Diary of a Restless Rebel – 5th February 2020

(7 minute read)

Another year has come and gone and here I am facing another birthday.  What can I say about this past year? Well it wasn’t without its own set of challenges. 

I started last birthday by listing everything I was grateful for in Diary of a Restless Rebel – 5th February 2019 .  In hopes that saying and writing those words would allow me to actually feel satisfied with my life. I’m not saying that expressing gratitude is pointless, but behind those words I still held high expectations of what and where I wanted to be at that time.  And I was damn sure going to get there! “That’s right, 2019 is MY year!” Anyone else declare their New Year’s intentions with such determination? 

I thought that statement made me look impressive and powerful like a lifeguard on the beach holding that orange rescue buoy as my gratitude, while running through the water to save a life.  Have any of you actually tried doing that? It’s really fn hard unless you’re athletic and have legs for daaaays. But I stand at 5’3” and don’t spend my spare time pumping iron. So at times last year it felt as if I was the one who needed rescuing and it was my gratitude that kept my head above water.  So in my case gratitude was simply not enough and I was settling and not living. I was forcing all the pieces to fit into where I wanted it to be, and not allowing things to happen that was in line with my true self.

Diary of a Restless Rebel – 15 November 2019

(5 min read)

The other day my housemate told me of a visit from her deceased father as she napped on the sofa.  I suppose to many westerners, this is a strange situation.  I get it, I’ve lived a lot of my adult life as a “freethinking heathen” away from the traditions and beliefs of my ethnic heritage.  However, I grew up in a house with Filipino immigrant parents.  So it wasn’t all THAT bizarre as I remembered how the Filipino culture has very strong beliefs in a parallel spirit world.  And I got thinking about my own experience with visitations from my own father.

Diary of a Restless Rebel – 5th February 2019

I started watching a TV program on Netflix yesterday about a woman who wakes to re-live her 36th birthday over and over again after she dies an untimely death.  A “glitch” in time is giving her another chance to make her life right and it had me thinking about my own life.

This morning I woke up to my own birthday and I identify metaphorically to the concept that every year we’re given another chance by the universe to set our lives right, with a restart or beginning of a new cycle.  It all sounds about right? We’re on a journey thinking we’ve completed it only to begin another.  But in reality we have never really finished the first.  A friend pointed this out to me the other week as we caught up about all that was so-called “new” in our lives. “Flo, you’re still on the same fucking journey you were on 3 years ago when we were living in London.”  Well he was right, turns out my journey is still the same, but my environment has changed, adding new challenges and insights.