Chanelling Darkness

Darkness.

Only darkness. A darkness of pain, loneliness, and hopelessness.

I just finished reading a gay and lesbian oriented book yesterday. Very well written. Very poignant. Very upsetting. All too comparable to my own life. I need to write a paper on this book, but I couldn't do it tonight. I was too disturbed.

Then I read story updates on the gay romances I follow on the net. Most of the chapters to various stories were happy, uncomplicated episodes, but reading about gay couples happily enjoying a long-term companionship makes me sad.

I don't begrudge them their happiness - in my own way, I am happy for them - but every happy gay couple I see or hear about is simply a painful reminder of how alone I am and have so often been.

Reading these various chapters after finishing that book has left me very down.

Very alone...

Do you realize that this has nothing to do with sex? Can you understand that? I just need someone to hold and to hold me. I need someone that really wants to know my troubles and help me overcome them. I need someone that I can trust. Someone who won't laugh at me or belittle my fears and pains. Someone who won't hurt me, and someone who won't leave me.

I would give everything for someone like that...

All that I am, all I own, all my dreams, all my love, all my trust, all my mind, my body, my soul, my life - all that they might ever desire or need or hope for; no need would be too much; no risk would be too great; no price would be too high to pay.

But none of that matters.

No one will ever know.

No one cares.

All of my love lies with me in darkness.

Something for the Soul

Gracious God,

In the busy-ness of my day, I sometimes forget to stop to thank You for all that is good in my life.

My blessings are many and my heart is filled with gratefulness for the gift of living, for the ability to love and be loved, for the opportunity to see the everyday wonders of creation, for sleep and water, for a mind that thinks and a body that feels.

I thank you, too, for those things in my life that are less than I would hope them to be. Things that seem challenging, unfair, or difficult.

When my heart feels stretched and empty and pools of tears form in my weary eyes, still I rejoice that you are as near to me as my next breath and that in the midst of turbulence, I am growing and learning.

In the silence of my soul, I thank you most of all for your unconditional and eternal love.

Amen.

Half-Empty? Or Half-Full?

I've been told a zillion times that there are two ways of looking at things. Is the glass half-empty or half-full? I'm usually guilty of the former until recently when a girl named Aurora taught me that even if the glass is broken, it's just, well, glass.

I met Aurora very recently when I visited DLSU Medical Center in Dasmariñas to get some documents I needed for my US Visa application. I graduated as a PT at La Salle and took my licensure board exam in August of 2003. Upon arriving at the rehabilitation Department, I immediately noticed the pretty girl with pronounced facial paralysis. I asked my former clinical supervisor if she could let me assist in treating her for the day.

Upon looking at her clinical records, Aurora was diagnosed to have Bell's palsy. Bell's is defined as an acute, idiopathic, commonly unilateral, peripheral facial paralysis. Its cause is still unclear, and its development isn't well understood. But many doctors believe that a viral infection can cause the facial nerve to become swollen and injured. And while a mild case of Bell's palsy normally disappears within a month, recovery from a case involving total paralysis varies.

As for Aurora, the damage of her facial nerve was severe and would be irreversible.

Aurora was a former beauty title holder. She came from a prominent family and had a great life ahead of her. One morning, she felt numbness on the left side of her face accompanied by a buzzing sound in her ear. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Aurora's treatment involved a lot of facial exercises that includes movement of her eyes, nose, lips and tongue. It's amazing how she's able to smile after every exercise.

During the session, she asked me why I wanted to go abroad when our country needs medical skills. I was silent for a while. All of a sudden the thought of leaving the country came out like a bitter pill.

I reasoned that I needed to earn more money for the security of my family and for the realization of my dreams. After my explanation, she paused and smiled, "Our family have all the money, but even wealth can't make me smile normally again."

I looked at her and all of a sudden I felt small and embarrassed.

This was the response of a girl who was told by medical experts that she can never recover back to normal. Her queenly smile will forever be gone.

Shame, shame on me.

Problems can easily cloud our smiles. The colorful murals can all of a sudden transform to black and white canvasses. But in the middle of everything bad that happens, there lies opportunities. And our eyes should never be too tear-filled to see them. I guess, for people like Aurora, life will always be half-full.

My life is made up of years that mean nothing, and a moment with Aurora that meant it all.

Friendly Encounters

Of all relationships, friendship can be the most versatile and fulfilling because it is a gift bestowed willingly. Each person who receives your friendship should receive a part of you in the form of caring, concern, happiness, and support.

In return, you enjoy the companionship of your friends because they offer comfort, cheer, and a shoulder to cry on.

Like any relationship, however, friendship does not simply exist, but must be nurtured and encouraged to grow through actions, words, and reciprocal feelings. The first and most important aspect of being a good friend is treating others with the same respect and kindness with which you wish to be treated. Doing so can be a guide in forging friendships with others.

Being a good friend is easiest and most rewarding when you choose your friendships wisely. Friendships should be built upon a foundation of mutual trust, acceptance, and support. Show them you care, not just using words, but also using actions: Be courteous and kind, honest, and willing to compromise, and shy away from being overly critical.

When your friend encounters trouble, support their decision wholeheartedly, but always be willing to tell them when they're about to step onto a dangerous path. In doing so, you will help your friend flourish in their own way, while still being there for them. Really listen to and share in your friend's triumphs as well as their upsets with patience, kindness, and a sense of humor.

In any strong friendship, conflict will inevitably arise, but be willing to compromise and respect your friend's opinions. If they apologize, accept their apology with grace and forgive them promptly. Try to never hold a grudge, because holding on to negative emotions can put a strain on a friendship. Let your friend be who they are, not who you'd prefer them to be.

Friends don't always agree, but it's helpful to keep in mind that it's their enjoyment of each other's company that makes dealing with disagreements worthwhile.

There may be times when you feel ill equipped to be a good friend, but knowing and admitting this is just another part of a strong friendship. Your friend will understand that you, too, have issues of importance in your life.

Developing and maintaining rewarding and lasting friendships is a challenge, but one that yields beautiful results.

Unhappily Happy

Happiness does not depend on whether or not you always get your way. However, when you do choose happiness, events will more often go your way.

You do not need to accumulate a lot of things before you can be happy. Yet when you are happy, you'll open yourself up to all kinds of new abundance.

Happiness is not something that you can obtain by taking it from others. On the contrary, the more that happiness flows out from you, the more of it you will enjoy. If you limit your happiness only to certain specific situations or conditions, it will almost always elude you. Yet when you seek to bring happiness to every situation, it will be your constant companion.

Happiness is not the exclusive experience of just a lucky few. It is always there for anyone who is sincere and open enough to choose it.

Happiness is always there to choose, in any place, at any time, under a whole wide range of conditions.

Give happiness to the moments of life, and you will surely know it well.

A cup of coffee

Let me tell you a crazy story I heard recently. Sometime last year, a group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university lecturer...

Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life...

Offering his guests coffee, the lecturer went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of
coffee and an assortment of cups: porcelain, plastic, glass, some plain looking and some expensive
and exquisite, telling them to help themselves to hot coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the lecturer said...

If you noticed, all the nice-looking, expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones... While it is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.

What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the better
cups and are eyeing each other's cups.

Now, if life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups... They are just tool to hold and contain life, but the quality of life doesn't change...

Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it.

Confessions of a Callboy

Night is the land of dreams, and the graveyard shift the territory of dream weavers.

Midnight mist. Empty sidewalks. Flickering street lights. Deep inside the nocturnal hush of the city is the hum of young men and women in different call centers all over the country. Like a black cat in the night’s shadows, graveyard shift pounces in the strange but exhilarating life of call center agents.

It was my turn to take a rollicking plunge into the neon world of midnight workers when I started working for a contact center October of 2003. I got hired as a split-skilled customer-service-technical-support agent answering calls from irate irrational foreign customers and replying to poorly constructed email requests during downtime. Taking calls can be physically exhausting and emotionally blistering. On my first night on the job, I had a headache roughly the size of Araneta Coliseum.

Playing the part of a nocturnal animal doesn’t come naturally. For several months, I was constantly fighting against my body’s biological clock. But thanks to my lively co-workers I made it through my regularization.

A few weeks later, I got promoted as a supervisor. More than ever, my job requires me to be awake during my shift. So, while my internal circadian rhythm tells me to sleep, I struggle to keep my eyes open during client conference calls and QA-calibrations.

Call center life is not easy. The stakes always seem higher at night. Jeopardy is too close a companion. You never know what you'll find in the shadows. On top of that, no one respects the fact that you sleep during the daytime. You have to be to work at 11:00pm so friends and family think that you have all day to spend time with them on “weekends” and “holidays”. They don’t consider the fact that you don’t expect them to hang out with you at 3:00am on your days off. And when you are trying to sleep in the daytime, there’s always a loud sound tormenting you into a restless, half-awake misery.

But why do people stay?

Call centers offer a lucrative future. Agents are well-compensated and gets 20% night shift differential daily. That’s over Php3,500 a month on top of the basic pay. That’s Php3,500 to be working the shift where there are the most drunks, the highest crime rates, and the most number of co-workers who haven’t brushed their teeth for too long. That’s Php3,500 to work when everyone else, including your friends is out partying or snug in bed. That’s Php3,500 to work on Friday and Saturday nights, Christmas Eve and New Year.

But money isn’t the only reason for staying. As for me, the job security, the-come-whatever-time-you-want-flexi schedule, the work environment, the goodbye-to-traffic-on-my-way-to-work daily, the unlimited-surf-all-you-can-until-your-boss-catches-you access to the internet, and the culture that encourages people to develop, grow and take responsibility are reasons that will always keep me from venturing elsewhere.

And on these ghostly working hours, the many great thank-you-for-calling-customer-service-how-may-I-help-you colleagues can almost always drive the night sweats away.