Arbitrary Mind Picks #105

1. Day 25 on my road to health and fitness- and my God, does this shit hurt. It was definitely easier in my 20's, i can tell you that.
However, my clothes are starting to fit better, the huffing and puffing is down to a minimum, i am no longer tired, and my body is thanking me. The difference a few changes can make is just shocking.

2. I could still totally go for an entire plate of Carne Asada Nachos right about now.

3. A life without alcohol is something i didn't foresee so near into my future... but i'm more than happy it worked out that way. Cigarettes- i'm coming for you next.

4. This country, the system, and the way of the power hungry make me feel like i've been wrong about humanity my entire life. I've been told that i am blind and naive to always think the best of people... that this is a characteristic that makes me weak and susceptible to danger. I wish so much that that wasn't true... but damn, does this place make that really hard to believe.

5. My 12 year old son is gonna make some lucky girl very very happy some day. I don't know what i'm doing most of the time, but i must be doing something right.
This kid is too good.

6. The world looks different when you know, beyond any doubt, that you've found someone that absolutely completes you.  For the first time in my life, i find comfort in discovering that i was, in fact, absolutely wrong- i was never meant to walk through life on my own. It just took a really really really, really really, really long time.

7. I've learned to finally listen to the little voices that whisper in my head. Finally.
That guy you think is an asshole? He's most probably an asshole.
Trust your gut. #DFTF
I dodged a pretty fierce bullet. Figuratively speaking. A really rusty and poisonous one.

8. My life in a nutshell.
Trust your struggle.

Falling off the wagon

It happens to the best of us.
No need to beat yourself up over it.

After a 6 month fitness hiatus, i'm back with a vengeance, and the truth is, i just wanna throw up. Every step on that treadmill, every squat i lower myself into, every second i hold in that plank- is a grave reminder that the Oreos i had at 3am was definitely NOT worth it.

Ok, so maybe it was. Maybe those 6 months of vegging out was something that was long overdue. I felt like i deserved it, to tell you the truth. I was living life, fresh from broken shackles. I wanted to be happy and come and go as i please. So, i did. And it was fabulous.

Now, i sit in bed, surrounded by stacks of clothing that barely fit. By "barely", i really mean- i can't even consider trying to put those on. I wake up tired and beaten. Always tired. I can barely walk to the grocery store without having to catch my breath. I can hardly lift a cooler filled with apples without having to complain about my back. My feet hurt. I feel like shit.

So, enough. The fun has been had, my body is complaining, and i've reached my limit. I'm on Day 3 of training and i'm already starting to feel better. Given, my arms feel like rubber, my legs feel like jello, and i just wanna collapse onto the floor... but better, nonetheless.

I'm writing this down to remind myself what starting from Day 1 feels like. I'm not a teenager anymore. I remember this all used to be so easy. But time and [junk] food has done its damage and the sheer thought of having to trudge this heavy ass to the gym already pains me. It's hard and it's brutal and you will want to cheat and give up.

DON'T.

Because feeling better will only get harder from here... but the pain will eventually get easier. The panting will become less obvious. The work won't seem like a chore. The food... well, it will remain tasteless, but you really can't do anything about that. Just make better choices, that's all there really is to it.

I know it doesn't sound like fun and why in anyone's right mind would you subject yourself to this kind of torture, right? Well, because you deserve it. Feeling like shit is not something that needs to be part of my daily rants. I don't want to have complain about pain or fatigue because i've been mistreating myself in that sense. You know what eating all that pizza does to you. You know what instant noodles are capable of. You could have totally stopped at 3 cookies. I want to be able to get up and make my family breakfast, go to work, and still have enough energy left in me to watch that movie after the dishes are done post-dinner. I wanna grab whatever shirt i have hanging on my bedside railing without having to worry about what my stomach will do to my ego. I wanna roll around the floor avoiding nerf darts whizzing past me without having to tell my kid i need a break. And I can't do any of that like this.

I came close to losing my right leg once. The doctor told me they needed to be careful to avoid that, but it was a possibility. I remember being scared shitless out of my mind. I just had a baby, i had just gotten back into shape, i had just started dancing again, i felt like i was getting my life back on track. I spent the next 5 months depending on crutches to move around. I'm sure there is no explanation needed to describe how NOT fun that was. The day i got out of physical therapy, without those god-forsaken aluminum alloy support, i remember feeling like the luckiest girl on the planet. I need to remember not to take that for granted.

Getting into shape might be really really hard. But undoing damage can be so much harder. So, cheers- to feeling like you wanna throw up, god damn lunges, and quinoa. May the day come where you shall be able to fit into those jeans hanging in your closet that haven't been worn in over a year.

Let the music play

The Force Awakens.

Chapter one.

It's a fresh new start.
Make this the happy one.

"Do you ever get that feeling where you don't want
 to talk to anybody? You don't want to smile and you
 don't want to fake being happy but at the same time you
 don't know exactly what's wrong either, there isn't a way
 to explain it to someone who doesn't already understand.
 If you could want anything in the world it would be to be alone. 
People have stopped being comforting and being alone never
 was. At least when you're alone no one constantly asks you 
what's wrong and there isn't anyone who won't take 'I don't 
know' for an answer. You feel the way you do just because. You 
hope the feeling will pass soon and that you will be able to be
 yourself again, but until then, all you can do is wait."

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it’s not pretty, every day,and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
 
- Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Summer, 2015

Arbitrary Mind Picks #104

1. Back tracking on my blog, i realized two things. First, is that i'm pretty fucking hilarious. Second, i really took that lomo look to another level.

2. Have i ever mentioned that the reason why i never promote my writing is because i don't like being an open book? Curious, since, well, you know... i write on a blog.

3. I've always known it. But now, more than ever, it is undeniably known for a fact... I am a night owl. And there is nothing i can do about it. There is nothing that will ever change that. That is how i am wired, this is who i am.
With that said, i just wanna yell out, "F#%k 6AM MORNINGS!!!"
(Summer is over. School starts tomorrow. I'm sad.)

4. TV Series = Crack

5. Childhood happens in the blink of an eye. You never believe it, until it happens to your children.

6. On that note- I highly dislike teenagers. The thought of the next 9 years scares the living shit outta me.

"You will always have bad times, but they will always wake you up to the stuff you weren't paying attention to."

There it is again.
The subtle feeling of loss and grief over a person i have never personally met. How incredible you must have been to have that sort of impact on the world.
I can't find the words.  But what saddens me the most is the loss of someone who was struggling to fight his demons yet still made choices in portraying kindness.
Because we all know how hard it is to be pleasant when we're having a bad day...

RIP Robin Williams

Right in my childhood.

We crave a different kind of buzz

We live in moments

Christmas 2012

Arbitrary Mind Picks #103

1. I quite like it, re-reading past posts.
(Written and to be read with a British accent due to the voice of my current audio book that refuses to leave my head and a current novel i am reading which supposedly takes place somewhere in England.)

2. I have less than half the amount of posts this year as compared to the year before.
That, in itself, is a story.

3. If Insomnia was a person, i would drop kick it in the face.

4. I miss writing. Openly. Without hesitation.
This could possibly be the sole reason for starting an entirely new blog. Secretly.

5. I'm still thinking with a British accent.

Running on 6 hours of sleep in 48 hours.
At least i got to jot some things in. *shrugs*

I'm off to sit in a cab to faraway place out of Makati and brave the Holiday traffic. Which, by the way, feels nothing like a Holiday. 

So they say.