Intermission... A Note on Friendship

I was just about to sit down and recall a memory of when I was about 6 years old, when my phone rang. Let me first explain to you that the caller on the other end was someone whom I had figured had removed herself from my life for reasons unknown to me... but she explained, while I patiently listened, all the reasons as to why she had vanished out of my life for almost half a year. We have both grown so much, and changed so much even in that tiny window of time. And to be taking the time to have a conversation of pure honesty is so refreshing. Friendships are relationships. We must remember that any relationship worth keeping is a relationship worth the time and effort of maintaining, for better and for worse. Meaning, if you choose the people in your life wisely and you choose to love them, then you must love them unconditionally. You must let them go if you have to, you must remain nonjudgmental in their choices, and you must always keep your heart open to them. And this is a practice. A constant awareness. These friends will be able to teach you things about yourself, while reminding you to have gratitude because these types of friends do not come easily and are far and few between.

The $30, 000 baby

I have vague recollections of my early days in the Philippines. Sometimes I wonder if I have dreamed it, or if they really existed. I have recollections of climbing bars with vines surrounding it. I have flashbacks of me running somewhere to play with palm trees everywhere stretching high into the sky, and my mom shouting at me to be careful and maybe not to run so fast. I have one image that stands clear in my mind of my mom and I praying side-by-side, by the bed as the sun sets. Maybe she was praying for me to have a better life. Maybe I was praying never to leave her side.

I was born accidentally, in my moms last years of menopause and 10 years after her last child. Because of her age and the frailty of her body, I was born 2 months premature and was kept incubated. It seems even as a baby I was in a hurry to experience life, costing my parents about $30, 000 just to keep me alive. Philippine Pesos or not, that is a hell of a lot of money. When I was about 2, my father died of a heart attack. He left behind a family of 9 and a stressed out mother with hardly any money to support her children. I am really uncertain of all the details and have only been told bits and pieces. The last time I saw her and I asked her about her decision she said, "I was sitting here in the dark, in this old house with nothing, no electricity and with no money even to buy my baby milk. I asked God what was I to do? And this was the answer." This is the day her heart broke. I am not sure if it really has been amended since then.

I was almost 4, perhaps close to 5, I embarked on the journey of the beginning of my Life. Really. I was asked the question, would I want to go to Canada for a vacation? A rhetorical question at that. So unsure of what was to come, I boarded a plane with an almost perfect stranger and headed to the land of opportunities. This almost perfect stranger would be my father's sister. The ironic and cruel twist of fate would have it so that this very fact would change my life. She had two boys with a Canadian man and couldn't have anymore. Her husband wanted a girl and so when my mom was pregnant with me, the offer was laid out: if it is a girl, can we have her? The answer at the time was no. The answer 2 yrs later, was yes.

It took almost 3 years for the paperwork to go through, during which my soon to be replacement father would send me vitamins to eat in order to remain healthy. And I did. Apparently my only attempt at fighting the change was coming up with a high fever on my way to Canada. Other than that, I had no complaints. I vaguely remember being carried into the airport, meeting a handful of people and receiving a teddy bear, whom would be my most devoted companion for the majority of my life. The $30 000 baby (probably more with the paperwork, flight etc.) had arrived.

Rummaging in the Darkness

If someone were to point to a deep, dark, cold hole in the ground and tell you to jump in with nothing except one solitary match and say "don't use it until you've found something in there to light it with and keep it ablaze," what would your response be?

When confronting any trauma it has been said that the best way to overcome it is to look it directly in the eye and face it with no fear. When letting go of the past one has been told that one must first focus on what must be let go of, feel it very deeply, forgive and then let go. After, one is then free to move forward with nothing hindering progression or growth. Sometimes a lot of what holds a person back is their inability to let go past traumatic situations, whether they are conscious of it or not. I suppose in order to transform it is best to wrap your beautiful ugly into a cocoon and remain still, in the darkness, until nature permits you to exit your shell with exquisite wings, free to fly.

And so here we are. I am prepared to wrap my beautiful ugly into a cocoon, jump into the dark hole with the single solitary match and be still until there is something that can keep the light ablaze long enough for me to find my way out and spread my wings.

It starts long before I was born, but that story would be ridiculous for me to try to narrate as I don't have all the details and I'm sure I never will. I will try as best to recount the events of my childhood in a chronological order, but as I attempt to lift the haze and break down years of hardened molten lava encompassing solid, concrete walls, there may be memories that float up unannounced. So the order of these may be jumbled, but then such are the memories of life...