August

So, August is my birthday month and I am quite excited because I decided to pursue my plan on going in a Birthday Climb (!) with friends. I wanted to do this for a long time and it would be a good birthday gift if the universe is going to be in my favor. I hope that there will be no last-minute apprehensions because this opportunity may not present itself again.

Anyways, the past months have been about sorting out feelings. The retreat which I recently attended to asked us to write a letter for your offender and this activity made me, finally, sort out my feelings about this particular someone. We were given the option to give the letter but I chickened out (read: too proud to admit I wrote a letter for this person) and kept the letter in my retreat notebook. I might share it with you because this person will never read it anyway, but more probably, I won’t. He.

So, how has my life been post-retreat? Nothing extraordinary. And maybe I am not describing my life post-retreat, I am describing my life in general: career, social life, love—it is too mundane. Lately, I find comfort in reading articles and listening to music but the doze of happies last for only a short time.

To which, I can’t help but ask myself, What am I missing? I have a job, I go out with friends, my father is doing well and is staying healthy, I have books, I have my iPod… Why do I feel so demotivated?

But then, I realized, it is just a matter of perspective. Maybe I am focusing more on what I lack and not on what I have. Maybe I am too preoccuppied in comparing my life with other people, I keep on forgetting that some have it worse than me.

For now I have it all figured out, I guess. The next problem is, will anything change now that I have it all figured out?

We’ll see.

I leave you, with a poem by Elizabeth Bishop.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three beloved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

— Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster. 

-ONE ART