After three consecutive years of spending the New Year’s eve in a hotel in Makati, my family welcomed this year in my hometown and missed to watch the fireworks display through the hotel room window.
A one-night hotel stay will not fit in my budget anymore. Since I continued on with my masteral studies despite being unemployed for seven months, I now only have PhP2000 left from my savings. To make matters worse, my family is facing a financial crisis as well because of the peso-dollar exchange rate. (My father is an OFW.) But as much as I want to feel sad about my penniless situation, I can’t afford to do so. In fact, I have never felt so blessed! Indeed, sometimes, we have to be emptied for us to realize and appreciate what we have.
First and foremost, my ’situation’ brought me closer to God. I am most eager to go to church every Sunday knowing that it would be a ‘date’ with Him. Whenever I hear mass, my mind does not wander off to places anymore. Though I did not have income to get tithes from anymore, I still heartily gave my offerings. I pray to Him more often and always turn to His Word when making decisions. Also, I was able to put an end to my ’social drinking’. Kudos to me!
Why am I so happy about all these? Though my parents became Christians when I was still a child and I was a Sunday school kid myself, I did go astray for a while before I realized that I am heading the wrong path and slowly found my way back to God. During my teens, going to church became just a routine and a venue for hanging-out with friends. I got even more discouraged when a group of church members went against the pastor. This happened just before I went to college where I transformed from being a naive provincial girl into a raging city girl – partying and drinking until the break of dawn, hanging out in billiard halls even on school nights, cutting classes to go to the malls or the cinemas. But, I managed to still appear ‘perfect’ when I am home. Looking back, the best advice I ever got then came from my mother. She told me, “Do not get yourself into something you can not get yourself out.”
Like almost everyone I know, I also did have ‘issues’ with my parents. As a child, I was raised and groomed to be an academic achiever. And following the natural order of the universe, I had always wanted to go against it. In highschool, I busied myself with extracurriculars so I can have a ‘valid’ excuse for barely making it to the top ten of my graduating class. In college, I failed a couple of subjects so my parents would allow me to shift from engineering to tourism. Whenever things don’t go my way, I always blamed it on them. But behind this head-strong pain-in-the-@#$% tigress is a scared and insecure kitten. I realized that I was doing all these because I wanted them to lower their expectations on me. I was afraid that if for some reason I hit my head and become stupid, they would not love me as much.
But I know better now. At an age when I am supposed to be financially dependable, I am an unemployed masteral student who does not even have a clue on what she ought to do with her life. If my fears were correct, my parents should be nagging me now on how useless I am. But I was wrong… Even when I feel like a loser myself already, they are still very proud of who I am and what I have become. Instead of pressuring me to look for a job, my father (whom I always argue with) even proposed to support me financially so I can just focus on finishing my studies. I am not quite sure if it is some reverse psychology tactic he put on me. But as much as the gesture moved me, I can not accept his offer. My sister is still in college and she needs it more than I do. As I have mentioned earlier, my family is having financial problems though we try not to make it get the best of us. Nevertheless, it made me realize that their love for me is exceptionally unconditional.
But there is one lesson I think God is trying to teach me yet and I think it is about my fear of being lonely at the top. I do not want to be uber successful but have no friends to celebrate it with. But then again, most of my closest friends have already left the country. And half of those who are still here plan to go abroad as well.
Going back to how I spent the New Year… The people at my church decided to visit each other’s houses. It was a lot of fun. The smile in everybody’s hearts sparkled through their eyes – better than any fireworks display I’ve ever seen. It did feel like God’s family.
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