The Day I Lost My Voice

It has been a strange, sad, and wonderful year. I have reached many milestones, and I am at a wonderful place in my life. Then why am I not writing more often?

Change is the mother of reinvention, and I am in the midst of it. I may have not posted any exciting news, or given up sex stories, or served up anecdotes of my new life in Germany. But it certainly doesn't mean that my life has reached a plateau. No, far from it.

I guess I have come to a point where I don't really want to be an open wound anymore. I have always refused to divulge every mundane detail of my life in my blog. My blog has always been story-oriented in the first place. However, I don't want to show a broken and angry person. Frenetic and exciting as my life was, I am no longer like that.

There was a point, months ago, where I realized that I was in the midst of another identity crisis. Who was I, in this new and frightening place? Just as I asked myself a few years ago, where was my place in the sun? This particular sun was cold and fraught with challenges. I was alone, and yet dependent on one person. It was a very discomfiting place to be. Me, who has always been so independent.

I realized that there was no longer a "me." The me that existed in Manila will never survive in this new environment. So I decided to clam up. I have to, have to, find this new voice before telling my new stories. I stopped writing altogether when I realized this truth.

I am slowly laying roots in this strange country that I will never call my own. I have realized that I may live here a thousand years, but this place can never be my Heimat. Distance from the Philippines has made me realize how Filipino I really am, how proud and how embarrassed I am of us. I was quite surprised at how much I actually know about my country. I can say that I know the Philippines more than the average Filipino.It's quite sad that a lot of people in my generation living in the Philippines know very little about our culture and history. I think that this identity will help shape the new voice that I will develop in the future.

I am looking forward to the day I will start writing again, with a new solid voice that's completely my own.