"In the world through which I travel I am endlessly creating myself."

Ohai! My December has been abuzz with events for work and for this blog, work reports and press seeding, personal commitments with family and friends, and pre-Christmas dinners and get-togethers! It's cuh-razy really, but I still try my hardest to find time for myself to just read and watch movies. (On a somehow related note, I watched Frozen just yesterday. I know I'm too late to the party but I couldn't not say here that I loved it. It's not your typical Disney Princess movie and I loved the songs!)

Yesterday I was invited by my friend and former officemate/ neighbor Michelle and her best friend Jonas to a get-together/ KTV party. I was excited to go because I haven't seen them in a while and because I thought our other former officemates would be there. Turns out it was a get-together for their group. They've been friends since high school so I was worried at first that it would feel like I was crashing their party. Thank God they're all very cool people and I ended up having a great time. We all stayed the night, then woke up early this morning to home-cooked breakfast. I can be really shy but I love meeting new people and gaining new friends.

After more than a year ever since I left my old job and old apartment and moved back to my parents' house, it was the first time I went to that area again. As the van we were riding last night moved along Commonwealth Avenue, I found myself dealing with a rush of memories associated with the landmarks we passed. There were several noticeable changes, but it essentially remained the same place I once knew. Philcoa, UP-Ayala Technohub, and oh look there's HSBC, my old office. There's the footbridge by COA that I used to cross every day to go home to the old apartment I lived in for more than a year, the subdivision where the two apartments I lived in with roommates when I moved out is located, the pet shop I used to visit every week for food for my pet fishes, the KFC branch my former roommate Asther and I went to one late rainy Sunday night, the late night drives to the nearest Burger King or McDo drive thru... I could go on and on.

What's weird is I recognized those places and I acknowledged the memories, but somehow it felt like I couldn't have been more removed from it all than if I was a stranger passing by a completely unfamiliar place.

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It has only been a little more than a year since I moved out of that place, but it seriously feels like forever. All those things I enumerated above? They feel like ages ago, like they're from another time or a story from an old book whose cover has already gathered dust and pages have slowly turned yellow. So many things have happened and I have changed to accommodate these changes - for the better, I hope.

It is what it is. No matter how many changes come (and they will, I'm sure they will), I am thankful for the constants in my life: my family's love, my true friends, and my never-ending passion, zest for life, and faith that everything gets better.

*Blog post title is a quote attributed to Frantz Fanon