Despite the downward slope, my 2015 has been a lot better than the past years. 2013 was horrific. 2014 was a bit better. 2015 was my could have been—which doesn’t sound really bad at all because it only means I am a step closer to maybe figuring things out (that’s me with a different perspective). I remember ending 2014 with the thought of keeping the good thing going and I think I made good progress about that.

Like everyone else, I wanted things to change, so bad. There were so many things I wanted to change just so I could make myself feel better but I don’t know how. No one in life has figured things out. No one ever wrote a handbook on how to deal with change and get better results. So I did one thing I don’t usually do: pray.

No one, not even my closest friends would believe me. I am not known to be religious but I would have to say my renewed faith did almost all the progress I have made.

God, give me the courage to do what I have to do is what I have repeatedly asked God every night before sleeping. For quite some time it seemed like I was fooling myself, relying to the heavens for the things I am supposed to do for myself. But then the fateful summer came and everything started changing.

Me first

2014 taught me I had no one to make me feel better, only myself. Hence, I made 2015 all about trying to put my happiness first—which is never easy, to be honest, for someone who is used to putting someone else’s happiness first before hers (at least that’s how I see myself).

Loving me is never easy. Thinking that if people find it hard to love me and stay with me, how could I love myself? It was mentally accepting that the only person I have in this world is me and that I had to try, everyday, to love what I have become.

Pagod na ako pero mamahalin pa rin kita is a line I probably heard from a television drama that best describes the kind of love I have for someone. I realized that the best thing to ever happen in love is to be loved the way you want to be loved. And I thought, that’s how I want it to be—thinking that if I can love someone beyond their perfections and be hell-bent in doing so then what keeps me from loving myself in that same way?

I grew up being disappointed over things I can’t have and it is almost in my nature to be frustrated over things I can’t control. So the first thing I did was to go easy on me. I tried to stop pushing myself too hard when things get difficult, to stop blaming myself over things I could not accomplish and most importantly, to forgive myself everyday for the mistakes I keep making.

I stopped forcing myself to do things I do not want to just for the sake of pleasing people but I never forgot the value of helping, of still being able to do good deeds even if it means halting the process.

To make it simple, I stopped beating myself up.

You can be a good person with a kind heart and still say no.

Every now and then I had to remind myself that I am a good person regardless of what people say or how they see me. Thinking that beating myself is already too much, I do not need anyone else to have a hand on this.

For someone who keeps getting a no in life, I can hardly imagine how difficult it is to be the one who gives it.

For the first time, I said no and I never felt so bad about it. I knew it was the right thing to do and thinking of it negates the fears I had.

I’ve been called, straight up, a bad person for doing it and it inflicted the same pain as being on the receiving end of a no. I am not a bad person for trying to do the right thing, for trying to be fair.

I made decisions that broke other people’s hearts but I had to make them so I could save myself from doing the same mistakes. After all, doing them again would defeat the progress I have made and would mean ignoring the promise I made to myself.

It was hard to say no to something good, something that probably happens once in a lifetime, something that will probably be my last chance at things.

But believing that the pain will pay off and that you’ll thank me someday is what makes it easy.

Giving people the chance I did not have

It took one birthday celebration to remind myself that I have people and that no matter what kind of relationship I have with them, I have to make it prosper.

I was so used to having people come and go—my track record consists of being the one left behind—and that made me put up walls. I stopped trying to meet people and kept myself with my constant companions, not knowing that there are people out there who can also offer me the kind of friendship I can keep for the rest of my life.

Not having someone there for me should not keep me from being that kind of person someone needs. So I learned to give people the chance to know me. I learned to give people the chance not to break my walls, but to climb over it.

Believing in Eventually

2015 constantly reminded me that things take time. If it took three years for Adele to come up with a new album, why would I force things to take place the moment I want it to?

Rome wasn’t built in a day and moving on does not happen overnight. Over the entire year, I took a few steps back unintentionally. There were a lot of emotional landmines I could not avoid. Sometimes I find it easy to just stay where I am rather than to walk away. These were setbacks I had to face so that I could end up where I am right now.

I was so eager to feel better, to accept things the way they are that I forgot about how everything always takes time.

There was nothing I can do to speed up the whole healing process except praying for it to be over someday. Even in prayers, healing wasn’t immediately granted. I learned to wait for something that is not even guaranteed.

I stopped making myself believe we are wasting time and that someday, in God’s perfect timing, things will be alright.

Believing in the due process of things promises better results than taking shortcuts because here we are, here—we—are. But things do not end here. I know for sure that 2016 will play a big part in the fulfillment of our eventually, of eventual forgiveness, acceptance, and peace of mind whether we chose to do it separately or not.

I stopped giving myself excuses.

Many times over 2015, I did things just for the mere sake of getting it over and done with. I learned that the only way to get to the other side of the bridge is to go through it.

I have crossed so many bridges and I did it by letting my body do the work. I am known to be indecisive and I knew at the very start of 2014 that it is something I have to improve on. So I dragged myself out. I stopped thinking twice and just let myself go with the flow.

Falling short.

Why would I call 2015 the year that could have been if I have never experienced falling short at least once?

Career-wise, I have made good progress this year by going out of my comfort zone. At the start of the year, I thought my career is something I could still save. That it was something I could focus on and be better—because my love life sucks and the rest are a palpable zero.

Ever since my first job leveled my self-esteem, I have dodged every opportunity of writing. Sure, my job as a web editor still requires me to write, but it was something that did not ‘require too much’.

Some time in March, I decided to quit my job because it does not fulfill me anymore. I had to give in to that nagging feeling I had for two years. It was bittersweet for many reasons because it was too personal for me and the events of the summer have lead to many things.

That includes an opportunity for me to go back to something I was good at—writing for a publication. I wrote for a magazine and it paved the way for me to overcome my fear of not being better.

But I fell short and I still find myself thinking whether I should have left while I still can, because now I still find myself in the same spot where I started.

I wish I could say it differently with relationships. I still suck at moving on and I still get emotional lapses time after time. Halfway through 2015, I was under the impression that starting over is possible, that I am finally in the final phase of things.

But life plays a joke on me just when I was about to take the jump.

I just hope that finally having that motivation will push me further to close one door and open another. I just hope that 2016 will give me the closure I need and the new beginning I deserve.

***

I sit here, wondering how to conclude a year end blog I wrote three days before New Year’s Eve. I halted, thinking that I should put it up the last minute (maybe an excuse to wait for a possible year end plot twist) and hopefully find the mood to end it on a good note.

If you’d ask me right at this very moment (December 30, 2015 / 8:32 in the evening) about how I feel, I will wholeheartedly admit to feeling sad (I just told my friend thru text that I am a bit depressed). But reading this stuff I wrote days before, I could not help but feel a tidbit happy and relieved that I have made good use of my 2015.

I may have fell short at the last quarter but I know that the progress I made all throughout the year is not something I should disregard. My 2015 may have ended on a downward slope but it’s still a good year, a better one.

You have made progress, Cris. You deserve to be happy.