Here is my journal entry a couple of months ago. This is a moment of reflection and releasing of inhibitions before I felt happy and content. Months before my father died.
Nobody in all the people I know knows how or what I feel and think. None, that’s what I think, I have never once tried to tell it so. It’s always been difficult. The fear of not understanding, criticism, and rejection burdens my broken soul. But nevertheless, now I will try and speak the contents of my heart.
We (my parents and I) left the Philippines for the second time on June 2010. I was a walking zombie, just surviving, walking the earth not feeling anything, just waiting for a big tradegy or event to wake my affection-starved heart. We left the Philippines half broken hearted due to the loss in the elections to a supposedly great and passionate leader.
A series of big events did happen, though. I was blessed in so many ways through going through the famous tourists spots in Singapore; I went to an inspiring conference that sparked my soul and met affectionate friends that prayed for me. I was thoroughly and entirely soaked with blessings. Yet, there is that broken part of my soul that lingered on something, lost and weary. To cover the pains of my bruised heart, I relied to the company of friends in social networks, almost holding on to my faith in a piece of thread. I was searching for joy and true happiness that not just comforts the heart for a brief while but permanently stays in my heart and soul that it grows and overflows. Friends half understand that, partly because I am not inclined to tell and partly because I show them through my way of being happy yet sorrowful and sorrowful yet laughing. I couldn’t understand that. Besides in relying through friends through our different means of communication, I relied much more in the hanging thread of my faith, I relied in talking to my Best Friend, Jesus, during outbursts of anger, apathy, and deppressive spasms of pain and cries. Crying because I felt that I am alone and not understood by my fellow humans, not knowing how to open up rightly and carefully, crying because I am scared to make mistakes in opening up, reaching out, crying because I didn’t think anyone would be patient enough to listen and to wait for me to release my hurts and brokenness, crying because I desire to stand strong for my parents who are also burdened in our work and in our family, because I do not want to be a burden them as I already am doing so, crying because a handful of people know and could really pray for me, they themselves do not know my story wholely but bit by bit on different sides of it with different people; those where the reasons of my pain and cries; probably more is in inside, I just don’t know.
My personal problems and outbursts don’t just hurt my pride of what’s left of it, it consumed on it like a parasite. But, what I am truly grateful for all this things is that I become closer to God, the more broken I am, the more I’m mended slowly but carefully, slowly but carefully I get to know what He really is. Questions that uttered unendingly are being heard by the Most High himself. He is answering in the books I’ve read especially the Bible, through people I meet who unknowingly speaking out the answers to the questions I am asking, through silent yet firm and sure voice of the Most High himself. I am surprised and always being surprised by how He responds to my small talks. I felt really close to Him, as if He understands me more than I understand myself, and He does. And I am grateful for that, that Someone bigger than myself is holding me and will not let me go, comforts me like a shelter in the rain.
More of the so-called hurts I mentioned were triggered by: tiredness, fatigue, and pains of being ever mobile, unendingly moving from place to place, every time I have just finished breathing then comes another trip; the icky feeling of being a good guest in your host’s home and territory; the hollowness of being alone and misunderstood; the difficulty of not being able to relate; the burden of familial personal problems; the murdered feeling of conflicts with friends. Those are just the problems; why does it seem to be too big for me? I groan and toss about in my sleep figuring how to balance my life and my studies, figuring in how to endure and pass through challenges. I pray in numbness in how to confront conflicts without breaking the laws and conviction of my heart, to reply in patience and love not in anger, resentment and to respond to it making a difference not just to act rashly without thinking of the consequences in whether or not you will regret what I am going to say, to pray unceasingly for your family and friends, and for the people I meet to be pleased with me. The mixture of selfishness of self pity and the gravital pull of the responsibility and expectations of your family and friends wearies me down. Most of the times, I escape into my “day dreams,” my own made up stories of future life of white picket fences and husband, kids, wealthiness and rose-colored glasses and made up stories of unknown people directing it as if its my own movies and creation with tiny grunts and denied wishes of my life being such the people and stories I make. It’s a painful process of clinging to a life that never was and probably never will come true. I am truly guilty of hanging and basing my faith in my wishes. But another truth that I longingly want, need, and deeply desire to have is a deep, faithful and fruitful relationship with my Maker that fills my needs more than the accompanyment of friends and probably a reserved lifetime partner for me. I am almost hopeless and thoroughly in need of a debriefing and inner healing. But being a very private person about how she feels and who thinks she doesn’t have that many deep and luring secrets, I have that painful and long process of letting out the words and the feelings that have been planted, deeply rooted, and stored for quite some time that if not given enough time and patience to let out what’s been storing down there I might just collapse and not let it out. I don’t know how to say I need one, since I think everybody think I don’t need any of those debriefing and inner healing. I have been acting I am alright, part of my reason for acting so is that I have read somewhere that sometimes when you act how you want to feel you might just be it. But a deep wound needs to be cleaned before covering it all; a broken soul needs to be mended before it can function as flawlessly just as before, even better than it ever did function. I often wonder on how much more I can take. I just hope that if I do, I will collapse on the right time and the right place. I keep reminding and saying to myself that I do not want to be a hero standing so strong yet all broken all over inside. I just plainly want to stand for the people who needed someone to lean to being all burdened and depended upon; I need to stand for them. But my pride, again whatever that’s left of it, do not want to be pitied either, but silently I don’t speak that out. However, in my heart, I thought, it might just be the lift I need in my fall.
I tend to focus on the fruit instead of the vine. Yes, it is selfish, but that the desire to be perfect, flawless, spotless, and mistake-free person is leading me to doom. The pressure in wanting to be a perfect daughter, a perfect student, a perfect sister, a perfect friend, and every other position there is for me to fill. The I-must- be-perfect attitude was an energy strainer and a joy killer. I know I can never be on my own and until that I reach the end of my journey here in earth. But being insistent and selfish in desiring the reflected glory of being the vessel of the King, I grow weary and disappointed every time I fail. I needed a mentor to speak correction to my perfect mistakes. I needed someone who cared enough to be voice that out for me. Little by little, I became aware that God has a grace the perfects all my weaknesses. I was beginning to truly see that He who began a good work in me will carry it until completion until the day of the Lord comes. Even as I wait, while I fall and while I stand up, I hold on to the God who loved me first so I could love Him back…
It may seem untimely, but here ends my honest journal entry.
Humbly signing off,
--Josy
