Category: Mayday Musings

Today was particularly gloomy. You can’t count how many times you wanted to book a flight to South Korea because you felt so unmotivated more than ever. And just when you thought your dread could’t get any worse, a news about someone’s suicide broke out.

Then it hit you hard enough to question life — you are always there for people when they need you, but who is there for you?

You have such a strong support system. You have a family who supports everything you do in life. You have people in church who constantly pray for your well-being. You have best friends who occasionally update you with their milestones. You have a job that pays the bills. People at work are nice. It all seems okay, but sometimes, you are just your biggest enemy.

You dwell on the negative, consciously ignoring the good things in life because you think you don’t deserve to be happy. Your mind is programmed to the idea that the joy might turn out to be the opposite in the next minute. So you stay sad. You stay scared. You stay in your own bubble that spells failure all throughout. You convince yourself that you are alone. I’m breaking this to you: YOU ARE NOT. I AM WITH YOU. HE IS WITH YOU IN ALL OF YOUR BATTLES (Deuteronomy 3:22).

Love, I’m all ears.

Depression, fueled by anxiety, dread, loneliness, and the feeling of not being good enough is the worst kind of human disease. It may not be physically visible, but it eats you and your soul from the inside out. One thing that might be of help: fix your thoughts.

The world is not black and white, it has vibrant colors and different colorful shades you know existed. If you think your days are dull and boring, go for a run. It eases anxieties. When you think that the universe is unfair and that you cannot share your troubles to anyone, I am here. I’m all ears.

You are beautiful. You are enough. You are loved. You are doing great in life. You are amazing and talented. You have your passion waiting for you to come back. All the great and positive things in this world is waiting for you, so move.

Move, my love. Move even if it takes all your courage to do it. Move. Pick up that phone and call your family. Pick up that phone and call your friends. Pick up that phone and call me. I’m all ears.

Sometimes, all we need is a hug that makes us forget all the dread for a while. I am here. I’ll listen to all that you have to say. Do not, even for a second, think that you don’t have anyone. I am here. I’m all ears.

“I am bent, but not broken. I am scarred, but not disfigured. I am sad, but not hopeless. I am tired, but not powerless. I am angry, but not bitter. I am depressed, but not giving up.”

Today, you hated the idea of waking up again. Yet you dragged yourself out of your bed and fought the urge to go back to sleep. You’re going to be late so you made your bed, prepared your bath, and the cold water woke your whole senses up. Hey, little fighter, good morning!

That voice inside your head is on repeat for a week now. It’s constantly telling you to give up. The influence to book that flight, disappear for a week, and remember that the light is dimming yet again seems too hard to resist. Yet you fight because you know your hard work will eventually pay off.

You wonder if it’s too late, and the urge to stay still and let fate do the works for you is overpowering.

You stopped with your passions — you dreaded writing, you squirm at the sight of a paint brush, you don’t even know the keys to press on the keyboard anymore, you think you lost your voice so you hated singing — and they are adding up to the pothole of frustrations.

You learned how to let things go. You learned it the hard way that letting go of things you thought of having for a long time has been a lot easier that sometimes it doesn’t even require second-thoughts. You let go because you really don’t care about what needs to be done anymore.

It’s a long day of routine work, and some things don’t just add up. You grind, do what you need to do, but all you are thinking is about going home so you could just lay in bed without bother. Yet, as soon as your head hits your pillow, all the dreads come rushing in as if they have waited all day to remind you about your life and how lost you really are. You can’t sleep. They don’t allow you to sleep.

Yet here you are, you fight because you know your faith is stronger than the demons overthinking inside your head. You take your much-needed rest because God has promised you that He alone can give you peace.

You hold on to the idea that even though you feel alone, you are never lonely — because even if the universe conspires to insist that you are not good for anybody, at least you are certain that you are good for you.

Hey, little fighter, it’s okay.

It is okay to cry and fall down. It is okay to surrender and accept defeat. It is okay to do nothing but procrastinate. It is okay to stay still and let time pass as long as you want. It is okay to defer your dreams, and it’s okay to think about all things negative, but always remember to spread your love to the world.

You must remember, too, that you are strong and life has a funny way to manipulate you into thinking that you are not. You are strong because you have a strong God that consistently waits for you to call. You are strong because of all the days you told yourself that you couldn’t, here you are, emerging victorious.

Of all the things you learned while fighting yourself, I hope you remember that one thing that defeats all the worries: Sometimes you want to give up on everything, but you didn’t, and yet, here you are, you fight.

You’ll learn to let things go.

Every time I go home to the province, I always hear my neighbors tell the kids in our community to “study hard and be like Manang Nikki.” I still have to constantly remind them that I am not taking law because they want me to defend them in court if they, by any chance, commit crime.

That pressure has been so unnerving that I sometimes don’t want to go home anymore. But home is important.

Although I passed numerous law school entrance exams, I found myself dreading enrollment, because I am a failure, and I don’t have the guts to push through my dream.

It felt as if my future has been so long lain. Finish communications degree, pursue a masters course, then take up law. Take. That. Law. School. Dream.

There’s a lot going out on my window: I see my high school friends having kids and family; some of them living abroad and pursuing their passions; others doing things that don’t even fit their professions, yet they are happy.

And here I am, dreams deferred, and indefinitely lost in track.

I am tired of dealing with the demons overthinking inside my head. I am tired of constantly reminding myself that I can do better if I start believing in me again. I am tired of smiling at people who think that I am a good example for their children. What if I’m not?

If there’s one thing that I learned from the past two years, it is the defeat that sometimes, we will learn how to let things go. It’s okay to defer your dreams and continue to look for ways to get out of life’s mazes of confusion. Letting go? Of course I know.