Happy Old Year, 2023!

This year, progressions are out and about. In my immediate family alone, us siblings have ventured into all sorts of adventures. Kuya progressed his career from PH to DE, Emman shifted his lights and sounds from the land (Okada) to the seas (Norwegian Cruise lines). Kiteh left the hipster career path of a Physicist-Gym instructor-content creator and married the love of her life. Jedi graduated as Cum Laude and now venturing into Corporate gig. And I (finally) became an Associate in #TheBank and uprooted from the family bungalow to my high-rise concrete jungle. 

With all these series of movements and life events, pauses are hard to find and to appreciate because of the ever-changing social climate: inflation, wars, and daily commute. But it is actually the little things that opened my discovery of “Ma” (間). This may mean a negative space if taken literally, but in Zen, this is the pause in between the motions. And there's beauty in this pause.

I still remember the moments in between these life events. And even they may seem bizarre to you, this hits the perfect Ma to me: 

The hugging and crying in Marina Bay Sands;

Tiktok steps of the newlyweds;

Happy sighs from the book discussions;

The perfect sight of Mayon at 7AM;

Pulag tales of the travelling sack of rice; and 

Sanding the gypsum wall of my tiny home.

2023 is also my year of creations, and I was grateful that I write more frequently than the last year. I was also able to read more than a dozen of books, and able to watch feel-good animes. I was able to learn to cook and pay the bills on my own, taking all the life-hacks of #Adulting. 

As I flash my smile in one of my big creations this year (the background is the accent wall I painted last Summer), I wish you all the successes with the moments of pauses, and have the luxury to see and appreciate life's beauty. Let us enjoy the moments of closing this old year and embrace the new. We are too tired of tanking in struggles of the daily, perhaps we need to take a moment and just breathe. #HappyNewYear #Amwriting #CreativeNonfiction