Thursday, June 26, 2008

11

0030hrs

right now i am the only one awake. God surprised me in the psalm today. very funny, ah. by the river sitting and weeping. thank You. and thank You for me actually writing right now. today i will keep track of all my greetings and i will store them somewhere (i love Google).

right now a wave of nostalgia and missing brings me to tears. an old friend just greeted. a few hours ago, another friend who i don't really talk to anymore because of friction. jacs made sure he had load all the way in bicol and stayed up to greet. katrise stayed up to greet me though she was beat from basketball; and she wants to ride a cow.

hello, nostalgia. i spend a lot of time looking back, but today being the day it is makes it a little more of a milestone. let's try something impossible (and something i would not want to happen) :

--

dear adi,

this is you writing exactly a year from the day you read this. happy seventeenth birthday. no one ever said anything special about this age but for you, it will be. the change that you realize today as you frantically try to clear your inbox for the incoming messages it doens't have the space for (under the desk on an early drowsy school morning, no less) - which embraces you with the fact that you have found a home here, no matter how strange-feeling right now - is only the beginning.

a few days from today you will find a person you think you can share your life with completely, and give your heart to. you will, for the first time, experience the sincerity in being called another's. you will experience a novel embrace. you will also find out that some things are not as real as they seem, not as real as they are claimed to be. and that will nullify the previous sentences. you will experience absence eating at your insides. you will find that you are not strong, that you cannot save everything despite only the most sincere intentions, that there are some things that you have to lay down at the feet of the One bigger than you.

but you will also find another couple of hearts you think you can share your life with completely, and give your heart to. and this time round, you really can. and you will see dreams be realized. you will be your dream while you wait for it to be realized. you will watch the most amazing love story unfold. you will witness miracles. you will follow breadcrumbs. you will see how deep roots can go. you will realize that it's true what has been said, that spirit is thicker than blood. you will see light dance.

this time round, adi, you will find the Home that you don't have to leave.

this time round, adi, you can take heart and not have to hide it. you can love and dream fiercely and not have to cover it up in hope denied, in frustration exaggerated, in melancholy downed. this time round... you can begin to be.

and oh yeah, the green ribbon in your hair will be noticed today.

--

a while ago, i asked for opened eyes so i could love today.

0103 hrs

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

May 25, 2008 : SJRM Medical Mission III




it's hilarious that "tule at smol bukol" was actually on the tarpaulin.

some photos are javi's. some jarro's. the clever shades-filtered photos are regner's.