Looking backward, looking forward

I am writing this note while on a plane flying me and some other hundred passengers back to Manila, whose every mile travelled adds to my intolerable boredom. I closed my eyes whenever I attempted to fight the irritable person in me, wishing I could doze off and never notice how two hours more would pass-- but failed to even block out my mind for a minute. Nevertheless, I never stopped praying we would have a safe flight home.

I know almost everyone will be talking about Christmas- where and how are they going to spend it, how much people have shopped for gifts, attending parties, vacationing in hometowns, etc etc. Yet, for me, Christmas is the last window showing how my year had been-- where I could also take a peek on what's going to happen next-- the one best last time to regret and decide on changing things, and/or start from something fresh to fix things or simply make things more right. Christmas is the first of many better instances where you can begin to draw your future the way you want it to be.

My 2009 has been both painful and blessed. I had misunderstood and later learned on situations which gave me the strength and wisdom to be a better woman. I met new people and later realized they're no longer around to even smile at me or call my name-- friends whom, I'm afraid, might never be visible for the rest of my life. And yet, I found old friends I thought I have long forgotten. Inevitably, I also lost people who were very close to my heart-- people whom I am certain would watch over me from the skies and relay my heart's wishes to the Most High.

I have travelled to places I had never been, to see how big the world really is and how small my dreams are compared to what it can offer me. I will never stop, as long as I can, to step on every foreign land the world will make available for me. It is a never-ending adventure itself- to just reach new places and marking your life with discoveries worth treasuring. In the process, my life is enriched slowly with knowing different cultures of many races-- wishing that at the end of it all, I can still be proud to be who I really am and where I came from.

I believe many other people have had better experiences in this ending year of global trials and mysteries. Whether we can enumerate all or just some, we should acknowledge that how we are now owes to each of it. To whatever effect this year has brought to our lives, a glimpse to a more challenging world with all our dreams and wishes and plans is a good way to savor Christmas with all the material things attached to it. It, also, never fails to be the greatest first move to welcome the approaching new year.

From the time I can remember until the moment I will start to forget how my life was lived, there is only one thing I am certain-- I try to offer my life to my daughters and continuously let the Most Powerful take charge of it all.

Have a blessed Christmas and New Year to one and all!