[20230801]

 sunday. grass smells like grass. children playing, people taking photos. church was okay. I'd listened more intently to the foreign homily than I ever did back home. It's funny. The way I'd hoped to hear something in English, praying there'd be some sense smacked back unto me. i cried for the third time this year during the first song when the ball rang to signify the start of the mass. last night was my second, in the shower, repeating affirmations because my thoughts were starting to get ahold of me again. it sounds exaggerated, but once you actually live through it, it would make sense. it makes so much sense to me now. sometimes i think these tribulations are vital to my development, as it would allow me to understand others better by wearing their shoes. it sort of makes me wiser somehow, despite me wanting to kill myself every time. what is wisdom if I can't apply it in my life because I'll be dead. I won't be dead. i always wonder when I'm going to die. it seems if i did right now, it wouldn't surprise me. it's january eighth, the second sunday of the year. i have all these terrible thoughts stuck with me since last year. some things are harder to wipe away than most.

It was my first mass in this foreign country earlier. After about six months, that was the first time I had the opportunity to kneel down and pray, to talk to God about my earnest wishes and say sorry for my sins, ask for penance.. or serve penance, I'm not exactly sure I'm using the term right. Anyway, it was kind of a shock to me. I would have loved to take home something from the homily, but i understood nothing. out of those words, it all sounded gibberish, like the priest was speaking in tongues and all the churchgoers had been given the ability to understand every last word. They said it was an English mass, turns out only some portions were in English, like the responses, some of the songs, and the usual rites. The church was so pretty though, i imagined clips of Lady Bird kneeling down in their church, gazing up and looking about with her apparent pink cemented arm wrapped in blue cloth. I forgot exactly. However, I did feel bad. I wanted to pray like I used to. Despite how peaceful the church was, I still had all these thoughts, though they were only lessened slightly. I forgot how to pray. I tried to think how, but when the time came that I should, I just didn't know what to say in my head, like my own thoughts were swirling in gibberish, as if being in a foreign country made my own thoughts foreign to me. I kept thinking of back home. As the priest bowed his head, I thought of nanay and how she'd mimick him. And when the recitation of the [penance] came, she'd place her pinched fingers to her heart and bounce them thrice as the word "fault" was repeated the same number of times. When the homily came, I thought about how Tatay would act as we did, sit still, pretend like he understood, and open up the subject later in the car to ask whether or not we understood anything at all, and he'd chuckle while asking.. or not. sometimes he could ask jokingly with a straight face, and my family members won't understand he's joking.

The display was beautiful. As the clock struck ten, the lights of the decorations lit up, a star twinkling above the manger where the family resided, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. I love how being a Catholic means you get to celebrate Christmas even after the birth of Jesus. I love Christmas. It makes me so emotional. As the lights lit up, the music accompanied it, like a tune from a jewelry box. Chimes, xylophones, perhaps trumpets? I can't remember, but my mother commented it seemed like how mass was done in Butuan. I remember attending mass in Butuan. It was pretty old-school, when the choir wouldn't use live instruments such as the piano, instead use cute minus-ones to accompany their voices. Mother said the choir earlier had a different tune, in truth, they were merely singing the second voice because they knew we'd sing the melody. It's a smart move, to be honest. It brings more harmony with the churchgoers, like we were part of the choir and we'd have to lend our voices for the mass to turn out a success.

In front of where we sat was a child and her mother. They were wearing matching clothes. Well, not entirely, but they were both wearing red laced tops. I observed as the child would try to poke her mother, only failing to reach and backing down. She tried the second time, successfully grabbing her mother's attention, and holding up her arms to signify she wanted to be carried unto her arms. Her mother obliged and sat down, even as the mass was ongoing and everyone was still up on their feet. A little while after, the child had to be put back down on the chair, as the mother focused on the mass. The third time, the child reached forward again, wanting to be carried, but her tiny hand failed to reach her mother's arm from the distance. As I looked beyond them and unto where the priest was, the decorations glowing, the child had burst into tears. There, I witnessed and understood a child's perspective, how they cling onto the only person they're familiar with, feeling safer in their arms, and how possibly feeling the fright of being left to themselves alone, despite only being an inch away from their beloved person. I remember my experience. It's weird actually. Very vividly now, I remember how I also used to feel frightened whenever I'd be put down. As if I was contending with the priest for my mother's attention, scared she might desert me, constantly needing reassurance that she wouldn't leave me on that chair and go home without my knowledge. I constantly looked to her, being the only person I knew, hoping she wouldn't forget I was there by her side. Being that small, I would understand how easily it might be to forget I existed, but of course, as a mother, you wouldn't forget the child you'd dressed early in that morning to accompany you to church, or the child you'd prepared breakfast for; nor the little hand you'd clasp, walking through crowded streets, making sure they don't get harmed or stolen away. You wouldn't forget the little voice that was always by your ear, or the way you'd wait as they looked around with curiosity, seeing new things, and you having to ask whether they wanted anything like a bag of popcorn or cotton candy. As a mother, you wouldn't forget the child you'd breastfed, the child you'd given a name, the child you'd went through pains to labor. I don't think it's possible to forget a child in a church. 

I remember being a child in a church, how people would look at me with glistening eyes as my innocent face looked towards their direction, being carried by my bum, my face resting on my mother's shoulder. I don't remember any of those faces, but I remember the smiles, and how they'd always find a way to play with me using their facial expressions, or how my mother would catch them smiling and tell me to say hi or wave back. It's weird how I vividly remember being a child, despite how long ago it was. I could remember it clearer than the names I'd spent time with for the past year, or the birthdays of my present close friends. Possibly the reason is because I'm a visual learner, and I'd never get a visual of their birthdates. It's always being told with words. How else are we to communicate, really?

There was a slight annoyance within me after the mass. It was not because I skipped lining up for the bread of Christ because my mother and aunt discouraged me due to hygiene, but something else. My mother and aunt had moved on quite quickly. I wasn't satisfied with my visit to the church. I thought I'd be moved greater, like going to church for the first time in a long time would stir something within me that would hopefully drive away all my worries, and change my life for the better. There were none. Perhaps that was my disappointment. My mom kept talking about taking pictures, and while I also loved to, I couldn't help but be annoyed. It was as if we visited the church just as a tourist attraction, rather than a patient, seeking for a place to rejuvenate our spiritual wellbeing. I was mostly the latter, I'd understand if going to church didn't mean that much to my mom. She's a Buddhist anyway. She told me I was a Gohonson's baby. I never knew what that meant, only that I am partly Buddhist. Despite this, I feel like I've been exposed more to Christianity than I ever was in Buddhism. It would've been nice to have been exposed more to Buddhism. Well, I do remember being brought to their temple before, and we'd repeat the same thing for hours, kneeling down. Even when it was lunchtime, people wouldn't collectively get up to eat. There was no scheduled break time, they would continue chanting those words over and over, and when the rest were done taking their break, those who'd been left to chant would get up and take their turn. Once finished, they would go back and kneel to continue the act. I forgot exactly how long until they all recite the closing rites or prayers. They do that collectively at least. It's not like Christian church where everyone followed everything together. In Buddhism, they had the freedom to rest, or to continue on individually. I remember joining a separate session with other kids. I think it was like a workshop, but we did what the adults did, only I think it was sort of a practice, more instructions. There were snacks too. I don't remember making any friends, not because I wasn't friendly, but because I suppose there wasn't any time. Also, I remember being awkward about it at the time. I don't remember things too vividly in the temple, just that we'd always have packed eggs, or if not packed, we'd buy them from a friend of my mother's, a fellow Buddhist. She was old, and she'd always be happy to see me come with. I think she was the one who influenced my mother to convert. Good for her. 

I realize that as the days go by, and I keep growing, the easier it is for me to prolong my thoughts. Or maybe that's just how it is at the moment with my troubled mind. Yesterday, I realized I spent five hours worrying about posting something online, and when I eventually did get to do it, it struck me that people couldn't have guessed I was waiting on pressing the button for many hours. No, they saw the tagged post, and they just instantly reacted, shared, and commented, as if it wasn't a big deal. As if I'd done it without second-guessing, as if I wasn't plagued by the idea of them thinking how weird of me for tagging them in a post, which happened four years ago already. I'd been ashamed of it, you know, having only brought it to light after four years. People have moved on, and yet there I am, sharing something from the past that I've brought with me all this time. A lot would think it's funny, or stupid. Or maybe that's just me. They didn't know how awful it was to me, and truly I don't think it should be awful, because at least it has finally seen the light, despite having taken that long. It's like digging into the archives and conjuring something just at that moment. But the truth is the opposite. I didn't dig into my archives, I've been carrying it with me since, and somehow, even as I did different things, it's always been stuck at the back of my mind. And there's always been guilt. Yet, they seemed to have taken it well. They express about how much they miss the moment, meanwhile I've always been quite sick of looking at it repeatedly in my albums. It struck me then how little I mean to people, in a good way. My self-importance has blinded me to the fact that I actually am more like a vessel in which could merely bring something to the table for others, rather than me being the actual meal. I don't mean that in a weird way, there must be a better analogy, one of which I could not think of yet at the moment. What I mean is that, these worries of mine are so trivial, even nonexistent to the conventional mind. I say conventional because it's easier to see how people go about their day, unbothered by constant, detrimental inner monologues, never second-guessing or thinking too much before doing something. Still, who am I to say they don't suffer with anything?

It's the online space, how am I to know? But it's both amazing and terrifying, really, how you never get to see through a person more than you see through yourself. I'm constantly bothered about whether people could tell my worsened state. In the first place, they wouldn't know because it's either they're too healthy to bother about the businesses of others, or too unhealthy to bother about anyone other than themselves. It depends. I'd say, as an undiagnosed unwell person, I analyze people often, but never too often than I do myself. Sometimes I think I could read through people, thus why I'm bothered whether they could do the same to me. I wouldn't want to claim being an unwell person. Somehow it's better being undiagnosed, you get to live in denial, if that's what you prefer. I prefer being told I'm sick to my face, rather than pretending I'm not. I'm not even pretending, but they say pretending might just be the cure. It only made things worse for me, as I hated deceiving others and spouting all that shallow bullshit. Sorry for the language, I could have simply replaced that with another word, one less vulgar. However, I object with the belief that saying bad words make you a bad person. It's a simple form of expression. These words were created to express our emotions, without them, it'd be inauthentic, deceiving, and thus you'd appear more like a bad person being so phony with regulated words when deep down you'd wish a person were dead. Of course, it's not meant entirely, and that would be a different story, I suppose. It's never nice to wish someone were dead, especially when they'd been wishing for it themselves for a very long time. It's more encouraging, in a bad way. 

On that note, sometimes I think about the possibility I'd died. I think about all my unfinished projects, all the unaccomplished goals, and how people would grieve, and how what I'm doing at present is sort of miraculous. If I died, they'd never been able to see what I'd created, they'd never be able to know I had all these video clips of their faces, laughing, taking part in dumb conversations. They'd never know how much space they've taken up, both in my head and in my phone storage. They'd never know they were the reason I had to scramble about to find alternatives to Google Drive, because I was running out of storage space and I wasn't willing to pay because I had no money. I have a lot more to share, and supposing I'd die tomorrow, it would be such a tragic loss never seeing those clips put together in some sort of video, them never being able to see themselves from my perspective through my camera. Somehow I think I'll die after I finish editing all my camera footage, not voluntarily. I don't know what God has in store for my future, nor how He plans to deliver me from this earthly plane. It's probably too early to think about such things anyway. Still, I believe God has done a wonderful job crafting together my life. I find it so beautiful how my story was written, or is being written. I figure out all these connections, and metaphors, and all the foreshadowing; how last year, in the fifth of January, I had been reminded to finish the video I had been setting aside for years, and how I'd posted it unknowingly on the same day this year; or when my tenth grade experience, doing school projects, mostly editing videos, had prepared me for this moment, and how somehow most of the videos posted on my channel were from that school. These are the ones I've noticed so far, but how they weave together just leaves me in awe. We've constantly been reminded how we're fearfully and wonderfully created, but I also believe more strongly how magnificently my story has been plotted out--as if to mimick who I am as a person, incorporating poetry and symbolism in every aspect. It makes me appreciate God so much when I think about how He's managed to plot things together. I'll be looking back to this certain moment in the future, only to figure out a new piece of information that makes so much sense in that present. 

Perhaps it'll be the way I've written this chunk of text on my notes app today, unknowingly resulting to it being published on some periodical or magazine later on. Of course, if that happens, it's either I've guessed it right or manifested it. Either way, it probably won't be unknown anymore. I think it's been three hours of me writing here. I should be exercising now but it's nice not to break away from typing especially when I still have a lot to say.

I find that typing is better than writing, because it's faster, and easier to copy paste to other platforms in case I could use it for something. In my present case, it would be the SUNWW manuscripts. If I were to use this chunk of text, of course I'd leave that out. I'd actually have to leave out a lot of things. This would be better published in my blog, if ever I do plan on publicizing it. Although, I'm fifty-fifty since these thoughts contain so much information about my wellbeing it could most likely be used against me. Or that's just me thinking again.

I think I'd like to stop writing now, simply because my thoughts are no longer useful in procuring relevant and new ideas. It's all the same things, and it may not seem like it as I've only probably written them down today, but they recur every so often I'd wish to detach my head once in a while to find some peace. However, that's impossible, so you'd have to figure out the strain of living with it. 

Also, the reason I've rambled on this long is because I've set my phone to airplane mode. It's always more peaceful like this. It's sort of my way of pretending I don't have a phone, and I wouldn't have to deal with instant messages. It's funny how troubling it is for me, instantaneous messages. I'm a twenty first century woman, how am I troubled about these modern advancements?