bought a couple of books for myself. These are books by Jonathan Kellerman, Faye Kellerman, Michael Connelly and yes, one of my favorites, John Grisham.

Reading has always been one of my favorite things to do eversince I was a teenager. From Nancy Drews and the Hardy Boys, I am now gorging myself with reads by Kellerman, Grisham,Connelly and Crichton. I like to read legal and mystery books. So wait up for some book reviews…

How many have I thought of using my blog to spew my marriage’s dirty laundry? Many times. How many times have I thought of ruining my husband’s reputation and professional credibility? Many times. How many times have I thought of posting all of my husband’s lewd and degrading emails to myself? More than once…

You see, there are many reasons why I have started to blog again. I blog because I needed an outlet for my creativity. A creativity that has been repressed for awhile– let’s just say on the duration of my marriage. I have blogged anonymously then I started to like the flexibility and the enjoyment of having friends and having your thoughts published online for my friend’s enjoyment. After my husband has discovered my blog, he claimed I was “posting myself up” as if the blog was something lewd or porno based… Truth be known my old blog was a celebration of family life. A life I had enjoyed living even until the time my marriage started to crumble and I finally chose to break free and live life alone with my children.

Two years ago, I started reading the book, Dark Nights of the Soul by Thomas Moore. This book was recommended by my therapist I have read this book while in transition and the book was truly enlightening in a sense that it made sense of my own “dark nights.” The Dark Nights of the Soul is one of the books that I promise anybody who is undergoing tribulations be it divorce, death of a loved one or any ongoing soul search due to some traumatic happening in one’s life.

My favorite is Thomas Moore’s thoughts on forgiveness, and I quote,

The capacity to forgive reveals a soul that is free of anxiety, one that is mature and equal to the complexity of human interaction. Forgiveness requires what Aristotle called “a great soul” and is captured in a virtue often ignored and not appreciated – magnanimity…The Greek word forforgiveness means release. When you forgive, you release yourself as well as the other person. You allow life to go on, to bypass your exaggerated sense of virtue and your worry about being offended. As long as you sit on your power to forgive, you suppress your joy in life. You also limit yourself: If you keep those you love within tight boundaries of behavior, you have to bind yourself as well lest you be a hypocrite.

Some aspect of your imagination may have to shift before forgiveness is possible. In that case, the effort toward forgiveness heals you and opens a valve that allows life to flow. The sense of release is the sign that forgiveness is at hand and you may now come back to life.

In more ways than one, the impact of Moore’s book, Dark Nights of the Soul and the lessons I have gained from reading it and the application of using my dark night as the beginning of the enlightenment of my soul. I am now trying my best to use my dark night as a way to release my creativity and using that creativity to bring closure and more meaning to my life as I continue to make active decisions on my life rather than me stuck with the depression and the angst that has brought me my dark nights.

I aim to seek to forgive and possibly forget what my husband has done to me and to our family and to forgive myself for letting go and freeing myself from the tribulations of our marriage. I have long thought of the sacrifices I have made for myself and my children and now thought of the things I do deserve and more.

When you are down and out, something always turns up-and it is usually the noses of your friends.

Orson Welles (1915 – 1985)

U.S. actor, director, producer, and writer, The New York Times.

My friend Karen came to see me the other day. It was the best thing that has happened to me for awhile now. After the banking fiasco, I have decided to treat the children and myself to an overnight trip to the city. I made the arrangements while waiting for the girls to get back from school and when we were on our way out of the house, my cellphone rang and Karen, my dearest friend from way back and she told me she was in town. What a coincidence! I told her my children and I were on our way out to the city for a night out but will be back tomorrow after our monthly trip to Makro. We made our date– we will meet in the hotel few hours before her flight out back to Manila.

Karen… A breath of fresh air. I love this person so much. She has been there when I needed a friend the most. Cherryl and Karen– both my dearest friends. Our friendship has been tested through times. Tried and tested. Even when my family has moved abroad, they have been there.

Karen went to visit me when I needed someone the most. She saw me at my worst and she was there to give me a hand and she listened to my woes. You know how it feels like? I feel lighter after speaking to her. She reassures me like no one can. Karen is my speaker in the event I get stalled up in the pearly gates of heaven, no doubt.

Cherryl was also there to lend a helping hand when I needed it the most. I didn’t even have to say anything, and she’d be there to lend a hand or two. Perhaps one of the people who has known me well since we have known each other since we were in primary school. We were never really friends back then, but when I got married and through a stroke of luck, we discovered how alike we are and how much we jive. Her mature views and thoughtfulness rank true and I never doubted her friendship ever since we became close.

Now that we are all are far from each other and we do not get to communicate as often as before in Manila, I look back with wistfulness and wish I would be able to cultivate the same degree of friends here and also continue to nurture the friendship that I have with both Karen and Che.

Distance sometimes endears friendship, and absence sweeteneth it.

James Howell (1594? – 1666)

English writer, Familiar Letters of James Howell (W. H. Bennett (ed.)

We actually choose our life and how we deal with friends or other relations we have in this lifetime. To me, the tribulations and twist of fate that has brought the demise of my marriage has strangely strengthen and tested my relationship with my friends. Not only had I proven that true friends shall never leave you in the dumps, and like Orson Welles said above, I welcome my friends’ noses anytime..

The check issued to me bounced today. I almost collapsed while hanging on to my cellphone like a lifeline. Yes, like a —-

l i f e l i n e . . .

I have actually seen this coming… Last month, the tenant of my condo in Manila had told my broker to inform me not to deposit the check issued last month since her account has insufficient funds. D a r n. The lease was one week late. And now, it has happened again…

I am flabbergasted, disappointed, annoyed and irked that the money I was expecting to use for this month is not here. I remembered thanking God for my new tenant who actually signed a one-year least contract with us and has issued one-year worth of lease with 12 post-dated checks. I was happy because it has more or less guaranteed that my children and I will have some income since my darling husband has denied us support. (now that is another entry) More or less… More like less since this has happened last month and again this month.

I feel so hopeless because I am here and the tenant and my unit is in Manila. Hopelessness is a feeling I dread. The immediate effect of economics on myself and the children as soon as we reached Manila after I had decided to leave my husband abroad was devastating. I have learned little by little and sometimes, I think, the hard way, to manage the little money we get for the lease of our family home.

At any rate, the bank has informed my tenant, the check issuer, that her check bounced. She promised to send the rent via Western Union today so this is really a wait and see situation. I am not in a good mood, and the waiting is killing me.