by Shirley | Apr 9, 2025 | Musings
It’s been a while ever since I’ve written here and definitely, I love being back to this hobby of mine that I have cultivated since I was a college student. Blogging (I mean, writing on an online journal, not so much with that of documenting one’s preoccupations on video) has been my one and only sport (if you could consider it as such) for years and years of my undergraduate life until work caught up on me as I then began to metamorphose into such a smug curmudgeon whose mental health struggles created a perennial vacuum in me, But after my on and off attempts at reviving this, at last I have written yet another entry on this blog that has become irregularly populated in a sense.
So, what about this post? Actually I don’t really know, with all honesty. It’s merely this kind of hubris perhaps about writing that has kept haunting me for days since I’ve constantly indicated in my planner that I HAVE TO BLOG ONCE AND FOR ALL. I’ve always been putting this off, not for anything else but because I merely think there are more important things to keep myself busy with. As I’ve resigned from job and applied for a retainer/part-time position in that same workplace, I did figure out that I now have more time to allocate for what I ought to do; so I am currently taking advantage of that fact.
Maybe what I should highlight here momentarily is on how I’ve been healing from my recent major mental health debacle that happened last month, a circumstance instrumental for my resignation, somehow. I always felt like I’d be waking up from a very deep sleep almost everyday. There were memories that I’d have forgotten, perhaps due to my brain having bogged down entirely during those two days leadng up to my breakdown, where I had no sleep for two days due to work. Fast forward to today, I have observed that i am relatively more relaxed and I have gone back to analog journaling again (which I could not do quite often still but I do look forward to the day when I’d be able to do so regularly). I am also trying to set up my new creatives business and I am currently designing some sticker and postcard designs for both my business and as a last task for my work.
So far, I believe I am thriving but with finances as my only difficulty. Yet, I still wake up with gratitude that I am stlll alive despite everything that makes me anxious every now and then. As this is the week before Holy Week (as of this writing), I am reminded of how much God has been keeping my company amidst every experience I have, whether good or bad.
So, as always, in typical Benedictine fashion: that in all things, God may be glorified.
by Shirley | Dec 31, 2024 | Musings
Welcome to my new blog at the onset of 2025. Honestly, I am celebrating right now without much of the hype and fanfare except the resolve to spend time praying: not because I do not wish to be overrun by holiday glee but more of harbouring an inner desire to look back at the previous years where I’ve been too remiss about many things and neglectful of what matters most.
As someone who has dealt with depression all my life, I have always found it difficult to adjust with mainstream ways of coping, or how people may describe as a more “normal” approach to facing life as a whole. Moreover, not a few has had a glimpse of my life constantly riddled with emotional and psychological triggers left and right, sometimes robbing me of the ability to be more aware of my reactions, character, or interactions. Year in and year out, I have always found myself resolving to “do the right thing” or “change sundry aspects of my uneventful, unpredictably sad life” but mostly to no avail, as the cycle of the repercussions of abuse would continuously haunt me even in my subconscious dealings with my own inner demons. All I would know is pain, hurt, depression, rancour; an unabatingly dysfunctional frame of mind about a myriad of things front and centre and mostly I would end up wishing I had never been born.
However, just as they say, as you grow older you make attempts to grow wiser—whether it emanates from a more conscious effort on one’s part or just because the self has to mature in one way or another. Perhaps I am now at the threshold of such a stage in my life, well, thanks to the fact that I needed to take it upon myself to assume the responsibility to heal once and for all. Indeed: forasmuch as it does not ever more profit a man to constantly harbour rage against the self, experience, existence, or perhaps even merely that constant battle against melancholia that plagues the mind far more often than not, Time shall eventually take matters into its own hands in order for pain and hurt to dissipate into oblivion. As the old saying goes, Time heals all wounds; and underlying all these would be grace that infuses into us inner joy despite, perhaps, that we are not most likely to be entirely conscious about transitioning from our own sorrowful state unto ineffable bliss. Then again, because everything is grace.
So should I hypothesise for myself on what 2025 has in store? I would rather not dabble in that. What matters anyway is that of valuing each process that I ought to undergo towards perfecting my mind, soul, and spirit. Besides, being more predisposed to simplicity would do my soul better—for to cherish supernatural grace and be thankful for it proves to be more valuable than all the gold and silver in the world.
Happy New Year.
UIOGD.
