First post of the year --

I finally got my Starbucks planner yesterday (in SM North Edsa -- because Katipunan ran out of planners). H'ray!

Been trying to think of a way to sum up the year that was and the word that comes to mind is possibilities.

It was a year when I explored new frontiers --
-- I got married and discovered what it meant to be a wife.
-- I moved out of our unit in San Juan and moved into a unit in Katipunan and learned what life is like without household help.
-- I decided to downsize and focus on the essentials and am slowly learning about authentic friendships and what matters most.
-- I'm pregnant and am currently learning what it would mean to be a mother.

There were a lot of tragedies in 2005 -- the tsunami that hit Thailand, the hurricanes and the earthquakes, etc. What I learned from that is how valuable life is and every minute of it.

When I was in Iloilo, I attended the birthday party of one of my parents' friends -- she is a cancer survivor and, every year, she makes it a point to celebrates her birthday. For her, her birthday celebration marks each blessed year of her life. For her, her birthday is a celebration of her life and what she had to go undergo in order to realize that.

This year, we got treated to a talk by a recently-ordained Carmelite priest. It was on forgiveness and was part of his series of talks for the Advent recollection. It was a timely talk, considering a year was ending and another one was about to start. The topic was forgiveness and the outline was simple --

Who.
Why.
How.

One of the things he emphasized was that we should forgive ourselves for the people that we were. I'd like to think I've done just that and I'm starting the year with the slate clean.

And then I got a new year message from Gabs -- she quoted lines from RENT:

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
Measure your life in love

I'm thankful for that reminder and I'm looking forward to the year ahead.