Eating, Praying and Questions about Love

I consider Sunday my ultimate rest day. After being subjected to work (and sometimes personal)- related stress from Monday to Friday and doing student duties on Saturday, I take Sunday as MY day. A day to choose what time I will rise to start the day. That is why I am stunned to be awake at this hour, blogging.

My unusual Sunday did not just start with me getting out of bed before my customary waking hour, I also woke up baffled and sobbing. In my previous blog entry on Love is the Answer, I said:

"If however you have some difficulties in waking up (in the morning), then you are most likely missing something in your life or have made pretty poor decisions that you are hesitant to face."

I felt that I may be lacking something good in my life right now or am about to make an appallingly hasty decision soon, either way, I am in deep trouble. And with a heavy heart, I am pouring my mind and heart out in this blog hoping to find an explanation.

Last night I was brave enough to admit to a friend that I am confused by the many things that are running in my mind lately. What has made it different this year is that I am juggling my time and effort on work, my personal life and studies. Suddenly, I find myself swamped with overwhelming responsibilities coupled with life's ups and downs. An experience that leaves me shaken most of the time. I seem to want to do so many things but I either have no capacity or the time to be able to perform all of them. And of course there is my constant longing for stability, security and happiness.  A dilemma I share with Elizabeth Gilbert, the character Julia Roberts play in the movie Eat, Pray, Love.

My friend kept asking me after the movie what I learned or what my word was but unfortunately, I was not able to give a concrete answer. Now that I have enough time to think about it, I could have said I learned to be free. I have been so focused on keeping it all together that I seemed to have lost the real me and now, I crave for freedom.

Coincidentally, I was able to EAT, LOVE and PRAY, in this particular order, yesterday.  

EAT. In the morning, I enjoyed goto, tokwa't baboy and pizza in our class merienda. At lunch, I was treated to a wonderful meal for the first time by a prominent classmate. I was the only girl in the group of five (at that time) but them boys did not for a second make me feel out of place. I had a crab and mango salad and few bites of sweet cakes. After that I had coffee and a slice of carrot loaf with a friend in a coffee shop. While watching the movie, we had popcorn and had an almost Italian dinner after. I always think I was born to eat, hence my monicker Growing Kid. The movie Eat, Pray, Love says that we should not be afraid to eat and forget about watching those stressful calories and carbs. This does not mean having an epicurean feast but rather just appreciating the food you take in every moment.

LOVE. I really can't think of a concrete way of putting what I felt about love yesterday but it was simply overpowering. From my dogs wanting to be with me in the morning, my classmates loving the lucid AVP I integrated for our group presentation, the plain food that my mom prepared for us, and to the great time I had with a friend last night. I was in a sense dumbfounded. But in the movie, I learned a lot about love and loving. The movie taught me not to be afraid and be strong. It emphasized a quote in the book which says, “In desperate love, we always invent the characters of our partners, demanding they be what we need of them, and then feeling devastated when they refuse to perform the role we created in the first place.” In so many ways, this quote is so relevant to me which I intend to elaborate a little toward the end of this blog.  

PRAY. I returned home an hour before midnight and I prayed. I prayed mostly to thank God for his blessings and to help ease my confusion. When we pray, we usually pray for ourselves, our family and friends. The movie made me see another aspect of prayer that I have yet to experience. I realized that praying is also a good form of meditation that can release stress, rest our mind and nourish our soul. After watching the movie, it made me really want to push my plans to go to India next year, find myself an ashram, pray and meditate to find peace and balance. I think my take-home from the film was really to take a break from my busy life and try the easy meditation taught by an Indonesian medicine man which is simply to smile, a genuine smile from inside.

But it really was not the movie that yanked me out of bed at 4:00 in the morning, it is something that I have been going through lately that I need to resolve. In fact, the movie which I thought would help me sort out my troubled heart confused me even more. I remember blogging about Infidelity somewhere in cyberspace around February 2006 where I said that Infidelity is a sign that something is wrong in a relationship. It usually happens when you feel that you are with the wrong person, and when the assuming "right person" comes along, that is when the temptation is so hard to resist. This morning, in between sobs, I was praying and asking myself if I am in fact breaching faith or falling out? Could happy moments with someone I have just known for a short time replace the long years of perceived happiness? Was I really happy all those years or am I just desperately in love? I know that no one could answer these questions (and more) for me however, I eagerly need help. I wept because I am afraid.   

Clearly, I am only human. I am not spared from the difficulties of life. Despite my aim of infusing inspiration to many who read my blog, I too am in constant battle for happiness and content. But however tough and complicated my life seems to be, I never cease to remind myself that there are always other things in life greater than the complications I am experiencing where I can focus my attention. After all, this is just the way the cookie crumbles!