Because I Am Nearing 50. (Part Nine)

1. I am a fan of Filipino craftsmanship. I appreciate native products. 'Kultura' is a shop where I step into and you will have to drag me out of. 

2. I have always wanted to have a real tattoo but I did not have the courage to endure the pain people tell me about when they had theirs. I wanted it done on my left ankle, with the letter 'A'. Plus I did not want to 'disable' myself from donating blood. I am a staunch supporter of the Philippine Red Cross.

3. I want to watch Lea Salonga perform live, more than Bamboo, really.

4. I heard this said in one of the tv shows we watch at home: 'Friendship multiplies the joy in life, and divides the evil.' So true.

5. I do not sugarcoat, and I say even the hurtful things, but I choose my words carefully. I feel that I need to, not only for my peace but to strengthen a relationship. I do not know if 'choosing my words carefully' is counted as 'lying'. 

6. I am an extremely loyal friend, but I can be a vicious 'enemy'. 

7. My sister tells me I can be really cruel with my words when it comes to matters concerning my family.

8. At this age, I have decided to cut all the drama in life and dwell in the joys offered by the moment.

9. When I gift a person with a watch, that person I value. 

10. I was described by my childhood friend as 'always with a good heart', 'always a romantic'. That is why my 'trust' is always abused.

11. We all make mistakes, she told me. I agree with her. More than that, however, it takes much of a person to own up to the mistakes. I found that once I have acknowledged mine, breathing became easier for me.

12. I do not have skeletons hidden in my closet. My closet has been open to everyone all my life. 

13. I was cursed to die by at least one person. Whether it was said in the peak of anger or whatever, that is the most devious ever done to me. And is unacceptable.

14. I don't deal with changes very well. But I cope.

15. Today, as I write this, I realize that I only want one thing for myself, really. Peace of mind. The kind which allows me to cackle from the pit of my stomach and not fear that somehow after a day or two, I will cry at some silly issue.

16. There are beautiful mornings, and there are not-so-beautiful mornings.

17. No matter how upset I am about people who hurt me, I feel a tinge of guilt that I cannot get over it so suddenly when they reach out to me. Because I know I hurt them, too, in some way.

18. I prefer 'dinengdeng' with a bit of 'salamagi'.

19. No matter how hard I try to put lipstick on to make my lips appear fuller, I always fail.

20. Once, when I was in my twenties, I sang impromptu in a bar with my Mama in the audience. After I sang, she whispered to me: ' Now I know you can always earn a living, when you get fired from your job, you can come sing here.' The bar is now closed.

21. I like wearing stackable rings. I wear up to five bangles all at once if my mood is good.  I rarely wear dangling earrings, but I do. 

22. Zenutrients is a brand of bath and body care I use, organic and Philippine-made: from shampoo, conditioner, soap, scrub, repellant, and my forever-in-the-bag 'All Is Well' balm. This is not an advertisement.

23. 'Versace On The Floor' by Bruno Mars is a favorite of mine nowadays, except that I think to myself: Number one, I can never afford any Versace and two, if in the remotest possibility I could, I will not throw it 'on the floor'. I am not an idiot.

24. It is weird, now that I am about to be fifty years old, I want to use backpacks.

25. My Papa once joked: 'You have too much hair on you. Your face and your legs. Are you sure you are a girl?' 

26. I belong to a clan which thrives on laughter, stemmed from insulting one another, or errrr, 'making fun of ourselves'. (More politically correct.)

27. I think that people who pick fights on social media should learn to do so in correct English grammar. You know, to make the fight more 'sushal'. Even if picking fights is really cheap, especially when you are more or less fifty years old. So I stopped. Terribly late in life, but hey, you got to give me credit for at least having 'mellowed'. 

28. Kindness takes its best form in acceptance of what is, rather than what was, and which I have experienced only from one person, save from my children.

29. I am passionate about my work, and I take it very seriously.

30. Some take it easy with their jobs. I don't. 

31. I walked out on a meeting today. I left before I would blurt out  something I would regret later. My head felt like it would explode.

32. I send 'kilometric texts'. As in loooonnng text messages.

33. Sometimes, other seem to assume that a simple 'sorry' can  make things right. Nope. 

34. But there are people in my life who do not have that word in their vocabulary. I have it in mine, and I use it as often as I say 'thank you'. 

35. 'Just because you can doesn't mean you should.', is one of the best sentences ever written. 

36. I think that  Beyonce is an awesome performer, but I do not like the way she is 'worshipped' by her fans. It's OA. What, there are cults with artists as gods now? 

37. I am getting tired of seeing Mariah Carey's failed performance on New Year's Eve. I watched the video, and whatever reason there was, it was an epic fail. Period. We cannot 'unsee' it any longer so stop.

38. That's a lot like life. There are things which already were, and we cannot travel back in time. We cannot 'undo' what we have done. We just have to look forward and do the best we can with the rest of our days. 

39. Of course there are stuff we simply cannot forget, so we deal with the pain it has caused us, day after day, until the pain is no longer there. 

40. I do not make New Year's resolutions. I simply strive to be a better person each day.

41. I told my best friend today: People like us who always have good intentions always lose. She replied with a 'sad' emoticon. That reply says it all, and I agree with her.

42. Again, I will slap the jerk who said that, 'Life is fair.'

43. Fifty years, I learned that life is not fair. But it is when you expect nothing in return from people who exist in your life that you understand why that is. 

44. My sister and I watched, 'The Sound Of Music' about a thousand times roughly, and yes, we know the songs and lines in the movie which matter the most. My favorites are:

   

        * '...for somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good...'

        * '...when God closes a door, somewhere he opens a window...'

45. When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is to pray, 'thank you God for waking me up to another day'. Then I go back to sleep, most of the time. 

46. I started wearing socks at the prodding of my best friend, Maan, and because I got envious of the cute socks my daughter has. Socks do help old people. 

47. It gives me joy to make the elderly happy, just in small ways. Perhaps because I lost both my parents early in life. 

48. I was never 'empty' at any point in my life, God made sure of that. I just looked for 'emptiness' that was not there. And believed that it existed. 

49. The only version of the truth that I believe in is that which is between me and my God.

50. Being 50? It is an honor, a privilege, a gift. Imagine me reaching this age. Goodness, I survived.