Status: Alone but not Lonely

Posted by Alma on 24 Aug 2009 in Being Alive, Marriage, Relationships | 6 comments

One of highlights of the week was my talk with a friend and she asked me, “Alma, do you ever wish to have somebody again?”

If I’d say the thought never came to me, then I would be lying to you all. Ofcourse the thought came to me several times before and my answer to that is no. Primarily, I am just too preoccupied to even think if I’d want another man in my life. Suffice to say, with everything that needed to be done at home, work and with school, the thoughts of “getting me a man” doesn’t slip through often.

This thoughts usually come at night time when I am done with work and I am checking out Facebook to check on my friends and how they are doing. I see longtime friends smiling with their husbands or boyfriend’s arms around them. I feel happy to see their gleaming smiles.

Was I jealous? No. But I felt wistful. I think its the companionship and partnership that gets to me. Years ago, I had that life. I had felt the butterflies in the stomach. Getting goosebumps whenever he was near. Or feeling giddy whenever he calls out of the blue or comes home with flowers and unexpected gifts.

I knew the feeling of happiness, and felt the support of a husband years ago and I had relished it. Unfortunately, that life ended and I had mourned it. It took me 3 years to divorce myself emotionally from my husband. It took a year for me to completely detach my thoughts and psychological ties from my husband.

I am happy whenever I see couples huddled together. I smile when I see old couples walking side by side with their children. Perhaps the key to my survival is the fact that I know and recognize the fact that sometimes relationships end.

I actually think of myself as a widow. A woman who had lost a loved one by death. I had mourned that loss years ago. And from time to time I remember things about that life. Certain smell triggers the memory and it permeate through my thoughts. Some memories were bad, some were good. These are my memories. My experiences. I learned that to be able to survive and go through the hurdles is to embrace and recognize these memories. These are mine and mine alone. It has happened and it has brought me to where I am today.

Today, I am happy being alone. Yes, I am alone but I am not lonely. I have my moments, but hey, I know for a fact that life is not at all perfect! I dare not complain….

Family Crisis- Dad is Running Around with a Twenty Year Old

Posted by Alma on 27 Oct 2008 in Family, Life Speak, Marriage, Relationships | 4 comments

My father has just lost my mother almost a year ago. She finally succumbed to a lifelong problem of heart ailment. Weeks ago, a cousin from another town came to visit me and told me they had seen my father holding hands with a young girl… I was shocked but managed to curb my reaction and laughed it off. I completely forgot about the story until my brother came around on my birthday and informed me we have something important to discuss.

What the heck…

My brother did confirm that our father is indeed enamored with a young girl who works at a local bar. According to locals, the girl is a only over twenty and has been seen to hang around with my father. I told him that our father is hardly senile and can still venture on his own. What scares me is the fact that since alot of people are so against the relationship, they might end up holding out strong as our disapprovance can turn to a “you and me against the world kind of thing.” And days after my brother castigated our father, I was proven right as the decadent relationship continue until today and my father has not heed my brothers’ advise.

Now, what do you think? As children, do we have the right to control and meddle in our parents affairs especially when they seem to be influenced by untoward individuals? Do you think a younger woman can actually fall for a man who is old enough to be her grandfather? What would motivate a young woman to seek a man to whom she has more than 50 years age difference?

Children and Immortality

Posted by Alma on 25 Aug 2008 in Being Alive, Children, Death, Family, Life Speak, Relationships | 1 comment

Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies. Nobody that matters, that is.

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950), U.S. Poet

I had a very interesting night. My second daughter asked me a striking question. “Will I die also?” Ofcourse the question did not come out just like that. It started with the conversation about rats and how we needed to keep our house clean so rats will not feast on our crumbs in the kitchen and bedroom (as my children has the habit of taking bread, biscuits and whatever snacks inside the room).

Then the other day, we were welcomed by a dead rat in our living room. It was a sorry sight. We shrieked first then I needed to clean it out, so I took the dustpan and swept the dead rat into it and threw the rat in the garbage pile. It was not very difficult to explain the death of the rat since it was obvious that the cat did it because there were puncture wounds on its body. I explained the possible circumstance and the children accepted it. Until—

Anyway, while we were getting ready for bed, she asked me, “Will I be in high school or college when I get old?” So I said, technically that would not be old, but you would have aged more then. Then, she asked, “But will I die when I get old?” I was stunned for awhile and choosing my words carefully I said “You actually do not have to be old to die. Because some people actually die young.” Then she suddenly started crying and saying, “I do not want to die, Mom.” I was shocked, and I hugged her and then she said, “God, please I do not want to die.”

I said, “Nobody is dying, Ba-ba.” My children has actually experienced death recently as my mom has passed away last November. Though my children had not been in the funeral, they are very much aware of death in the family, as my brother had also passed away years ago. I thought, “Now, how do I explain this to a child?” I mustered enough courage and said, “If we take care of ourselves, and no accidents happened, we will not die.” I also added, “Everybody WILL die. Mommy will die, Daddy will die, one day.” She wailed and I wanted to take my words back, but thought, “What the heck? Let her hear about death from me, rather than from others.” I said, “we certainly cannot control everything in our lives, ba-ba. Sometimes, people die because of illnesses… like Lola, who died because of heart complications, or Uncle, because he smoked alot and it gave him alot of problems and he died because of that.” “Also Daddy’s Dad died of old age, but he has been sickly for a long time…”

She quieted, and she listened intently. I was stroking her face as I explain along, and while my oldest daughter listens quietly. I also stressed the importance of taking care of ourselves by eating the right food, and avoiding circumstances that might lead to death or accidents. Or even taking proper medications so we will not become too ill. She then asks me, “Mom, do not let me die.” I cried then and told her, “Baba, I will try my best.”

Looking back to my exchange with my little one, I thought I was right and I was very open to her about the aspect of death. I am happy she had voiced out her questions to me that meant to me that my daughter trust me enough for her to ask about the subject of death. I had to think back hard if I had the same experience as a child. So far, I cannot remember any instance that I had asked, but my experience was different. I was not exposed to death, when I was young. My brother died a few years ago. My mother died months ago. My husband’s dad and sister died a few years ago also. So the subject of death came early in our family. I think though it is morbid, but death will always be a part of living. It is a part of life and no matter how much we try to avoid death, it will come, and when it will, most of the time, the people who mattered to us will not be ready at all…

Why I Blog

Posted by Alma on 14 Aug 2008 in Life Speak, Relationships | 5 comments

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.

Thank God for Friends

Posted by Alma on 11 Aug 2008 in Being Alive, Relationships | 0 comments

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..