all's well

i've brought the last of the guests to the airport this morning. it has been a full, abundant, joyful and meaningful week.

the paper i delivered at the Reading Association of the Philippines Demofest last Saturday afternoon was good, i believe. in the first place, it passed my own standards. then, too, after i delivered it, a number of people came up to me to ask for a copy of it, as it wasn't in their kits. so, maybe i did get my message across, which is what i prayed for.

i had lots of fun entertaining guests and new friends, too, driving them around bacolod, and showing them the food delicacies and the sights, amidst the Masskara Festival. i wondered why they kept apologizing to me for taking too much of my time and energies, when i enjoyed their company too!

i slept the whole day of Sunday and even most of today, too. it's my postponed jet lag catching up on me, i guess. after Honey and i arrived from the States last Sunday, i didn't have the luxury of winding down, as it was immediately off to last meetings with the bibliotherapy-book launch- storytelling team, going for my on-the-set tv interview, welcoming my publishers' staff and showing them around, also fetching N, our guest storyteller, and taking care of his transportation needs the whole time he was here and even assisting him in his tv interview too, providing support for the bibliotherapy lecture and the storytelling workshop, and, of course, being fully there for my own book launch, even as i researched and wrote my paper overnight for the reading association demofest.

now, it's back to my "ordinary" life, but it's really not so ordinary anymore (well, come to think of it, it never has been!).

next to dos:

- update butterfly business stuff
- help Papa with renewing the store rights award in my name
- checking and returning my MA students' papers
- finishing my Project Paper too, so i can turn it in by Oct. 30, schedule my defense early November, and finally earn my MA Conflict and Reconciliation Studies degree
- finishing 3 more projects: FCQ, Kaisa and Rubin's manuscript editing
- and finally and most importantly, working on the content of my author website with B, and buckling down to writing my 1 story/month target for the rest of my leave (7 months to go)!

***

mama's still in the hospital for pneumonia. im concerned, of course, but the last time i talked to her on the phone, her voice sounded strong and full and she seemed upbeat, even welcoming the hospital stay as a chance for her to fully rest and sleep longer than she is used to at home. so, i guess, that's a very good sign.

one time, when i was still there with her last month, and she was starting to talk death wishes again, i acknowledged her desires yet also reminded her, half-jokingly, "ma, don't die on me yet. you still have to see my two remaining dreams in life come true-- become an internationally-published, best-selling, critically-acclaimed, and well-loved author of children's and other books, whose stories touch and transform people's lives and live on long after i do; and be happily married to my True Soulmate, for real and for keeps!"

she smiled at that, and seemed buoyed by the idea.

***

i'm just enjoying my time with the kids again. we celebrated my homecoming a week late by my treating ourselves out to one of my favorite restaurants for lunch earlier today, after i fetched them from school.

it's exam week for them this week, so they only have morning classes. after the exams are over, im planning to take them and their cousins to the Waxworks tour at the Negros Musuem, for a Halloween treat. : )

one of these days, im treating my self again, too, to my long-overdue beauty salon and spa treat! i haven't dated my self in quite a while! : ) : ) : )

***

i brought home the three choicest of the two dozen roses B sent before i flew home. they're on my bedside table. i brought home his card and even the package stamps too! : )

i look at them every time, and feel very blessed for having B in my life now.

for the first time in my life, i am in love without the attendant anxiety and insecurities and uncertainty and agonies that used to accompany my falling in love states before. (and now, i wonder if they were more delirium than really falling in "Love" as Love is meant to be!)

for the first time in my life, i am amazingly feeling... peace, and contentment, and just sheer joy, from being me, and from loving and being loved. i can actually relate now to how it's described in 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8... how it should be, how it really is.

i hope and pray this consciousness stays with me this way, for good, no matter what the outer circumstances and challenges might be that will inevitably assail us, as with all relationships.

i pray for B, and B and i, all the time now.

***

all's well.

God always sees to it; i know that now.