Fight, Flight, and Faith

JANUARY: “Surprise, surprise! You’re no longer heartbroken!”

Welcoming 2015 with a bang (I really said that, didn’t I?), I started the year by traveling to the last remaining place that I have yet to visit in all my years of living in the city: Fairview. And I had the two bestest, craziest tour guides ever.

January was about family — blood and pretend blood. It was also about me entering a new year with nothing but hope and a hell of a lot of courage because I also entered this month with the kind of false hope I have let myself lead me on for months on end. Blame it on a deceitful heart, I let someone into my life too soon that ended up with me hanging. The worse part is that I couldn’t find a loophole in it because one, he never actually said he liked me and two, he was going through a personal struggle that he, unfortunately, used as a crutch everytime he needed an excuse to get out of being a jerk. It was my own fault too, but since then I had a big knock knock to the head that I needed to stop letting people like that into my life.

Ladies, never go out with a man whose only plan on a first date is to take you to cheap dinner and a movie. Sure, it could be great (who am I to judge), but think about it. Dinner’s a great conversation roller. Movie? Not so much. I mean, come on, you both stare at a screen for two hours, eat bad popcorn, and pretend you just accidentally bumped each other’s elbows because it’s dark. And all this time, I thought first dates were all about getting to know each other. Your choice.

FEBRUARY: “Wait, we’re not done. Yet.”

Ah February — the month of our school retreat, slowly saying goodbye to the 2014–2015 G6 batch, and me hating Facebook.

In February, I was wrung out to dry — on my way home in a cab after meeting with a good friend, I refreshed Facebook and there it was. The picture (and comments) that were really harmless yet somehow managed to ruin the rest of the night. Imagine being led on until you start believing that it could lead to something more and here you are, reading shallow, flirty comments from the same guy on Facebook. Yeah, I know. Social media can be painful that way.

And if that wasn’t enough… to me, it was more like, “Hey, all this hanging out with you has been fun and all, but my ego is better now and I’m almost done grieving so I don’t need you anymore.” A real piece of work. But I forgive you. :)

But this is why I vowed to never entertain impromptu one-on-one dinners with men ever again.

You know how I coped? I made a mess of my room by doing this.

MARCH: “The battle’s almost over, but it never really stops.”

March was a month of painful goodbyes and fresh beginnings. I said goodbye to some great people I’ve known for the past year and also welcomed new people to feast on my life (no, not really).

But all I could think of during March was that it was finally our freakin’ summer vacation. Which was only 3 weeks, but hey, it was enough time for me to sleep.

APRIL: “Third time’s the charm. It’s do or die trying!!”

A lot of people thought I applied and got into graduate school in July. What they didn’t know was that it was during this month that I actually started freaking out.

I met a really nice lady who became my seatmate during the whole test and I also met a decent guy who was a fresh grad from Ateneo and was about to take his Masters in Chemistry. I sincerely hoped they both passed not just because I barely made it out alive but also because I honestly had a 2-day stiff neck after taking the exam.

MAY: “You work, I work, we all work!”

It was back to work all over again, yay! It was also the month when we had our team building at Caliraya. I had to slide down a mud slide and I survived! Yay me! I am very grateful to my teammates for a fun team building experience — go, buko team!

It was also the month that I found out that faith goal #2 was answered, which was being assigned as the adviser of the batch I wanted to handle.

May was also a month of relationship building — with new friends and reconnecting with old ones, helping a really good friend make decorations for a bridal shower in a mall, eating burritos and drinking cocktails (I’m kidding… or not), and of course, having my best friend make the long-winding trip just to have a sleepover, walk under the rain trying to find the Lego store, and eat like pigs every hour. Best life lived.

JUNE: “This is just the beginning of a wonderful, twisted ride.”

I suffered a lot of shoulder pain in June because of all the classroom decorations I had to do. Thankfully, I found an awesome partner in Charlene (hello ninj!!) who helped me with everything. She’s a great mentor. Great advisor. Great friend. Okay, stop.

If the month of May was a month filled with relationship building, June was full packed — we stayed up for as long as we could at St. Luke’s to accompany a good friend (and soon to be mummy of baby Amaris!! Hi, Mamae!), celebrated and grieved for lives added and lost, and became grateful for the friendships that stood the test of time.

And for my friends, I made the last minute trip home just so we could all push through with our Sandbox plans. I really don’t like carnivals, much less the kind of activities that Sandbox offered, but hey, when you’re with your friends, even the most impossible things you swore yourself to never do will become your undoing. There’s a video in my IG (denisehazelyn). We were screaming. Yes. Go stalk.

I am also thankful for the friends who support my creepy Snoopy obsessions. You guys are golden.

JULY: “Happy birthday, sucker! You’re 23 and you’re adulting great… most of the time”

Hellooooo birthday month. I will always be thankful for every year that I turn older because it keeps getting better and better. I had the sweetest, most epic birthday surprise prepared by the Grade 2 and Charlene (haha you again, and I am so sorry to the kids who held the cupcakes with candles and I blew smoke on their faces. I love you all so much!!), I was purposely locked out of all the doors of the classes I was scheduled to teach that day and was pleasantly amused by the fact that they didn’t even realize I already knew what they were trying to do, and I also appreciate my co-workers for surprising me with last minute decorations, pizza, and ice cream. You guys made me feel more loved than ever. Thank you, thank you :)

And one more thing: 6 days before my birthday, I received my formal acceptance letter from Ateneo. I got in, guys. Best birthday gift ever.

AUGUST: “Planetshakers and friends.”

We actually bought our tickets last December 2014. We were that excited to get Patron tickets. Haha! I took so many videos and pictures that my phone almost ran out of memory.

It was also during this month that God once again proved to me that He had everything under control: I met a really nice woman the day of orientation and course advisement. Just when I was about to be cut off for lunch break during advisement, my program adviser let me in her cubicle at the last minute. When I knew I was already lost on campus, a famous basketball player (in his own right) helped me with directions.

But most importantly, God provided. He provided everything I needed — protection, finances, self-confidence. He told me I could do it. That He put me in Ateneo for a purpose and that He expects me to abide. And that’s what I am striving to do the day my first ever MA professor spoke his first word in class.

I also blogged about this experience. Man, the unexpected people God gives us in our lives… just amazing. Hey buddy, I know you’re reading this because I told you you’d be in it so now you owe me a cheeseburger during enrolment. You’re the best.

And who would have thought that the woman who sat behind me in front of Leong Hall during our first day, the guy who asked me if he was in the right classroom, the woman who asked if I was a teacher too, and the woman who wore the same blouse as me during our first Stat class would be the friends I never knew I needed?

AUGUST (PART 2): “Can I date you?”

I have never been good with rejection. Then again, who is?

I know you hate vague blogging (yeah you do): let me just say that I am really sorry for turning the both of you down. It’s not because of anything that you are or ever did, it’s just not my season. I’m still trying to say that me not entertaining you has nothing to do with who you are as a person. Someday, someone else (better than I ever will be, definitely) will come. That’s my prayer for you both.

SEPTEMBER: “I’m not here to protect you.”

Okay, this picture first: Whenever my Grade 2 kids would have a big P&P presentation, especially when it requires them to dress up, I always make sure I get to watch their performances even if the whole thing was halfway done, 2 minutes short of being done and even if I was so not invited (haha!). The joyful faces the kids always have the minute I walk through their classroom door is something you can’t put a price tag on. If it did have one, I am more than willing to pay for it 4 times over.

Also, if you watch the fantasy series Once Upon A Time, there’s this magic spell in Season 4 that they called “Shattered Sight.” The spell’s purpose was to “shatter” your perspective of the people you loved, trusted, and admired causing you to turn on those people, eventually resent them, and end up becoming really transparent about your innermost feelings towards them, and I don’t mean the kind feelings. When the spell spread all over Storybrooke, the townspeople started tearing each other apart because of it.

That’s basically what happened to me this month. Not the spell itself (what’s wrong with you?), but the concept of it — that is why I never had a reason to take pictures nor was it in any way a good month.

It was a dark, discouraging month that I’d rather not talk about if I could help it.

Ironically enough, it was also in September that I came back to UST. I have never wanted to stay so badly.

OCTOBER: “How long can you keep this up without freaking out?”

JOURNAL REVIEW MONTH. CRAM MONTH. CRAY CRAY MONTH.

It’s not like I totally crammed for my requirements— I spent weeks prior reading original texts, supporting journals, even those old books they had at Rizal that made me sneeze for about 4 times per book. When it was time for me to actually write it all in a cohesive way, I survived with the help of 5 (or was it 7?) cups of venti coffee. I couldn’t believe it, either.

But yup, October was my cram month. My sleepless month (when the nightmares went on and on). The month where my stress levels were so high, it was so difficult for me to focus on anything.

But more than anything else, October was also a breakthrough season because it was during this month that I delivered my very first successful graduate school class report which I only prepared 2 days before (…). It’s different to be used to speaking in front of large crowds as a teacher. It’s another story when your audience is way more knowledgeable than you.

NOVEMBER: “Finals Month. Crap.”

Hey look! A whole bunch of pictures of the same people from the same school and the same program from Ateneo. Not biased at all! Not even remotely creepy. Nope.

I never thought I’d live to experience the day I get to feel nervous and panicky like a college student all over again. It was the stress of having a take-home final exam and a ridiculous scantron version of a Statistics exam that did it for me this month. I developed a routine — clock out of work the minute 4PM striked, take a 30-minute nap, eat dinner (or not at all), and then study until I couldn’t anymore. I sometimes cooked my food while studying… which is dangerous. Please don’t do that.

Friends from long, long time ago, I love you all so much and you mean the world to me, but I have to say that the only people who will ever truly understand my grad school struggles are the friends I’ve made there. If it weren’t for the endless Viber conversations, the Facetime calls that went for hours on end, the text messages in between work hours just to get deadlines done and done right, we would all have failed our first semester. We shared different anxiety levels every Saturday just before a Stat exam, we ate the same sandwiches over and over again because we were lazy buttheads who couldn’t even take it upon ourselves to take the walk to JSEC, but still. We were friends and we were in it to make it.

I went into grad school feeling so afraid because I went with my gut and applied for a program that was way off base from my Education degree. I worried that I’d be all alone, fighting my demons with zero company. But again — friends. You need friends in grad school who will understand your internal struggles even if it means bringing you to the health center at 8pm if they have to (because it happened to us). While it is true that the Psychology department has one of the strictest standards in the graduate school, the people behind it are what makes the whole field so darn successful. Maybe one day, we can be good enough to be like them.

DECEMBER: “One last step and we’re done, 2015.”

December, December, December. Holidays and cheer, the only time my appreciation for coffee shops increase because of their limited edition products, and the only season where I absolutely have a love-hate relationship with malls.

Not that I’m complaining. Christmas is really stressful that way, but just look at all these photos of the people I love the most! I had the best time eating and watching the Grade 2 unwrap their gifts with so much giddiness, I got to bond more with co-workers, and I passed the first semester!!!

December was also about the people in my life who are so good to me that it’s more than I could ever ask for. It’s a month full of joy, love, and renewed hope. A time to give back, a time to reflect, a time for thanksgiving.

Nothing beats the true spirit of Christmas and the one gift that can never be auctioned off: the love of our Lord Jesus Christ.

During one of our classes in psychological thought, we discussed the different kinds of defense mechanisms. These mechanisms are important to us because it shields us from our emotions. Without it, we’d all be haywire and lost as to how we are supposed to deal with feelings. We use a combination of these defense mechanisms everyday, but if you didn’t already know, it’s true that all of us have a favorite defense mechanism. There’s that one type that you keep going back to and will always go back to every single time you need it. Ain’t that grand?

I learned an important part of myself that day: my favorite defense mechanism was suppression. Simply put, it’s the mechanism that pushes feelings away from consciousness. It’s the “I just can’t deal with it right now,” type. Because of that 3-hour lecture, a lot of suppressed feelings came running up to the surface. The most monumental of it all were the feelings I have tucked away for almost 14 years. The most annoying one? Of course, it’s no other than my most famous break up story. I kept pushing my petty hurt feelings away, so deep down to my core that I let it stay there until I got my life together and did the things I wouldn’t have done if I was still tied down to the relationship. And now that it reared its ugly head once again, I went home that night with a comforting feeling that I was going to be okay.

I moved.

I moved with a lot more conviction after the people I thought I loved left me hollow and empty. I moved with a lot more nuggets in my head and know better to stay away from the men who only exist in my life whenever they find it convenient. I moved to a better place with better opportunities and great people. I moved and accepted that I will never be happy doing a 9-hour job through talking until my vocal cords ran dry for the rest of my life — so I decided to make the career shift. One step at a time. I moved because I didn’t want to be stuck on the people who never even take the time to look at me twice.

I had 365 days in 2015.

365 days to change every single day if I chose to. 365 days to make things right. 365 days to choose Jesus and not my own selfishness. 365 days to admit to myself that I am nothing without God to steady my heart. 365 days to choose peace and not the chaos this world has in store for me.

I have lived through 2015 because of the people who continue to love me, the people who came and never left, the people who helped me place my feet on the grounds I needed/wanted to be on. I have lived through 2015 because of eighteen 8-year-old kids who make me laugh like no other children can and shine a light in my life every single day. I have lived through 2015 because of the other 91 students I will always call home during my stay in the ministry. I have lived through 2015 because of the laughter, the tears, the anxiety, the doubts, the fears, the hope, the peace of it all.

And if you know that you have been a part of my 2015 — thank you so much for being here. You are loved, you are awesome, you are incredible and I hope and pray that you’ll welcome 2016 with a whole lot of heart, hope, and excitement.

When you know it’s worth it, no matter how many times you turn the coin, if it’s God’s go signal: Choose to fight.

When you know it’s not working, if it’s keeping you from experiencing God’s best, and if it’s making you lost and empty: Choose to leave and take flight.

In 2016, challenge yourself to believe: that God will see you through, that He is in total control, and that He’s doing a thousand things in your favor even when all you can see is one. Choose to believe in God’s best yes.

But most importantly, see 2016 as your year of faith and fulfilled promises — no more doubts, no more fears. Just audacious faith. It was never an option to begin with.