Rambling Flower

Writing as I grow, rambling as I go.

recent posts

  • Carrie Soto Is Back — and I’m Glad I Met Her in My Thirties

    Carrie Soto Is Back — and I’m Glad I Met Her in My Thirties

    I avoided Carrie Soto Is Back for years.

    Which is funny, because Taylor Jenkins Reid rarely misses for me. I’m a fan of her works. I enjoyed Malibu Rising, Daisy Jones and The Six, and of course, the iconic The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.

    But something about Carrie always pushed me away. Maybe because the first time I encountered her was in Malibu Rising, where she was “the other woman.” So somewhere in the back of my mind, I’d already judged her before she had a chance.

    Lately, though, I needed a break from the usual murder mysteries and psychological thrillers that I read. They’re my cup of tea, but sometimes they drain me. I wanted to read something lighter, so I finally decided to give Carrie Soto a chance.

    The book follows retired tennis legend Carrie Soto, who returns to the court after a younger player threatens to break her long-standing record. It’s set in the 80s and 90s, a time when female athletes were expected to carry excellence and softness.

    Carrie is a complex character. She’s layered, sharp, and intense. Emotionally armored in ways that make her hard to love and impossible to look away from. There were moments I wanted to hug her, and moments I wanted to slap her (with love, of course).

    Halfway through the book, I was invested and genuinely enjoyed the story. I even asked myself, Oh my god. Why did I wait this long to read this?

    The answer arrived later.

    There’s a passage where Carrie reflects on being 37. She says she’s grateful to be this age. That at least now, she understands certain things, and that you couldn’t pay her to go back to being younger and clueless.

    I just sat there staring at the page.

    I’m 37 too. And for some reason, that hit me harder than I expected.

    You see, I know 37 isn’t that old, but there’s a certain weight in my late thirties that I don’t always talk about.

    I can feel that my body needs more care and nourishment than it used to.

    I notice that the skin around my eyes and mouth no longer smooths out as quickly as it once did.

    I’m aware that younger people seem limitless in ways I no longer do.

    And I know that some dreams now have a timeline.

    Those are the parts that are easiest to see. It’s easy to focus on what aging is taking.

    What’s harder is noticing what it’s given.

    My twenty-something self was younger and faster, yes. But she was also clueless and uncertain of so many things. She spent so much time trying to become someone, to prove herself, and to figure out what mattered and what didn’t.

    I wouldn’t trade places with her. But becoming older has also made me kinder toward her.

    For a long time, I looked back at certain chapters of my life with embarrassment. Sometimes frustration.

    Why did I stay so long? Why did I make that decision? Why couldn’t I see what seems so obvious now?

    At 37, I don’t ask those questions with the same sharpness anymore.

    I can look back with softer eyes now.

    The Voyage of Life – Youth by Thomas Cole

    Not because I think everything happened for a reason. I don’t. Sometimes things are unfair. Sometimes people hurt us. Sometimes life is random and disappointing and doesn’t offer a lesson neatly wrapped in a bow.

    But age has allowed me to look back with more compassion for the version of me who was living through those moments.

    She didn’t have the experiences I have now. She hadn’t learned the lessons yet. She was simply trying to make sense of her life with the tools she had at the time.

    And when I look at her now, I don’t see someone foolish. I see someone trying.

    Trying to love, trying to belong. Trying to build a life, trying to figure things out.

    Maybe that’s one of the unexpected gifts of getting older. Not wisdom exactly, but perspective.

    I’m close to forty, and I don’t have everything figured out. But I understand a few things now that I couldn’t have understood then.

    I’m aware of what deserves my energy and what doesn’t.

    I know that not every opportunity is meant for me.

    I understand that peace is often more valuable than being right, impressive, or endlessly productive.

    I’ve learned to recognize what’s within my control, and to let go of what isn’t.

    And perhaps most importantly, I can finally see how much I’ve changed.

    The Voyage of Life – Manhood by Thomas Cole

    That’s the strange thing about growth. When you’re living through it, it rarely feels dramatic.

    Most days feel ordinary. You go to work, get your fave coffee, eat with your family, worry about things. Then try again tomorrow.

    When you’re in the middle of it, it doesn’t feel like anything big is happening. It just feels like a series of mundane moments.

    Maybe that’s why reading Carrie Soto hit me the way it did.

    Because somewhere between all the ordinary days, I can see now that I changed.

    Not in some dramatic, movie-worthy way. But gradually and so slowly that I almost didn’t notice it happening.

    At 20, I probably would’ve focused on Carrie’s ambition. Her determination. Her need to prove herself one more time.

    At 37, I found myself drawn to something much tenderer. Her gratitude, for having lived long enough to understand the things only time can teach.

    I feel the same way.

    I’m not a hundred percent grateful for everything that happened. Some things were painful and unfair for me. Some things happened because that’s what life does.

    But I’m grateful that I’ve made it this far.

    I’m grateful for the life that shaped me.

    For the woman I was, and the woman I’m becoming.

  • You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl Who’s Healing

    You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl Who’s Healing

    Healing made me sadder than anything I was healing from.

    I wasn’t expecting that.

    I think social media made me believe it’s all sunshine and rainbows. The influencers with their slow mornings, gratitude practices, sound baths, and always-calm energy. They made healing look like a beautiful process of becoming, a journey where you put yourself first. I thought that’s what I was signing up for.

    And at the beginning, it did feel like that. I learned the vocabulary too; boundaries, letting go of my superwoman persona, filling my own cup. I went on walks, practiced gratitude, meditated.

    There was real relief in it…in slowing down, in naming things, in feeling like I was finally doing something right for myself. The load I’d been hauling through life became lighter.

    I remember thinking, wow, this is what healing feels like. Feels nice!

    I wasn’t prepared for what came next.

    Automat by Edward Hopper, 1927

    Healing is a long journey. The kind with mountains you don’t see coming, stretches of rough road that go farther than you planned, and weather that changes without warning. And in that journey, you’re walking with a backpack on. Stuffed with everything you’ve lived through, versions of yourself you’ve outgrown, and old wounds you forgot were still in there.

    At first, the backpack feels lighter. Like healing is slowly unpacking it for you. But then, the further I walked, the heavier it became. I started finding things at the bottom of the bag that had always been there. Things I didn’t know I was carrying.

    Nobody told me healing could bring me to my knees like this. That underneath all the busyness and the pushing through, there were so many emotions waiting for me. The loneliness, the grief, the sadness I’d spent years outrunning. They didn’t go away when I buried myself in work or responsibilities. They just waited for me to slow down.

    On some days, I catch myself thinking that ignorance is truly bliss. I wish I could go back to not knowing and caring about healing. This self-awareness feels like a curse sometimes.

    Because once I started seeing clearly, I didn’t just see what was done to me. I started seeing what I did, too.

    And that part hit me harder.

    I wasn’t always a considerate person. I didn’t see my selfishness at the time. I was too caught up in my own world to really show up for the people around me. I thought I was being a decent person.

    But healing showed me things as they actually are, not as I needed them to be. And I couldn’t unsee what I saw. The conversations I handled poorly, the people I dismissed and hurt. The moments someone needed me, and I just wasn’t there.

    The guilt swallows me whole. The “I should have known better” won’t leave me alone. Even when I know that at the time, I genuinely didn’t.

    The Wounded Deer by Frida Kahlo, 1946

    The journey showed me the other side of it, too. The moments I was hurt. The times I was taken advantage of, made to feel small, or not quite worth the effort. There’s a sadness not just in what happened, but in finally realizing I didn’t recognize it for what it was. That I stayed in spaces I shouldn’t have entered in the first place. That I kept looking for love and validation in places that were never going to give it to me.

    I understand now that those weren’t moments of weakness. They were wounds I’d been carrying for a long time…this deep need to just be seen, without having to earn it. And because that need was never really met, I went looking for it everywhere. Sometimes in the wrong people. Sometimes in the wrong rooms.

    Somewhere along this journey, I met her…the younger version of me. The one who was just trying to survive everything she was handed, with none of what she actually needed to make sense of it.

    When I really looked at her, I felt a grief I wasn’t expecting.

    She was so young. So overwhelmed. Most of what she did came from fear, from not knowing better, from just trying to make it through the day. I wished I could have reached her earlier. That I had dealt with things with more mature eyes, back when it could have still changed something.

    I wonder sometimes who I would have been if things had been different. Maybe less anxious, less guarded. Maybe I wouldn’t have spent so many years trying to prove my worth by overextending myself. Maybe I would have known earlier that my needs mattered too.

    New York Movie by Edward Hopper, 1939

    Something else I noticed along the way is that the circle is getting smaller. At first, it felt like a loss. But the longer I walked, the more I understood it differently. Some of it is a consequence. I didn’t know how to nurture relationships back then, and I didn’t show up the way people needed me to.

    But some of it is just the nature of healing. Some paths you’re meant to walk with fewer people, or just yourself. Some won’t understand the person you’re becoming. It’s no one’s fault; it’s just how life is.

    I still feel the heaviness of it all. The relationships I didn’t know how to keep. The people I hurt without meaning to. The spaces I entered that slowly chipped away at me because I didn’t think I deserved better.

    I’m still trying to make peace with all of it. That’s the grief nobody really prepares you for. The grief of hindsight. Of looking back at yourself and seeing all the moments you were lost, absent, hurting others, and being hurt. And wishing, so badly, that you had known better then. That you can travel back to that time and do things differently.

    I think that’s why healing looks like sadness from the outside.

    Because in a lot of ways, it is. It’s mourning the versions of yourself that didn’t have enough awareness, enough maturity, enough softness. It’s apologizing to yourself in silence over and over. It’s apologizing to others, sometimes in your head, sometimes in letters you’ll never send.

    It’s realizing that some wounds don’t make you stronger. They just made you…tired. And I’m exhausted, grieving and lonely.

    I won’t give up though. I never will.

    So I keep walking.

  • Learning To Flow

    Learning To Flow

    The first time I heard someone mention “flow” as a way of living, I was sitting in a work meeting.

    Back then, I worked as a social media manager for WellMiss, a digital clinic focused on trauma-informed care. Most of my colleagues were in the well-being and healing space. Psychiatrists, trauma-informed practitioners, yoga therapists, and naturopathic doctors. Women with genuine depth and experience when it came to trauma and healing work.

    I didn’t have that kind of background. So every time I joined a meeting or a discussion, I made sure I was paying attention. Not just because it would shape the social media content I was doing, but also because I wanted to learn.

    And honestly, it was such a privilege to be part of that space. To be surrounded by women who just felt more grounded, more aware, more in tune with themselves and life.

    At some point during the meeting, we had a check-in. Just a simple “how are you” round.

    One of my colleagues said something like, “I’m just flowing through life right now… embracing the ebbs and flows.”

    I stopped for a second. I mean, I’d heard “flow” all my life. But the way she said it sounded so normal, like a real way of existing. Part of me was confused, but I was also drawn in.

    I’ve always been a control freak. That’s how I survived that time. So the idea of surrendering, of letting go, sounded terrifying.

    I couldn’t relate to the concept of “flowing through life”, but I didn’t dismiss it. In fact, I wanted to know more about it.

    Still and supported.
    📍Cagayan, Philippines

    So, right after that meeting, I went straight to Google. What does it mean to flow through life? How do you do it?

    And boy, I got lost almost immediately.

    I don’t even remember exactly what I read. It was a swirl of phrases like “let go,” “surrender,” “stop forcing things,” “trust the process.” The kind of life advice that sounds lovely on paper, but not doable in real life. I think at one point, I laughed and told myself, “Let go? Trust the process? Does the process even know I trust it?”

    I need routine, discipline, structure, and a clear plan, with Plan B to Z as backups. None of this “flow” stuff made sense to me. It felt like I was being told to ditch the only things holding my life together.

    Questions started piling up in my head. How do I “flow”? Am I supposed to drop all my routines? Just wake up and vibe my way through the day?

    These thoughts stayed with me for days. I couldn’t let it go, and I also felt stupid because I couldn’t seem to understand it. My brain was itching. It seemed I was missing something… something important.

    Then, out of nowhere one day, this thought hit me:

    Wait… the sea can flow because there’s an ocean floor underneath it, right?

    That sudden realization changed everything.

    Moving and held.
    📍Pangasinan, Philippines

    I got so hyper-focused on the idea of “flow” that I didn’t even bother to zoom out to see the whole picture. The sea can move because it’s held by the ocean floor beneath it, by the coastlines that shape where it can go, and by gravity that keeps it from drifting into nothing.

    I had it wrong. Routines and structure don’t block my flow. They make it possible.

    I thought flowing meant letting go of everything that holds and grounds me, but it doesn’t. I didn’t have to completely abandon them. I just had to loosen my grip.

    I started to see how rigid I’d been. For example, if I slept through my alarm and missed my workout, I’d get mad at myself all day. Or when plans change, I’d stress out instead of adjusting.

    Now, flowing for me is moving through life with a little more softness and self-compassion. Not beating myself up every time things don’t go as planned. Letting go of what’s out of my control and focusing on what I can: my mindset, my values, and how I choose to respond.

    Giving myself grace when I can’t show up perfectly.

    To allow flexibility when my body needs rest.

    To not be so hard on myself when plans don’t go the way I expected.

    I know I’m not perfect at this. I still catch myself resisting it. But I’m noticing it more, and I think having this level of awareness is already a good start.

  • May You Continue

    May You Continue

    Ah, the New Year.

    The time when the scent of something fresh floats in the air. Fresh starts, fresh opportunities, a fresh look. New year, new anything.

    The New Year has been culturally seen as a reset button. When a new year arrives, we’re expected to begin something, or to change with it.

    And honestly, the logic makes sense. A fresh, clean slate is the perfect time to begin again. The calendar becomes our canvas, and a new year feels like we’re all handed a brand-new one to draw and paint on.

    So we list the things we want to change, the goals we want to conquer, and the habits we think we should start. We create resolutions.

    On the surface, this sounds hopeful. But underneath, there’s an unspoken self-dialogue here:

    • I need to change.
    • I failed last year. I need to be better.
    • I need to fix this version of me.

    And this is where the quiet harm lingers.

    The pressure to change…to reinvent, to become better, to conquer new heights…can subtly suggest that who we were before January wasn’t enough.

    Growth becomes framed as correction. Improvement begins to feel like a requirement rather than a choice.

    And in that framing, something tender gets lost.

    We become so focused on what we should fix that we stop seeing what is already working. We scan ourselves for flaws instead of recognizing the habits, values, and ways of being that have carried us through.

    Continuity isn’t celebrated, only reinvention is.

    Still blooming, still continuing.

    Just to be clear, this isn’t about pretending last year went well if it didn’t.

    If you failed your exams, struggled at work, lost a job, or watched things fall apart despite your effort, it makes sense to want change. It makes sense to set new goals, build new habits, and try a different approach. Growth is often born from friction.

    But change doesn’t have to come from self-rejection.

    Wanting to improve what isn’t working doesn’t mean everything about you needs to be replaced. Even in years that feel like failure, there are parts of you worth continuing.

    There’s nothing wrong with self-awareness and wanting to build habits that support our well-being. But there are also parts of us that don’t deserve to be abandoned. Parts that have kept us afloat, made us feel alive, and make us who we are.

    Not every new year calls for a new version of ourselves.

    Sometimes, it asks us to stay with what is good, steady, and already enough.

    And so my quiet prayer for you this year is this:

    May you continue.

    Continuing, as the sea does.

    May you continue breathing with ease, and may your body move effortlessly through life.

    May you continue to give room for rest.

    May you continue finding moments of stillness.

    May you continue responding to life with presence, not pressure.

    May you continue to feel and hold your emotions, no matter how heavy or gentle they are.

    May you continue to forgive yourself, and others.

    May you continue holding yourself with grace, compassion, and kindness.

    May you continue to show up, even in uncertain, challenging, and heartbreaking times.

    May you continue choosing yourself, even when the world asks you to put yourself last.

    May you continue giving yourself permission to start again whenever you need to.

    May you continue to nurture yourself and the relationships that matter to you.

    May you continue learning the art of letting go, the art of knowing that not everything deserves your response, your explanation, or your attention.

    May you continue embracing the versions of yourself you are meeting along the way.

    May you continue being the person your younger self needed.

    So glad.

    May you continue letting your inner child play.

    May you continue allowing your lips to stretch into wide, genuine smiles.

    May you continue celebrating your wins, no matter how small they may seem.

    May you continue to give hope a home in your heart.

    May you continue to brighten someone’s day in your own small, quiet ways.

    May you continue to give people kindness and understanding, even if it’s hard.

    May you continue to be witnessed as you become the person you’ve always wanted to be.

    May you continue choosing clothes, foods, and hobbies that bring you comfort and genuine joy.

    May you continue listening to songs that lift your spirit.

    May you continue exploring new ideas, new places, new cultures, and new traditions.

    May you continue sharing what you’ve learned, no matter how small or random, even if it’s just a silly piece of trivia.

    May you continue holding the values your parents and ancestors passed down to you.

    And in a world that constantly asks you to become someone else,

    May you continue being you.

  • The Song That Found Me This Year

    The Song That Found Me This Year

    As another year fades into the background, everyone’s sharing their recaps. I love looking at mine, especially the music. Not every song carries deep meaning (sometimes it’s just a vibe), but there are always a few tracks that somehow hold a piece of the year.

    So when my music app told me my number one song for 2025 was “Multo” by Cup of Joe, I wasn’t surprised.

    Truth be told, I’ve been obsessed. “Multo” settled in my heart, and it looks like it’s staying.

    I first heard it through a trending Instagram reel that used a few lines from the chorus. Most of the reels were about relationship heartbreaks. The exes, the ones that got away, the almosts.

    I assumed that was the whole message of the song and didn’t bother listening to the full tune. As I get older, I find myself clinging more to the songs of my childhood and teenage years. Nostalgia brought comfort. Exploring new music suddenly feels like it requires more energy, more openness, more courage. So, unless something really pulls me in, I tend to stay inside the familiar.

    Then one day, I finally had the mental and emotional space to sit with something new. I was craving a Tagalog song, something that can sit quietly with me. So I played it.

    Man.

    Within seconds, I realized the reels I saw didn’t even scratch the surface.

    Some things can’t be fixed, only carried.

    “Multo” wasn’t just about broken relationships. It struck something deeper, somewhere I wasn’t prepared to go that day.

    It spoke to me about grief.

    About losing someone.

    About death and the way it haunts you long after the world thinks you’ve “moved on.”

    I was calm when it started, but halfway through I was suddenly crying. I was having an average day, and one song cracked me wide open.

    That’s grief. Unpredictable, uninvited, wild.

    There were specific lines that gutted me. Lines that didn’t just land, they lingered.

    “Binaon naman na ang lahat. Tinakpan naman na ‘king sugat

    Ngunit ba’t ba andito pa rin? Hirap na ’kong intindihin.”

    When I heard that, it felt like someone read my insides out loud.

    Because… yes.

    I already buried my dad, literally lowered him to the ground.

    I tended my wounds. Made space for the pain. I did all the grief work I knew.

    But it’s never enough. The ache still shows up even when life is moving beautifully.

    The day ended. The grief didn’t.

    “Kahit sa’n man mapunta ay anino mo’y kumakapit sa ’king kamay.”

    God. That line.

    Wherever I go, even when I’m full of fun and gratitude, there’s a moment when I remember he’s not there to see it. He’s not there to experience what I’m experiencing.

    It’s like you’re having the best day, and suddenly grief taps you on the shoulder, reminding you that joy will always have a shadow.

    Not to ruin it.

    Just to say: “I’m still here.”

    And that last line…

    “Ako ay dahan-dahang nililibing nang buhay pa.”

    …that one hit in a different place.

    Because that’s exactly what grief feels like sometimes.

    Not dramatic, not loud. Just this quiet, suffocating heaviness. A slow burial.

    When my dad died, it wasn’t just him I buried. A version of me was buried, too.

    The version of me who still had a father.

    The version of me who can feel joy without it echoing.

    The version of me who can be content without the undertone of longing.

    The point of life, I guess

    I don’t think people talk enough about how grief kills the past version of you, and how you’re forced to live on as someone slightly altered. Not broken. Just changed.

    I still feel joy. I still laugh. But they don’t land the same way anymore.

    They have texture now.

    Shadows. Edges.

    And maybe that’s what the song meant.

    That the weight of loss buries parts of you even as you move, breathe, travel, laugh, and exist. You learn to live with that slow burial. You learn to live after the version of you who didn’t know this kind of grief.

    But even with the heaviness it stirred, I found comfort in the song.

    It became my go-to for weeks. I’d listen to it on loop. Every time a new live performance came out, I’d drop everything just to watch it.

    At some point, it stopped being “just a song” and turned into something I reached for,  the way you reach for a blanket or a familiar scent. I wasn’t just obsessed with it, I was held by it. It gave me something steady to return to on the days when the grief sat closer to the surface.

    From Bencab Museum; it reminds me of the days I rode my bike with my dad.

    Then one day, I saw a video of Cup of Joe accepting Song of the Year for ‘Multo’. Well-deserved. During the speech, one of them smiled and said:

    “Sana hindi kayo makalaya.”

    I found myself smiling too.

    Yes. Exactly that.

    I don’t want to break free from grief.

    Because what a strange privilege it is to grieve someone. Grief is love. To grieve is to love. It’s a painful, stubborn reminder of connection and care. It’s uncomfortable and brutal, but it means you lived and loved deeply. It means someone mattered that much.

    And here’s the thing I only realized recently: grief isn’t always pain.

    Sometimes it’s warmth. Sometimes it’s memory. Sometimes it’s the soft reminder of all the good things about the person you lost.

    The joy they brought, the quiet ways they loved you, the small traditions they unknowingly passed on. I see traces of my dad in the things I do, in the values I’ve held onto, and even in the things I now teach my own child.

    One of those things is Christmas.

    I see my dad everywhere, even in these Santa decors

    When my dad passed, I surprisingly found myself having a better relationship with the holiday. Not because his absence made anything easier. Far from it.

    But because I finally understood where all the Christmas magic of my childhood came from. It was him. Along with my mom, he made sure our holidays felt festive, warm, alive.

    And this was despite the fact that we didn’t have much. He worked with whatever we had, and somehow it was always enough.

    Now, every time I decorate and plan for Christmas, it’s my way of honoring him. It’s my way of continuing something he started.

    A quiet tradition that reminds me that grief isn’t just sadness, it’s also love carried forward.

    If breaking free from grief means forgetting your smile, then I choose to drown in it.

    Grief is devastating, yes. But it’s also deeply human. It carries beauty alongside the ache.

    Two truths can exist together, and I can carry both at once.

    I don’t want to get rid of grief.

    Even if on some days, it tightens my chest and brings me anxiety.

    Even if on some days, it reminds me of the things I should’ve said, should’ve done.

    I don’t want it gone. Because grief is my reminder that I can love, that I have loved, that I was loved back.

    And what a luxury that is.

    Grief is a forever companion, one I’m learning to befriend. I want to be comfortable in its presence, because the alternative is forgetting, and I’d rather ache than forget my dad.

    Maybe that’s the real lesson this song gave me: to carry the ache and let it remind me of love.

    Oo. Sana hindi ako makalaya. Dahil ayoko rin.

  • Pieces of Clarity

    Pieces of Clarity

    Clarity rarely arrives whole, it comes in fragments. Some sharp, some soft, some fleeting.

    Each season of my life hands me a new version of myself, and with her come new pieces of clarity. Some stay and steady me, some shift as I grow, and some drift away as gently as they arrived.

    For now, this is what I know. Bits of clarity that belong to me in this moment, though I expect them to evolve as I do.

    As strong as a mountain, as soft as the morning light
    DRT, Bulacan

    My strength isn’t just in how I rise or stand tall, but in how I soften when things get hard.

    It turns out I don’t have to pick between being grounded and being fluid. I flow best when I’m rooted.

    Healing is never linear, and often, I find myself starting from the bottom again.

    The fire in me doesn’t burn like it used to. Grief, exhaustion, time, and growth have tamed it. And that’s okay. Maybe I’ve been burning for too long. Maybe I wasn’t meant to burn forever. Maybe I’m glowing now, and that’s beautiful too.

    I’ve learned to stop chasing happiness. It’s fleeting anyway. Joy, curiosity, and contentment feel more real to me now.

    I used to carry shame for living a “boring” or “mediocre” life. No big title, no wild ambition. But now I see it clearly…this calm is what I’ve always needed.

    Carry it with grace
    Vigan, Ilocos Sur

    Grief is terrible. It’s heavy, messy, and never on schedule. But it made me look at life differently.

    Regret often disguises itself as a memory. I’m learning to hold space for the things I didn’t do, say, or feel in time, and to forgive myself anyway.

    For a long time, I blamed the world for most of my pain. Only later did I realize that my own choices were feeding my suffering, and accountability slapped the excuses right out of me.

    I might not be walking the path I dreamed of as a child, but I’m damn sure I’ve become the person she needed back then.

    Sometimes I don’t think I have a big purpose in life, and that’s okay. My presence is enough. Being here, right now, is enough.

    I can’t keep blaming my parents for what they lacked. They did their best with what they knew and had. The ceilings they broke became the ground I now stand on.

    The flowers came anyway
    Meycauayan, Bulacan

    Avoiding stress isn’t realistic. Managing it gently and intentionally is all I can do.

    There are days that I want to die. Not because I want to stop living, but because I’m exhausted. And sometimes, it’s really just that.

    When my ‘yes’ comes with resentment, it’s actually a no. When my ‘no’ brings guilt, it’s still a no. Learning this is how I finally stopped abandoning myself.

    My body remembers what I try to forget.

    I overthink because I care too much. But not every thought is real. These days, I’m trying to listen to my heart more than my head. The heart speaks quietly, but it rarely lies.

    I used to think deep breathing was just wellness fluff. Now it’s the anchor I reach for when everything feels like too much.

    Still, but not passive
    Liyan, Batangas

    I’ve learned to pause before reacting. Some things won’t matter tomorrow. For the ones that will, I try to meet them with clarity, not heat.

    I used to think compassion was about showing up for others. But it’s also about showing up for myself with gentleness instead of judgment.

    Discipline doesn’t come naturally to me. But I’m starting to see it as a form of self-love, not punishment.

    Some of my proudest moments live in silence. I’ve learned to hold them gently, without needing to prove anything to anyone.

    I still have a “wild” side. She’s just wiser now and knows when to come out. She doesn’t perform on demand anymore.

    I dread aging, but I’m also aware of how lucky I am to grow older and witness the people I love go through their own seasons too.

    Let the tides take it
    San Fernando, La Union

    Clarity often comes when I’m resting or when I allow myself to feel grateful.

    Being bored is a luxury. Not everyone gets to slow down.

    Slowing down gives me a different perspective and magnifies gratitude in a way that rushing never can.

    I love my solitude. But I also know that if I want a village, I need to show up as a villager too.

    Treating myself isn’t always about sweets, skincare, or trips. Sometimes it’s doing nothing and not feeling guilty about it.

    There are still kind, gentle souls in this world. I just need to keep my heart open long enough to find them.

    Nature remains the best therapy. Always has been.

    Until tomorrow
    San Juan, La Union

    What I’ve shared here are pieces that feel true to me in this season of becoming.
    They may not last forever, and that’s part of their beauty. Clarity is meant to move and shift, just as we do.

    And if any of these pieces resonate with you, may they remind you that through the ebb and flow of life, you are never moving alone.