[update] one last hurrah for the year;
The Atheist Christmas Carol [listen]
Vienna Teng
it's the season of grace coming out of the void
where a man is saved by a voice in the distance
it's the season of possible miracle cures
where hope is currency
and death is not the last unknown
where time begins to fade
and age is welcome home
it's the season of eyes meeting over the noise
and holding fast with sharp realization
it's the season of cold making warmth a divine intervention
you are safe here
you know now
don't forget
don't forget i love, i love
i love you
it's the season of scars and of wounds in the heart
of feeling the full weight of our burdens
it's the season of bowing our heads in the wind
and knowing we are not alone in fear
not alone in the dark
don't forget
don't forget i love, i love
i love you
don't forget
don't forget i love, i love
i love you
don't forget
don't forget i love, i love
i love you
don't forget
don't forget i love, i love
i love you
The trouble with acquiring an iPod Touch (I won it at the team Christmas Party -- that is a long hilarious story that deserves a moment of its own), and consequently configuring the wifi at home so that I could hook up onto the network using it, is that I've been so stuck on the shiny of my new toy that I haven't made the time to actually do fairly decent updates. Tumblr doesn't count. I post there using the app that I downloaded for the iTouch. So yeah. It really doesn't count.
I meant to post sooner, had hoped to have something up on Christmas Eve, greeting you all and passing around holiday wishes; but between last minute shopping, sprucing up the house, running down to the grocery and dinner preparations -- I hadn't gotten so much of a moment to really sit down and type up an entry. And maybe, I guess... I didn't know what to say either. Part of me thinks that I still don't know what to say, but this will probably be my last post for 2010, so like all the previous posts, I'm going to wing it and we'll just see where the rest goes.
I think it's safe to say that this is one of the quietest Christmases I've ever spent with my family -- and not just because my aunts and uncle all decided to fly home to Bacolod this year.
Usually there's a lot of fuss and noise, and I'd hate to think that the reason there isn't so much this year is because we might be getting too old for the holiday. So I'm going to chalk it up to the fact that considering everything that's happened this last year, the quiet was -- is -- what we needed, even if it wasn't necessarily what I was hoping for.
I don't really know who else reads this thing anymore, and I'd be lying if I said it doesn't feel just a little bit lonely to post and feel like I'm just tossing my words out there the way I might toss a ball with no guarantee that it'll get tossed back into my hands.
A huge chunk of my online interaction has long-since hinged on LJ, and while I am admittedly a lot more active on Twitter and Plurk in the last couple of months, I still consider this place home-base. I think it will always be like that. There's a comfort in it, and while I know that a number of my favorite people on LJ aren't really around anymore (what with life getting in the way and micro-blogging sites being more the norm) -- but what can you do? Times change and people move on. And while it's a bittersweet thing, I remind myself that change is the only oddly constand and consistent thing in this world -- and that's not really a bad thing at the end of the day.
For the most of this year, I promised myself that I would fight in big and small ways to reclaim this little patch of Internet space. I think that after taking the time to look through the entries posted in last couple months and seeing more consistent updates than I ever did manage last year -- that I can say that I achieved that goal; that resolution. Hey, I even have a couple of souvenirs in terms of comment threads that go insane all on their own. It's a big improvement, really.
So I want to say thank you to those of you who comment (you know who you are) and give me reasons to laugh and smile when I scroll down to read our shenanigans. And of course, I to thank as well, those who read but don't comment often or at all. It is a big thing to me, that you take time out of your busy lives to browse and check in once in awhile. That I occasionally cross your mind and that you deem it necessary to type my URL into your browse is enough.
At the end of it all, the real victory lies in the fact that I feel safe and settled back into this little part of virtual earth. Everything that comes over and above that is the figurative icing or decor to top the figurative cake.
Over a week ago, there was this little exchange I had with Mags badassbaby over text. It was just days before Christmas and I was telling her how I was finding it difficult to feel the holiday cheer this year.
It wasn't that I was being a Scrooge, because I love this season too much to be that. It was more that, while I felt something, it just wan't the overwhelming rush of happy that I normally felt when counting down to a holiday that has always managed to have an extra bit of happy for me.
I told her something along the line of me feeling like there was a hush in my chest. A waiting; the lonely sort that crept in and laid memories and thoughts at my feet.
And then, looking out of the window of the van that I was waiting to fill up at the Fx terminal, I thought to myself: This is okay. I am okay.
I'm alive. It might sound a little melodramatic to some (and I know I should stop disclaimers like these, but that's a goal to tackle in the new year), but after knowing days that waking up in the morning is a battle all on it's own, I've learned that each morning I wake up -- creaky, achey, shivering maybe, like this morning -- is an opportunity for me to breathe in the encouraging truth that I am actually much happier than I've ever been in a long, long while. That when I think of 2011, it is refreshing to realize that I don't find myself struggling with a thinly-caged panic that I need to make something of the coming year.
Instead, I think to myself how all the babysteps I've willed myself to take towards getting better and feeling right again in my own skin, has given me the strength and the hope to smile at the thought that another year is coming soon; and that even if I can't make it mine, that no one can tell me that I can't try.
I won't be any younger than I am today, and that does bother me; but looking beyond being bogged down by time, it just so... wonderful, to know that possibilities are much more in reach than I could have ever trusted to dream at the beginning of this year.
This, I consider a miracle. A small, personal miracle, but a miracle nonetheless.
So to anyone and everyone reading this -- brief passer-by or the usual suspects who make me laugh -- I want to take this moment to wish you all what I wasn't able to last weekend:
I hope you had Merry Christmas and that the coming year brings you lots and lots of joy to balance out the things that may occassionally get you down. That whatever goals and wishes you have listed for yourself -- that the universe grants you at least one of these; and that little acts of kindness are laid at your feet, even if you're not entirely sure that you deserve it. Because the truth is, everyone does. Everyone deserves that extra bit of kindness and love, even if understanding comes much, much later.
Finally, to paraphrase what the lovely Vienna Teng has put so succinctly in the song I've shared above: I hope that in the coming year you don't ever forget that there is always someone out there who loves you. I know I do.
Much love,
N.
Vienna Teng
it's the season of grace coming out of the void
where a man is saved by a voice in the distance
it's the season of possible miracle cures
where hope is currency
and death is not the last unknown
where time begins to fade
and age is welcome home
it's the season of eyes meeting over the noise
and holding fast with sharp realization
it's the season of cold making warmth a divine intervention
you are safe here
you know now
don't forget
don't forget i love, i love
i love you
it's the season of scars and of wounds in the heart
of feeling the full weight of our burdens
it's the season of bowing our heads in the wind
and knowing we are not alone in fear
not alone in the dark
don't forget
don't forget i love, i love
i love you
don't forget
don't forget i love, i love
i love you
don't forget
don't forget i love, i love
i love you
don't forget
don't forget i love, i love
i love you
The trouble with acquiring an iPod Touch (I won it at the team Christmas Party -- that is a long hilarious story that deserves a moment of its own), and consequently configuring the wifi at home so that I could hook up onto the network using it, is that I've been so stuck on the shiny of my new toy that I haven't made the time to actually do fairly decent updates. Tumblr doesn't count. I post there using the app that I downloaded for the iTouch. So yeah. It really doesn't count.
I meant to post sooner, had hoped to have something up on Christmas Eve, greeting you all and passing around holiday wishes; but between last minute shopping, sprucing up the house, running down to the grocery and dinner preparations -- I hadn't gotten so much of a moment to really sit down and type up an entry. And maybe, I guess... I didn't know what to say either. Part of me thinks that I still don't know what to say, but this will probably be my last post for 2010, so like all the previous posts, I'm going to wing it and we'll just see where the rest goes.
I think it's safe to say that this is one of the quietest Christmases I've ever spent with my family -- and not just because my aunts and uncle all decided to fly home to Bacolod this year.
Usually there's a lot of fuss and noise, and I'd hate to think that the reason there isn't so much this year is because we might be getting too old for the holiday. So I'm going to chalk it up to the fact that considering everything that's happened this last year, the quiet was -- is -- what we needed, even if it wasn't necessarily what I was hoping for.
I don't really know who else reads this thing anymore, and I'd be lying if I said it doesn't feel just a little bit lonely to post and feel like I'm just tossing my words out there the way I might toss a ball with no guarantee that it'll get tossed back into my hands.
A huge chunk of my online interaction has long-since hinged on LJ, and while I am admittedly a lot more active on Twitter and Plurk in the last couple of months, I still consider this place home-base. I think it will always be like that. There's a comfort in it, and while I know that a number of my favorite people on LJ aren't really around anymore (what with life getting in the way and micro-blogging sites being more the norm) -- but what can you do? Times change and people move on. And while it's a bittersweet thing, I remind myself that change is the only oddly constand and consistent thing in this world -- and that's not really a bad thing at the end of the day.
For the most of this year, I promised myself that I would fight in big and small ways to reclaim this little patch of Internet space. I think that after taking the time to look through the entries posted in last couple months and seeing more consistent updates than I ever did manage last year -- that I can say that I achieved that goal; that resolution. Hey, I even have a couple of souvenirs in terms of comment threads that go insane all on their own. It's a big improvement, really.
So I want to say thank you to those of you who comment (you know who you are) and give me reasons to laugh and smile when I scroll down to read our shenanigans. And of course, I to thank as well, those who read but don't comment often or at all. It is a big thing to me, that you take time out of your busy lives to browse and check in once in awhile. That I occasionally cross your mind and that you deem it necessary to type my URL into your browse is enough.
At the end of it all, the real victory lies in the fact that I feel safe and settled back into this little part of virtual earth. Everything that comes over and above that is the figurative icing or decor to top the figurative cake.
Over a week ago, there was this little exchange I had with Mags badassbaby over text. It was just days before Christmas and I was telling her how I was finding it difficult to feel the holiday cheer this year.
It wasn't that I was being a Scrooge, because I love this season too much to be that. It was more that, while I felt something, it just wan't the overwhelming rush of happy that I normally felt when counting down to a holiday that has always managed to have an extra bit of happy for me.
I told her something along the line of me feeling like there was a hush in my chest. A waiting; the lonely sort that crept in and laid memories and thoughts at my feet.
And then, looking out of the window of the van that I was waiting to fill up at the Fx terminal, I thought to myself: This is okay. I am okay.
I'm alive. It might sound a little melodramatic to some (and I know I should stop disclaimers like these, but that's a goal to tackle in the new year), but after knowing days that waking up in the morning is a battle all on it's own, I've learned that each morning I wake up -- creaky, achey, shivering maybe, like this morning -- is an opportunity for me to breathe in the encouraging truth that I am actually much happier than I've ever been in a long, long while. That when I think of 2011, it is refreshing to realize that I don't find myself struggling with a thinly-caged panic that I need to make something of the coming year.
Instead, I think to myself how all the babysteps I've willed myself to take towards getting better and feeling right again in my own skin, has given me the strength and the hope to smile at the thought that another year is coming soon; and that even if I can't make it mine, that no one can tell me that I can't try.
I won't be any younger than I am today, and that does bother me; but looking beyond being bogged down by time, it just so... wonderful, to know that possibilities are much more in reach than I could have ever trusted to dream at the beginning of this year.
This, I consider a miracle. A small, personal miracle, but a miracle nonetheless.
So to anyone and everyone reading this -- brief passer-by or the usual suspects who make me laugh -- I want to take this moment to wish you all what I wasn't able to last weekend:
I hope you had Merry Christmas and that the coming year brings you lots and lots of joy to balance out the things that may occassionally get you down. That whatever goals and wishes you have listed for yourself -- that the universe grants you at least one of these; and that little acts of kindness are laid at your feet, even if you're not entirely sure that you deserve it. Because the truth is, everyone does. Everyone deserves that extra bit of kindness and love, even if understanding comes much, much later.
Finally, to paraphrase what the lovely Vienna Teng has put so succinctly in the song I've shared above: I hope that in the coming year you don't ever forget that there is always someone out there who loves you. I know I do.
Much love,
N.