MAKING SENSE OF HAPPINESS
It has been quite some time since I've last been blogging. Somehow many facets of my life have started to become things I hold special and personal. Other facets, on the other hand, I celebrate and share in my recently created Facebook account. By recent I mean I only started using the darned service this year, unlike many other friends.

And yes, I blame YOU for making me join Facebook.



Multiply has for quite some time been my haven for photographs, and blog updates, drawing me away from Yahoo! Photos, Geocities, Photobucket and even Flcker and Blogger itself. The site used to be pretty functional and simple enough to use but with its recent updates to "feel more like Facebook."

Which is pretty sad if you consider that my life has been filled with so much more interesting events than it has been for quite some time. In many ways, I feel I have grown and matured and touched upon my long sought happiness more than I ever had in the many years of my life.



And while I cannot deny that there still are many other things I wish I could get back into (like Film. or like making Indie Comics again. ) overall, I feel a huge sense of satisfaction, joy, and accomplishment in my life.

Once, I felt a determined urge to head to Los Angeles, break into the film industry, create an indie piece and eventually tour the festival circuit. Once I felt that I could accomplish that, then head back to Manila and conquer the industry like a tsunami rising when people least expected it.

They were dreams. Healthy dreams. Creative dreams.

But in many ways, they too were things I believed I NEEDED to be happy. Things I held in my future as "must happen" rather than "know they will happen." I held them in my eyes as targets rather than destinations. As requirements rather than as joys to embrace when the proper time comes.

And perhaps, amidst the cooking, the getting my own place, the understanding how better to relate to people, and all the other many learnings I've gained over the last few months, that is what I've learned the most:

There is a time for everything. A place for everything.

But more importantly, there is a reason for everything.

Every single heartbreak I experienced before now makes sense. Every tear and betrayed feeling I endured now falls into place. Every time I felt I was used, abused, annoyed, angered, mislead, frustrated, appreciated, let-down, betrayed, built up, supported, savored, indulged, and (insert your word here), now all those events uncover their role in shaping me.

I've always been one to declare one has to live a life of less regrets. Well, perhaps not always, not til recently at least. But the past few months since I've began taking the steps to embrace my life as my own, leading to the simple yet happy home Sietch Creare has become, I've truly learned to see how much happiness, satisfaction and love are things you really find within yourself - and eventually choose to share to those whom are important to you.

So yeah, maybe I doubt I'd ever have a body like Ryan Reynolds.
Maybe my dreams of bringing home an Oscar won't happen until I get back into film sometime in my sixties.
Perhaps the great pinoy webcomic I'll make in the years to come will finally touch the masses like I dreamed they would on my fortieth birthday.
Or maybe I will suddenly be approached to host an international geek show next week.
Or maybe some director will find one of my obscure works online, get inspired, then email me asking me to work with him for some Hollywood production on the fourth of October.

Or maybe...



Just maybe I realize life wanted me to have such dreams to aim for, and for now wants me to indulge. Maybe... just maybe, life is telling me, yes Tobie grand things are always at your horizon waiting for you. And no, when the time comes you truly want to reach for them, you won't have to worry about the Gulf War affecting whether or not you can study abroad. When the time comes you want to take a stab into the film industry, you won't have naysayers telling you no one will appreciate your vision. Maybe when the ink hits the paper, you'll discover that sticking to your belief in how stories should be told will finally make sense to the market that finds your work.

But even with all that, maybe right now, life is just telling you its about time: After all those years of taking care of everyone else, of worrying over others, of trying to be someone they want, they prefer, they need...

Maybe now it is time to just be yourself.

And be happy with the blessings you currently have been given.

Maybe now its your time.

(And yes, the fact you share it even now completely with the one you love simply shows what kind of a person you are.)

So relax. Enjoy each day.

You deserve to be happy.