What

Should I do with My Life? is the title of the book I've been reading on my way/going home from work.

It is essentially a compilation of stories about ordinary people on their quest to a sense of personal equilibrium. I am about five stories away from finishing it and I figured why not write something about my own questions about my life, to look back and look forward. What do I really want, what dreams do I secretly nurture, which one to pursue?

I look back now and realize that perhaps if I did not fall down this deep into the abyss I would still have been this secretly arrogant, I-have-the-good-life and empty person that I was. One needs to jump, or in my case, fall off a cliff before you learn the use of your wings. I remember more than a year ago, my cousin, a physician, told me, that I've got a lot to be thankful for--a job that has given me the chance to travel the world, a lovelife, and a spartan yet comfortable lifestyle. And I was kinda, you know, shrugging it all off. Like, yeah, so what. I fully thought then that I was all set for life.

And then came the Joker. And my life, or the love aspect of it atleast, spun out of control.And now, I am relearning how it is to focus on my self, to set my life's direction to what I want and not what "we or he" wants. Which to be perfectly honest, was such a miserable thing to go through in the beginning. But then, because there's really no other way, I had to force myself to take baby steps. I realize that it's bearable enough and after sometime I've started to look forward again to new possibilities and adventures this time, for myself alone. This I've learned, I will never ever hinge or adjust my plans again on someone else's dreams no matter how much he means to me. It is unfair and a bad thing to do, and the mess it leaves behind when it breaks you is not worth the delusions that you create while on cloud nine.

I've been thinking about the things that I've always loved and had the passion for but which I've neglected often because I was too busy pleasing somebody else or because I was too drained or fearful to even just try.

There's poetry. I'd rather receive a book of poetry than flowers or any tech stuff. It has always made my spirit soar, reading between lines, caught in the intensity of sparse words and implicit images. But I have not read poetry for so long. It has always been my dream to one day learn how to really write poetry, to find my voice (as if I have one, ha!). To fill this need to at least try with all the honesty and earnestness that I have to string along the words that flit by me sometimes.
And so I am trying to read at least one poem a week, a task that's small and manageable, but with enough push to keep me going.

A passion for food. For so long I hinged my dream business on opening a restaurant or a bakeshop. And though at the back of my mind, it still remains a possibility, I realized that what I really love about cooking and baking is the process of experimenting, the excitement of finding which combination of ingredients work or not. In cooking at least, even with a recipe to follow, I am one who would most often tweak the recipe depending on what I "taste" with my mind or with what herb/condiment/ingredient I could find in my kitchen. I have stopped cooking for a couple of months but now I've started to nourish my appreciation and passion for food by buying a set of good food magazines and surfing the internet in search of food and recipe inspirations.

My Father's warrior. In my dark days, I turned to my pastor and my church and found a renewal of my faith and an enthusiasm to be more involved in giving back service to my church. And so it is one of my cornerstones, to be a better warrior for God.

My wandering self. In the past year I've wandered through two continents and three countries. But it was a wandering pulled back by some guilt and by plans which turned out to be empty. So now I am bent on being true to myself. I will wander, yes, visit the cities I could have visited when I was in Europe a couple of months ago but which I did not do because I thought I'd have the chance to visit them with a person I thought I'd be with forever. And now I'm free, in the truest sense. That I am free from my wrong notion of waiting and hinging my own happiness on someone else's plans. And so I look forward to going back to Europe, this time to wander and to experience the nomadic lifestyle I longed to try but never attempted.