E L A I L I M

I was with my darling Tita Nenet.

It was a short but eye-opening holiday.

I feel like I owe this blog a lot of stories (mainly for posterity's sake) and yet I'm still far behind the things I want to share. Always torn between self-preservation and self-expression. It's 2017 and I still have not figured that part of myself quite yet. (Working on it.)

Back in the early days of social networking sites, I was an avid share-r and post-er of anything and everything I had in mind or found interesting while scrolling down my feed. No filter. I felt—quote-unquote—relatively safe, back then. Not everyone had immediate access to the internet, unlike now where news (false and fake ones included) travel at lightning speed. It could actually get pretty scary.

There was a season I picked fights, bullied maybe three or four people online out of jealousy and self-righteousness, and made my Twitter and Facebook profiles my online personal diary. I was an adolescent/young adult struggling with personal issues—insecurities, depression, and turbulent feelings—just wanting to be heard and seen. Believe me—you didn't want to be friends with me on Facebook back then.

I don't know what I was trying to prove. I just could not stop myself. Then.

Looking back, I could only cringe. I learned things the hard way, but thank goodness that phase is over and I'm considerably mature now.

When you get over and recover from that stage, you couldn't help but also develop a lingering fear of over-sharing.

So that's where the tug-o-war of self-preservation and self-expression began for me.

After all that cringing thinking about my yesteryears, I also grew a tendency to keep things evergreen. I feel too old to project a well-curated life, but I've become very conscious about what I put out there. Would I want to read this a week/month/year/decade from now? If it sounds more than 50% silly, then there's a high chance I would delete it.

There are far worse problems around the world, but it's an emotional pain in the ass for someone who went through a shameful history.

But I've started to heal and I've started to forgive myself, so here's to whatever! I know better now and I somehow have a grasp of my limits, and I may struggle but this shouldn't stop me from writing (which has always been my choice of expression).

Here's to hoping that I rise above and beyond my doubts.

I have a love-hate relationship with money and my finances. I could terribly (or impressively, depends how you view it) be frugal at one point and awfully extravagant at another. I TRY my best to be mindful and reasonable, but my emotions could become overwhelming sometimes and that's when desire/indulgence wins over rationality.

When I am penny-pinching (or when I am broke haha), I consequently become more creative, innovative, and resourceful—a fact that amuses me a lot! One of the ideas that came about one of my tingbits (ting-bitay) seasons was my decision to buy coffee beans directly from the source and roast them on my own. (Back story: I currently work for an American Real Estate group so I have to be up all night to get lucky lol and need coffee most of the time to survive.)

Fortunately, our all-around superwoman, the lovely Auntie Lourdy, is from Impasug-ong, Bukidnon. She lives near a coffee plantation. I asked her to bring me raw coffee beans one day. She was surprised at first but she has gotten used to my weirdness by then that she obliged anyway.

The beans I got were smaller than usual because they were affected by the last El Niño. I asked for Arabica beans but Auntie Lourdy was only able to score Robusta beans. Nonetheless, I was still very excited to roast them! But I ended up roasting them almost a month later. The delay was partly because of my anxiety. I didn't want to screw up although I was around 70% confident that I could wing it. Gotta thank YouTube University for my coffeeducation! lol

One day, I decided to JUST DO IT. It was around 3 AM when I roasted a small batch of beans. My first roast. HUHU ❤

I was supposed to have it ground at the market but I couldn't wait for the sun to rise and the day to unfold, so I said YOLO, and ground the roasted beans using our... blender. I know. I know. That's a big no-no for coffee roasters (or so I've learned/heard/read). But whatever! The blender did the job anyway.

I set aside the coffee chaff (the dried layer that peels off the husk when you roast) because they can be used as compost.

I let my family try it the moment they woke up. Everybody liked it. My mom is ambivalent though because she claims that it made her head ache.

When my sisters' classmates slept over, they made iced coffee and liked it. I have yet to let my other friends try. I love it myself (and I am my worst critic!). Recently I've been brewing small batches and freezing them to make kori kohi. I'll probably take a short barista course soon to expand what little knowledge I have of coffee.

I'll be roasting my third batch soon. Planning to make it a larger batch because the jar was emptied faster than I had expected.

Cost for 1 kg of coffee beans = P100. Just imagine—a hundred bucks is a laughable amount at almost every popular chain. The difference is astounding. Don't you think so too?

2016 is flying by too fast. It's funny how I feel essentially the same; yet, looking back, almost everything has changed this year alone. The year was still fresh the last time I posted something here, and now we're down to barely three more months until we start back at one (or so we believe).

The concept of time is a human construct. It is convenient, especially for the purpose of recollection, that we are able to organize our lives into days, weeks, months, or years; like the pages, chapters, and parts in books.

So here I am, currently on page 8 of the 24th chapter of my life.

This is the part where the main character experiences a huge shift in perspective. It's not yet near the pinnacle of the story but it is building up to the conflict. *gasps* This part does not make for a good action sequence, but it is crucial to her character development.

Here she is, speeding away on her broomstick:

Writing about myself in the third person is hard. Let me get back to using the narcissistic first person.

Traveling and other social activities took a back seat starting this year. Six years after becoming a full-fledged adult, I finally took a moment to step back, pause, reflect. I decided to become responsible for my life and my future head-on and not just winging it. In other words, I'm hashtag ADULT-ING.

It's not that bad. And it also doesn't mean that I'm not allowed to make the most of my slowly fading youth. In fact, I quite enjoy it. There are so many things I had to give up that I would miss every now and then, but I don't regret anything at all. I'm happy that I was and still am able to commit to my responsibilities. It's a whole new challenge, and I intend to excel at this.

Reaching my current level of maturity didn't come as easy as it sounds. At the beginning of the year, I would think that I was doing great but actually got distracted often. It was a bumpy start, but I am proud to say that I'm cruising at the moment. That's just how it is when you're trying to change, I guess. This would not obviously last forever, that's why I'm taking it all in one day at a time.

Moments of crippling self-doubt and nerve-racking anxiety are a-plenty in this journey. Having a depressive personality doesn't help either. As a way to rise up pitfall after pitfall, I turned to meditation. It's not a magic trick that would easily cast all my worries away, although it could seem that way. It takes persistence and hard work to practise mindfulness and think of nothing, too! In this age of noise and interminable distractions, managing, balancing, and filtering my thoughts and letting go of my unease take A LOT of effort and concentration. And because it is a practice, I have to do it regularly, advisably every day, regardless of the state I am in—whether happy or distressed. In a religious context, it is a lot like praying, but instead of employing words and intentions, I'm trying to do without.

This is my life now. Nothing exciting. Not at all Instagram-worthy. But I LOVE and am GRATEFUL for every second of it.

I only have two words.