Get a life!

29 July 2013

5:55PM

Get a life!

I rarely write these days. That is if writing in my journal counts. For authentic literary work, as my minute knowledge on the subject matter would permit, I could honestly say that I have not had one in almost three years. I’d be glad to divulge had it been that I was off to some unknown mountain on a mission or have gotten married and pregnant and was caught up with life in a hurly breeze. But even those would surely pass for great topics to write about. And here I am grasping for some reason to make the absence valid. I have always mentally taken note of what needs to be done to keep the craft going and the juice flowing. After all, I am a perpetual writer aspirant. Read. Explore. Live. And read some more.  

However, these days, my only interaction with the real world is what takes place between my jeepney ride in the mornings, the email parade, the shrill ring of the phone crying for attention every 10 minutes and the race to community activities in the evenings. So late, when all is finished, I am dead as log between my sheets. And the routine goes on until I woke up there years later J I can’t and I won’t complain about my life. It may sound dead boring and mechanical but I purposely omitted the details of the fulfilment I get every time I come home dead tired but so happy I got to waste it on by serving the Lord’s Kingdom. That one I hope to write in full detail on another topic. This one I wish to share how my writing creativity was put on a still and how a simple article from a Sunday paper stirred me to dream again. Even that statement is wrong by itself.  To be a writer takes more than a dream, you have to write. But anyways, everything starts from a dream and so you’ll have to excuse me. 

In celebration of PhilStar’s 27^th year, they commissioned Pen Dalisay, one of my favourite columnists, to contribute to the readers 27 tips he can give to aspiring writers. And this one caught me. Get a life.Of course, there can be no other more practical tip than this one.  And ironically, this one I find so hard to accomplish as of the moment. Perhaps because, life, as I so define it currently, would mean conquering Mt. Apo, getting a driver’s license and enlisting for next year’s Mangima Offroad challenge. I swear, just thinking about it makes my heart go wild and sweet. A girl can dream wild sometimes, you know. Then, finding my paternal grandfather who my father last saw when he was young and newly married at 21. Today I’ll be 33 in November. Long shot, huh? Then, I’d be totally so cool if I’ll learn a sport. Before I believe I can have a shot of being an iron man but sadly I admit, I’ll try my luck with dance sport instead. In rarer times now than when I was 26, I still dream my calendar will be full of outdoor adventure and thrill fun. That goes, even if, for a long time passing I have already known and accepted that I am really more of the indoor type. Like, coffee and a good book will truly be heaven for me any weekend I’m allowed to have it free. Ah, I feel so old reminiscing my bucket list content. Time ticks and I need a quick fix. But, as told and agreed, there is no short cuts in life. And to most who defied nature, they either live or die.  Ouch! Today, I surely wanna be on the breathing side of the fence.  

So, there! Practically I am without what I can put together and describe blissfully as living THE life. I merely have my random thoughts, my daily work routine and the incessant desire to create something. I still hold on firmly to my belief that someday I can nail one legitimate write up and it’ll pass for a milestone. While that is a dream yet to be realized, I can continue living the dream, living the life. Today, I am pounding my keyboard, life springs from a heart to a set of words. Hopefully, to tell some invisible readers out there that anyone can dream and every once in a while gets stirred up by some random Sunday paper write up. In a while, I will ride the jeepney again and I’ll be home to a family who nurtures with warmth and acceptance. To them, I need not be in the paper nor in some mountain top to earn their love.  Just to be home every day, safe and hungry, receiving a welcome hug and a hearty laugh over some trivial tricks of the family dog is enough. The invisible bond keeps me alive. To them and to the few, whom I get to say hi and hello every so often when I get to work, or when I get to hang out with friends, I exist and is alive. To the caller on the telephone who desperately needs anyone to answer just so he can say out of desperation than of need, what a lousy service provider we are. To that person I am the relief. And how my heart aches when he won’t call me back anymore when his internet is back. It’s a tiresome and thankless job at times but mostly, a secret smile forms in my head when all is well, at the end of the day. To a colleague who needs a listening ear just so she can express all frustrations and woes she has had all these years, I may just be the angel sent at the moment. Of course that’s not true, but when it’s my turn to vent out, I realize each of us is an angel sent from above.  

The smile of a stranger, the story of a friend, the laughter over a silly joke, these and more truly makes me say, I do have a life. And it’s one worth living and writing about.