A few years back, I had a hard time dealing with change and goodbyes. However, little by little, my discipline as a Trainer/HR Practitioner and life in general has taught me that change signify new beginnings and better things coming into our life. As I face the challenges of being a woman and wife today, I now embrace change and look forward to new beginnings. I now believe that with every closing door, there are windows (or even new doors) that will be opened for you.

Below is an inspiring essay by Paolo Coehlo on ending chapters and moving on.

Closing Cycles
By Paolo Coelho

One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist onstaying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through.

Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters.

Whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the momentsof life that have finished. Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents’ house? Gone tolive abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden?

You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened. You can tell yourself you won’t take another step until you find out why certain thingsthat were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, justlike that.

But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister,everyone will be finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting onwith life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.

None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot forever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive anaffair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention ofcoming back.

Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away. That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs,move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books youhave at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts and getting rid ofcertain memories also means making some room for other memories to taketheir place.

Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do notexpect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated,your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, theone that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is onlypoisoning you, nothing else.

Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisionsthat are always put off waiting for the ideal moment. Before a new chapteris begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you couldlive without that thing or that person. Nothing is irreplaceable. A habitis not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.

Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simplybecause that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record,clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.

There are still quite a number of questions being asked about our wedding and my wedding experience so in order to share and help other bride-to-bes out there in preparing for their big moment, I will share my answers here.

Questions are not in order and names of those who’ve asked were not mentioned due to privacy reasons. Some I have answered personally or via email.

How long was your gown train?
4 meters

Nasaan na yung gown mo?
My gown is back with Cecil. After the wedding, Chris brought the gown to him for drycleaning but since I don’t have space to put my gown here, I haven’t picked them up. Hopefully next year, I’ll be able to bring it home.

What were you thinking when you walked down the aisle?
My walk down the aisle was very psychological for me, in the sense that my walk down the aisle had a lot of meanings. Pinaghandaan ko talaga ang paglakad ko sa araw ng kasal ko. Before walking down the aisle I told myself “when I walked down that aisle, it will be a symbol of taking that leap of faith, a symbol of courage to commit my life to my husband, when I walked down that aisle, walang bawian na talaga.”

During my walk down the aisle, my other thought was I had to keep it together coz my most loved persons in the room were all teary-eyed. I felt I had the biggest responsibility of having the strength to keep my parents, chris’s mom and chris from breaking down. I knew their tears imply joy and nostalgia but I really don’t want tears during that moment. So I tried my best not to cry in order to make light of the dramatic air.

When will the guestlist ever be final?
The guest list will never be final. There will always be an additional person, there will always be fallouts even on the day of the wedding.

Two weeks before the wedding, I told my coordinator to stop calling guests for RSVP. Our rationale was that the people that got an invite already has a place in our wedding. I don’t care if they attend or not. Basta ang point namin, we invited them kasi mahal namin sila. Gusto naming ipadama sa mga kapamilya at kaibigan namin na importante sila sa araw ng kasal namin, regardless kung mag-RSVP sila o hindi. One thing I learned about this, if they are true friends of yours, they will attend no matter what or at least make an effort to call kung hindi sila makakarating.

And since we stopped RSVP-ing, a week before the wedding I told the coordinator to add two tables for those who will be bringing additional people just to be sure that those extra people will still have a place to seat in the reception.

Who made all your wedding paraphernalias?
Chris did all the designs for the wedding. I helped in the conceptualization in some but he was really the one that had the vision on how the wedding designs would look like.

Who was more detailed, you or Chris?
Chris was more detailed than me, more of a perfectionist, more quality-based.

And what were you then?
I focused more on planning and strategizing. I’m more results-based so when i think of a concept, the first thing I think about is the impact of the concept. Ang tingin ko sa wedding namin ay parang production number na dapat mag-cater at mag-click sa lahat ng guests.

Tips on choosing a makeup artist?
Find a makeup artist that will listen to you before putting makeup on you.

My rule on bridal make up was this: when i show my wedding photos to my kids, my kids would automatically know that it’s me. I told my makeup artist not to camouflage my face. I told her not to hide my imperfections by putting layers and layers of foundation and concealer. I even told her not to make my eyes smaller (coz that’s what most makeup artists do to my eyes coz it’s big daw). I’m glad I found a makeup artist that listens coz I wanted to look as natural as possible, ayoko talagang magbago ang face ko nang dahil lang sa wedding.

Did you have thank you cards made?
Yes, we did. I didn’t want to but Chris insisted that we have TY cards printed as well.

How soon do you give out thank you cards?
Thank you cards should be given at least a month after the wedding. This is one rule of etiquette that we haven’t followed. Since Chris and I are apart for now, it’s hard to do post wedding stuff but as soon as we got settled in together, we will prioritize this. We hope our families and friends would understand the delay of the thank you cards.

How much does your whole wedding cost?
This is the one question that we will never answer.

If you were to change anything on your wedding day, what would it be?
Nothing. Hindi ako naniniwala na pwede pang ulitin ang mga pangyayari kaya hindi ko na inisip pa ang mga bagay na dapat baguhin sa mga nangyari na. After the wedding, I wanted to move on as soon as possible.

Is honeymoon a must after the wedding?
Yes. it doesn’t matter where or how short the honeymoon is. Think of the honeymoon as a reward to both of you—you need it to de-stress yourselves from the wedding. You need to de-stress because you will face new responsibilities when the wedding is over.

Is it a must to bring a tripod when honeymooning?
Yes. It will save you the time asking people to take a photo of you two. Dagdag dalahin ang tripod sa pag-byahe pero worth it.

Gawa na ba ang wedding album at video nyo?
Hindi pa. We haven’t finalized the stuff we need to submit to our main photo/video team that’s why they have no output yet. This is another task in our post wedding activities we haven’t done. Malamang next year na namin ito makukuha. That’s why we had some of the photos uploaded on online so that families and friends can view it.

so there. i really don’t have much to say about our wedding nowadays but i do appreciate family and friends who email or ask me personally of details. maraming maraming salamat po!

This is what’s keeping me busy for the past two weeks…

Here are the reasons why i braved chinatown twice (not once, but twice!) in the cold, cold weather just to have a box set of this:
  • the story is entertaining, has lots of funny scenes, not much drama compared to other koreanovelas
  • great production with well thought of concepts
  • awesome cinematography, i love their play of colors in each scene
  • graphically enhanced editing
  • the musical scoring is exceptional with beautiful love songs to make some scenes more “kilig”

Have you seen the bears???
I love them!

My Mom and my cuzin were laughing at me because this koreanovela has made me a fan. I like watching koreanovela but I wasn’t as enthusiastic as before. Watching it is something that I put off most of the time. Although i do like lovers in paris and winter sonata, but once I’ve watched them, I’m done. now, I will honestly say that I love this series up to the point of checking it out on youtube (may tagalog version and MTVs dun eh) and checking out their sites on the internet for production photos and comics version (yes, pati comics version). And take note, one of the things I love about this series are the songs, so everyday I play their OST in my ipod.
Am I crazy??? I guess I am but then, it makes me happy, so what? 🙂

To all you fanatics, check this site: http://english.tour2korea.com/02Culture/TVMiniseries/goong.asp?kosm=m2_6&konum=1

And there’s talks of doing Goong 2, so hopefully they’d do it.

Like any other busy woman, I cherish my weekends and make sure that I get to spread out my time to the different facets of my life. More often than not, two days are always never enough–BUT it’s all a matter of managing my time wisely or somehow scheduling events accordingly and at the same being flexible as possible. Here’s my list for this past weekend:

Personal: watched “Princess Hours” during my free time or after finishing my chores at home; started reading a new book

Spiritual: attended anticipated mass last saturday

Familial: was able to talk to Chris Friday and Saturday night; called my parents Sunday morning; I cooked lunch and dinner for my relatives at home (chicken schitznel and menudo) yesterday.

Social: organized a welcome lunch for Tomas (Ara’s husband from the phils) last Saturday and got to hang out with my friends at Hilda’s place.

Physical: I ate a very healthy lunch last Saturday and I did housework so that became my exercise for the weekend…i also did a lot of walking last Saturday on the way to Hilda’s place, plus I got to sleep in yesterday.

I love weekends such as these, when you almost have time for everything and for everyone, including yourself. Although sometimes I appreciate having weekends that I won’t be required to go out, however, having a full weekend isn’t so bad at all.

Hope everyone had a great weekend too!

Ang email na sinulat ng ngo-ngo….

June 11, 2007
Hi ey-i (‘Baby’ as spoken by a ngo-ngo)
Musta na i-aw?
Musta na owling nyo? Wala lang, iss lang ki-ah eh. (musta na bowling nyo? wala lang miss kita eh)
Lah u, lah u!
Iss yu so mut! wah!

Ang email na sinulat ng pabaliktad…

July 5, 2007

!ybab iH

?waki an astum
.gnal alaw
.worromot llac ruoy rof taiw lliW
!u vul u vul !hawM !hcum os uoy ssiM

“We cannot really love anybody without whom we never laugh.” – Alice Reppler