Selfie

The things that I'll be writing in this post will probably be the first time that I'll reveal them in a more public outlet.


Something happened in my past that made me change the way I see myself and the world.

To this day, I could not bring myself to tell in detail the things that had happened. All I could say is that it was so bad it left me wounded and scarred. It made me lose my self-esteem and self-worth. I resorted to inflicting self-punishment by excessive workload and exhausting myself until I became emotionally dog-tired. For a long time, I could not forgive myself. There were good things that happened to me since then, but they were not enough to redeem myself. And every time bad things happen to me, those thoughts would all come back to me and beat me up like an angry mob would do to a criminal being paraded down the street.

Then a series of events made me realize many things in life.

Bo Sanchez was right in his book, 'Your Past Doesn't Define Your Future.' Your troubled past should not let you dictate how you want your future to be. In my case, I already did that by taking a path different from those who finished the same course in college as mine. And by finally realizing this, I'm ready to walk further, taking with me the lessons that my past has given me.

A lot of people say that how you look outside reflects how you feel inside. Somehow my lack of self-esteem reflected how I treat myself -- I could not bring myself to at least look presentable, to the point that I dread thinking about what I should wear and hate what I see in the mirror. Then one day, I looked in the mirror at the ladies' room in the office, and suddenly liked what I see. Everything became perfect -- from my not-so-smooth yet glowing face to my not-so-slim but curvy body. I felt so good that I vowed to myself to do anything that would maintain this good feeling inside and out, and not let anyone make me feel that my face and body is less than perfect. Since then I made it a point to fix myself, do a lot of movement as my means of exercise (though I still have to find time for a real workout) and be a little watchful of what I eat. Lastly, I make it a point to look at a big mirror, smile, wave my hair a bit and say, 'Ang ganda ko!'

My so-called 'before' photo

Just yesterday, I met up with my friends who knew about the things that have happened to me in the past. I shared to them how these thoughts have been haunting me till that day, and how it affected my personality since then. They told me, 'I'm pretty sure the people whom you have inflicted pain have forgiven you long ago; and although it's hard for them to forget, they've probably moved on from it. I'll bet my bottom dollar that they'd be just laugh at it whenever they think of it. That being said, you should forgive yourself. It's the first step towards moving on and redeeming yourself.'

Finally, my boyfriend introduced me to a third party in our relationship -- the Lord. I have to admit I'm not exactly the most religious person you'll meet, and I have the most 'vague' spiritual side. Until recently, he was also the same way as I did, but now he is retracing his path to the Big Man Upstairs. At first I could hardly understand everything that's happening to him, but he did not hesitate to dig a little part of my own path leading back to Him. I understand him a bit now that I'm digging that path he made for me, this time on my own but not exactly the same path he is making. He's currently experiencing a religious conversion, while I decided to remain in the religion I was born in because I still believe that while we may differ in how we believe in the Lord's message, it cannot be denied that it's just one and the same. And come to think of it, I won't be like any other people who just get by the day without the One who caused all things in this world, including our existence.

We do selfies, or self-shot photos, for many reasons -- because we feel good about ourselves that time, because we want to document the things that are happening to us right at that moment, or just because we want a new profile pic for our social media site. The past few days, I'm thinking about replacing my old profile pic, but I thought, I could do better than that. This post, I suppose, is my way of showing to the world, not exactly a new me, but more of "me: improvements in progress."

Me: Improvements in Progress