DEAR 2023

Three days before year 2023 ends, I wanted to sum up how the year has passed to me.  When the year is about to end every year, I’m used to do a year look back to see how the year has fared.  I am basically emotional in ending the year that made me older again, for not achieving the goals, and about the saddening events in country, in the world, and in our planet.  But I need to go on and be strong to looking forward the hope, good fortune, and the promise of new year.

Right after Christmas, I always feel the remaining days towards the end of the year seem so fast, irrelevant and no more bearing.  One week, six days, or five days, I have a feeling of those passing days are just formality to end the year technically.  I feel the last days of the year seem to be nothing and I don’t feel them anymore.  There are still birthdays of friends, there is Rizal Day holiday, and the Ninos Inocentes day but really I don't realize it anymore because they seem to go by so fast.  The New Year is calling, it is waiving and time is counting down.  Before the year ends, I want to reminisce what happened during the year.

Two days before the new year comes, I want to thank the small and tangible things I have achieved.  I want to appreciate simple things that happened during the year.  I want to relive the happiness I felt.  There are good and not so good but I still thankful to those not good for making me harder and wiser.  The year was not actually tough to me.  It was not rough, hard and sad though it was not smooth-sailing and did not pamper me but all in all, 2023 is indeed reminding me to count my blessings than make self-pity.  Yes, there were downsides but I have to accept why they happened and make their reasons blessings.

I want to thank the friendships I have today.  It may be just in our whereabouts today but for sure I will appreciate your being part of my life when the time we set our feet home.  Some of us are in distance but I really want to tell you guys are my friends that I want to have.  I maybe so quiet, unresponsive and expressive but if I can just teach my feelings to be talkative and initiative, I wish I could.  I want to appreciate the person who is doing effort to please me for all the crazy things I did and reminded me to not blame the guilt I feel about the person that I am.  And to my family, thank you for your nonstop kindness to me.   The small kids that I really love, they remind me how I was with you before I left our home 20 years ago.  We have missed so many things together but our life is meant to be like this.

As 2023 comes to near end, I am taking a step closer to the life I am dreaming of.  Today I am becoming excited to the coming new years because I am getting closer and closer to the new chapter of my life that I have been waiting long years ago.  Thank you 2023 for bringing me to Siargao and Hinatuan, this will not happen in the next few years if I did not pursue it this year.

I do not usually believe in new year superstitions but I always believe in meditation every time the old and new year meet.  I have to feel the sadness of pains and failures of the past twelve months but I have to look forward the joy and accomplishments of the new twelve months that they may bring.  Above all, I always trust God the process.  Thank you and bye 2023 and hello 2024.

SOMETHING ABOUT FRUITCAKE

I planned really well to bake a cake for Christmas. The long preparation started actually two months earlier after the good outcome of my first attempt of baking a fruitcake.  I was overwhelmed about its result albeit with small comments from friends to reduce the sweet and consider including milk for a creamy consistency.  Although I actually did not put sugar on it but the natural sweet of dried fruits and juice make the sweetness, and I know fruitcake is not made smooth but in my desire to gratify my friends, I added evaporated milk and reduced sweet tastes.

And so I planned to have another fruitcake that is better to surpass the first one.  And with the addition of red and green ingredients on it, it will be Christmas Cake that is timely to do on the holiday season.  And this prompted me to really plan what nuts to mix and fruits to consist of, when to start the first part of preparation, and little by little bought the ingredients needed.   I even soaked the dried fruits nights before the baking proper.  This time, the colors of cherries will make the highlights of my fruitcake, aside from the added dates, pistachio and cashew nuts which I didn’t have on my first fruitcake.

But sometimes even we have prepared for a long time ahead, there are things happen to make you obstructed and lost.  Even if you prepared, it will not go along to what we want, things simply do not fall in our hands.  On the very day which is on the night before Christmas as I planned, I was stressed of rushing home because of the last minutes jobs to finish, looked for a lost thing that was not really lost but just overlooked because of rush, system glitch of apps that I needed to do first so that I can start my baking process until the last minute I finally decided to stop the preparation to do the thing that I became compromised on that moment.

So I decided to do the cake on the next day which is Christmas day.  With my measuring cups and spoons, I had the whole times making the butter, combining all the ingredients, putting them in molder and baking them following the instruction.  When I checked and tested it, I am not satisfied of the outcome.  Although it can be good enough but I wanted moist fruitcake.  I still had time and I still have some remaining ingredients left although they are not as much as I had on the first, I had less amount of size of some of the ingredients, and the one that I didn’t want to put on the first bake – I put it here in this second bake.   I started making again, and when it was baked, I was surprise when tested it – I liked it.

There is something about this fruitcake and I have realization of what happened.  This fruitcake brought me an insight that sometimes no matter how you pursued and no matter how much you prepared, things will not happen if it's not meant to be.  Sometimes your attempts of perfection bring you to distasteful, and what you did without great expectation is what makes you really happy.  Of course this doesn’t invalidate the efforts we put in whatever we do.  We just do not everything.  There are just things we thought it supposed to be that we do not think what would happen if this is what happened.