SURVIVOR MANILA

I am overcome by recurring nostalgia and a deep sentiment this week. My Brazilian girlfriend, Gisela, taught me a beautiful word in Portugese that captures that feeling – saudade.

Actually, it’s been a few weeks already since I started feeling this way. August 16, 2007 marks four years of being back in Manila after a 17-year absence. Very challenging first three years, I must say. But somehow, I survived it and learned a lot about myself. Still is challenging on some days……I wonder every now and again if I made the right decision to come home.

Feel quite blessed at the friends I have made in New York who I sorely miss. It’s hard to explain, they really made such a huge, huge impact in my life. Feel quite blessed that I have many opportunities to do such diverse things in Manila. Feel even more blessed at the small circle of people I have found here who I connect with so effortlessly. They simply “get me”.

We are all smarter in hindsight because we obviously already know the outcome of our actions. Imagine if there was no mystery about how our lives would unfold and we already knew everything? It would make for one really predictable and dull existence, wouldn’t it? We would know exactly what to do and what would happen as a result of what we have done, even beforehand. If it were a movie, it would be mildly entertaining at best.

Regret is a word I am trying to banish from my vocabulary. Life is an adventure which is full of surprises. Sometimes, it is also a misadventure but it is still full of surprises. We spend most of lives in the area of the “not knowing” so I have made a deal with myself to loosen the reins of control. In reality, I can’t really control everything. I can only make smart and sensible choices that hopefully, will get me to where I want to go. During this lifelong journey, I keep discovering new things about myself and learning better ways to be who I am.

From a page in my Daily Devotional Calendar in July this year:

“CONTENTMENT ISN’T GETTING WHAT WE WANT BUT BEING SATISFIED WITH WHAT WE HAVE.”

I am grateful, thankful and appreciative for the marvelous experiences – both good and bad – that have made my life as colorful, interesting and fun as it has been thus far. It has never been boring, that much I know.

At the end of the day, I wouldn’t have my life any other way. To the universe that always looks after me, THANK YOU FROM SURVIVOR MANILA.

Happy Anniversary to me!

Tina Vitas
Makati City