I woke up in the middle of chaos. I found myself sleeping beside bags of relief goods in Iligan. Bag count says 2,400. We need 4,000 by 6AM. Time check 2:55AM. More bags to go. My brain isin’t working anymore. My body had bruises everywhere due to pounding day work – briefing volunteers in the morning, helping load the goods in the truck, unload, distribute, pass the goods to evacuation center recipients, teach good hygiene to evacuees, sing with the children, shout at the furious crowd that just won’t make a line, hear-out stories of survival and lost, explain why some families can’t receive goods, walk to the path of death and mud, evaluate volunteers and debrief, write reports, drink water, go back to the warehouse and help repack goods – then wake up in the middle of chaos.

I woke up in the middle of chaos. I found myself in a middle of the crowd furious to have a piece of balloon. everybody is going wild just to have a balloon. stepped on my foot, pulled down my arm, my back pushed, hand being pinched, my face shouted at mad mothers, crying children, panicked volunteers. My patience on low, I let go. … …

I have gone beyond things that I can imagine, my feet have walked my to a path I didn’t know, I didn’t want to go and I always gamble with strength. Thus, making me fluent in walking, stumbling, running and crying. Each step I again callus of strength and a bundle of wisdom. The difference might be subtle, but fundamental. I know someday, it will be worthy.

After 5 cups of coffee, couple of term paper finished, 26 tweets, series of drafted documents for work, few Facebook updates, 3 reports completed, random of sms and calls, and  few Skyping… I got a clear vision like of Buddha why I don’t blog much anymore. I’ve concluded few things and came up with the following:

1. That awkward years of adolescence – “I just wanted to be accepted”

I started blogging  during my N-teen awkward years. moving into a new city, a new place and a new school is freaking feeling of uncertainty. I wanted to be accepted by the new environment. I wanted to feel the sense of belongingness. I wanted to appear cool to everyone so they’d like me. I just wanted to be accepted – like of the most emo kids at that age. Well I had a different way of expressing and shouting. Writing /blogging was my way of expressing anything inside this head and anything in this heart. I feel like when I post something, and someone comments back, I feel accepted and understood. It’s like somebody also feels what I feel. Somebody actually understands what I feel and the like. Plus the factor that in the virtual world, you can present and control what world you are living to. The blog world is like my wonderland that I can live my fantasies in with no pain and rejections. I must say I have self esteem issues and a little bit of depression (from my parent’s death) that I have to cope with alone. And I found comfort and acceptance in the blog-world.

2011 this blog is dead – I’m 24 and came to grow and understand the real world. Got new set of actual physical friends that I came to talk to everyday. Fell in love and felt accepted. Got my heart broken then moved on by talking and crying with friends. I always like to describe this as of one of the lines in Spongecola’s song Movie… “Forever shall I be the pages you need to write all the secrets that I hope you will keep.” From my point of view, blogging is good. It serves as our creative output of our insights and thoughts. Personal blogs though, as serious and as comic it may seen might be too dangerous. At some point of our lives, we need to go out there and actually talk to people. learn how to express and say our feelings, live in the real world, see the beauty of places and feel the pain of the world. Stop from hiding behind the screen and be the person you are. But I must say, blogging had a long term adverse effect on me – never have I  learned to say my real emotions to people – face to face, I have to write it down on a letter, give it to the person, and together we’ll process the contents of the letter. I just can’t be spontaneous. Still learning.

So whenever, I say things, I blubber thoughts… believe me it’s real. It didn’t pass by my my ego, by my cogito-ethics censorship nor the grammar and spell checker.

2. The FAST creative outlet – “What’s on your mind?”

In this era of Facebook and Twitter, saying something short but meaningful in a second thru your phone is the most convenient way of expressing creatively. Today, it’s such a hassle to open up a computer type in all of your thoughts, expand those thoughts then post/edit and post in your site. In my real world, I’d rather pull out a notebook and scribble my thoughts on ink and paper or press speed dial and talk to a friend or maybe open my FB application in my phone that takes 10 seconds to post something and  takes few minutes to have a feedback. I mean FB and Twitter is so convenient. I understand WordPress is making their site available in mobile phones and tablets, but come on…  How many people you know that posts in their blog every hour? And how many people you still know keeps a personal blog and maintains it regularly and when I mean regularly, he/she doesn’t miss a day of posting what’s happening and what he/she’s thinking. And I mean posting words and narratives and not photos and short paragraphs. If somebody is like that, I want to be her friend and help him/her out explore the real world.

This blog is dead but I’m definitely living in the world of Facebook and Twitter (but still escaping them as much as possible). I came to post few rants and ideas worthy to be posted here and be heard in a much bigger audience. I always come here posting something, whenever FB and Twitter limits it.

3. Losing it – “Everything has an expiry date”

My personal site <www.ishybitsy.com> closed October 2009. well I had the option to renew the domain and continue writing but I decided not to. I have a demanding work that eats up all my time and ideas that I had no time to write and post or even blog-hop. Sadly I came to the point of exhaustion and chronic writer’s block and gave up writing.

Well technically, I didn’t gave up writing, I just gave up telling my stories.

I have come to a realization that this time, I’d be the one to listen. Working in a humanitarian organization, I have found beauty of helping other be heard and help them thru series of theoretical study and community development. We serve now as their voices. We use their stories for improvement of their lives. Work had let me explore and see the real world out there. Made me realize that none of my ranting are worthy enough. That there is more beyond vanity and whining. That my thoughts are just thoughts if not placed into an action that can actually help people. So instead of telling my story, I work to tell their stories and be heard and be helped and be reached and help them actually live. I’m losing it and giving it to people that are worthy.

This blog is dead at times. But please allow some pulse every now and then. After my 7th cup of coffee, couple of term paper almost finished, 47 tweets, finished documents for work, few Facebook updates, 3 reports completed, random of sms and calls, and  few skyping… I got a clear vision like of Buddha why I don’t blog much anymore… I got to accept myself, live with the instances of life and fell in-love listening to your thoughts and silently doing something to make this world a little much better to live in.

This blog is dead. But I’m just here, listening.

Faith and fate played and fooled you off again and love was the game you failed to figure out. Beauty was seen but it felt like love was just a word too strong to be uttered at the moment and it was too beautiful to say too late. So we wait another cycle where fate would bring us together and finally have the courage to choose love today and fight for it until yesterday.

blog na inaamag.
utak na umaapaw ng mga salitang halimaw
na patuloy na sumasayaw.

takbo! takbo. takbo?
kung saan paroon.
nilakad ko na ang mundo, hindi parin nakarating sa’yo.

sa kabilang dulo ng pisi ako na lang’y hihikbi
maghihintay, aasa
sa muli mong pagsayaw at muli kong pagsigaw.