Author: Jennifer Sien

I wanted to talk to him longer awhile back, but my break time was already over so I had to go back to the office, assume responsibility, and pretend that this mundane task will make any difference. Before I met him today, a colleague and I had some mix-up in the office. I didn’t know what led me in a coffee shop when I was supposed to eat something good for the mind. There must be an angel who gave me a friend when I really needed someone I could talk to other than someone who is not related to my work environment. I can no longer call my best friend who could have been my sister-in-law a few months ago. She is still on the stage of self-healing right now. It is true that when it rains, it pours, but there usually is a rainbow after it. I gained an educational lift today in an hour —- yes, in just a one-hour break. I was not mistaken to storm out and unwind, and I did not regret not going through what others were trying to expect me to do as if life is okay because I’ve found a new friend today. Life is not okay. Life is the pits. Love is the pits. Life stinks. But he reversed my definition —- Life is okay. Life is a game. Life kicks. Similar to what Dr. Sonya Friedman wrote in her book On A Clear Day, You Can See Yourself, there is fulfillment when you separate who you are from who you’ve been told you’d better be, or should be, or could be. When you begin to take the kind of sock of yourself you’re taking now, you begin to see that you’ve got power of your own, power unattached to anybody else. You do not have to look outside yourself for energy. You don’t have to plug yourself into somebody else’s current for direction. You can generate yourself. And that in a nutshell, is the goal: to become a self-reliant woman and confident in your own ability to meet life head-on. And so much for being sentimental, I didn’t realize there’s more to something than constantly proving yourself efficient to someone who thinks you’re not doing well. He’s a globetrotter and has an awesome, paramount interest to travel and wanderlust. I don’t usually talk to strangers, let alone foreigners but we hit it off. He’s based in New York and other than the Philippines, he’s been to Tokyo, Korea, China, Canada, Italy, etc…etc and might be to some places which I am not aware are included in the globe. Now, what can I say…  I do not even have one-eights of his life full of adventure. He even knows a lot of places here in the Philippines more than I do. He was talking about the beaches, the tropical weather, the traffic, and he had witnessed Typhoon Ondoy in his one month stay, but on top of all that, he said that Philippines is one of the countries he loves most. Having been traveled to a lot of places, he said I must be so lucky to live in a place where there are great supermalls, cinemas, coffee shops, and where people are nice and know how to speak the international language well — English. He loves the Filipino traditions and foods even if he already misses their Pizza in New York. He made me see the best in what I have right now. He was talking about the Russian songs, first names, cost of cars, medical benefits in New York, including how to handle his staff in his own clinic and how to make a California Maki. I’ve learned all of these things in just an hour. Well, maybe I would never see this guy again, but this is one of the best conversations I’m going to write on my journal. I am the one residing here in the Philippines, and I should be the one who have shown him great hospitality as a visitor, but he was so fixated on telling me that, in time, I should be feeling okay. When I left that coffee house, I wonder where I had been.

I am commemorating my Father’s death anniversary this Sunday, June 10. Last night, after I offered fruits and burned incense sticks, I burst out both laughing and crying and asked him to clear my mind. I do not know what he’s thinking right now; neither do I know what he did from up above —- but must he be the angel? Because right now, it’s a clear day and I can see myself clearly now!