Thank you for the struggles

Before partaking of New Year’s Eve’s media noche, mom led the thanksgiving prayer and was saying her usual litany of thanking the Almighty for all the blessings we have received throughout the year, for family, for friends, etc. etc. I was zoning out of the prayer and was already focusing on the scrumptious meal awaiting my eager stomach when mom said I line that struck me and made me re-think my life: “Thank you, Lord, for the struggles we face each day.” Should we really be thankful for all the stress and worries and problems that have haunted us, made us lose sleep, distanced ourselves from others and maybe even endangered our lives and our health?

I’ll be the first to admit that 2008 wasn’t a good year for me.

During the start of the year, I’ve begun to doubt myself vis-à-vis my work – I felt that I was not cut out for my job and this went on for the entire year. I began to think of other possible opportunities but I did not act on them, consistent with my motto of “going with the flow.” I endured all those sleepless nights when all I can think about was a deal I can possibly botch or the consequences of a pleading I may have failed to file.

I experienced death of a really close relative for the first time. My Inay passed away some time in April albeit not unexpectedly. She has been based in the US for the longest time now and I regret not having had the chance to visit her there, not once in about fifteen years. I was the one who received the call from my tita abroad regarding the sad news. It was early morning here and it was the first time I’ve cried so hard in years. I literally cried myself to sleep that night.

Speaking of family, so many changes occurred during the past year. I still maintain a close bond with my family but with the marriage of another sibling of mine during late 2007, I suddenly found myself alone in our house with my parents. Not that I spent much time at home last year, but suddenly the house just felt so empty. Everyone else was moving forward and here I was stuck in a moment. We still managed to have family dinners and my siblings would come visit us at home but it was already different. Also, it was the first time that I spent Christmas Eve dinner with just my parents. From a big family of seven, it was weird to have Christmas dinner with just three people on the table.

Health-wise, my lab results show that I’ve been pretty much stable, although my doctor has been noticing the amount of stress I’ve been going through the entire year, mostly because of work. I myself noticed that I’ve been getting sickly the past year with the perennial cough and heavy colds and the occasional fever. I was already told by my doctor that having a good career isn’t worth it if I’m not in perfect health, especially with my condition. Health has taken a backseat from other “more important” things I attended to in 2008.

I went through some paradigm shift as well as regards the way I look through life the past year. I’ve come to realize that being nice to everyone doesn’t pay; in fact, you’ll even find yourself more in debt. I’ve learned the value of keeping only a few friends, instead of trying to make lots of friends the way I did previously. Despite such perspective, I’ve managed to toy with some relationships and keep some only for convenience. I’ve desperately been longing for “me” time instead of time with others. I’ve explored places where I can just sit down and think about things and life in general; I’ve explored scenes where I thought I would find happiness, only to find out that such is only fleeting. Also, last year was the time that I questioned my faith and I started undoing rituals I’ve been doing my entire lifetime simply because they no longer sat well with me and my innermost beliefs. I no longer wished to do religious things just because they are required but because I deeply felt that these would nourish my soul and enrich my relationship with the Eternal Being.

Perhaps one of the biggest depressions I had for 2008 is that I lost the ability and the urge to write. It wasn’t because I didn’t have time to write and it certainly wasn’t because I didn’t have things to write about. I just lost it. I was so out of it the entire year that I lost every motivation I had to do things with extra vigor and magis, and it pained me that even my writing has taken a toll for it.

With all these and more, should I really be thankful for all these struggles? I don’t want to end this with the cliché that all these problems make me a better person, and that the difficulties in life we face build character, that kind of sh*t. I’ll admit that I still can’t include in my prayers the thanksgiving for all these struggles because I feel I won’t be sincere if I say it. Instead, I end with a note that all these struggles make one hopeful. Well, it makes ME hopeful that something better may and will turn out of my life in the future. I may be unsure of what the future will bring me but, applying the law of averages, all these struggles only increase the possibility of a better and a more struggle-free tomorrow. I remain hopeful for 2009!