I’m 33.

It’s my birthday. Yes, I’m 33.

My Family

I’m happy that I have a loving and supportive husband, a cutiepie for a daughter, a great family and great friends. I even have a great business with great friends who are helping me run it, a great home with a great view, great blogs with great readers — basically, everything’s great. I thank God for that. I really do.

Yesterday evening though, I cried. I don’t know what happened to me. I just felt like crying. Nothing significant really happened yesterday to make me cry, aside from the fact that my daughter, Zeeka, had cough and colds and I was worried. I don’t know why, but after expressing milk at around 11:30 pm, I just felt like crying.

It was weird because prior to that time, I was full of hope and optimism. I was even telling EJ about the sermon of the priest in last Sunday’s mass where he was talking about Lazarus and the rich man. The priest mentioned that we all need to strive to seek for opportunities to serve others and to help others. I was giving Ej a pep talk that we need to see these ‘opportunities’ in everything that we do. Later that night, I guess, I found out that I was the one who needed a pep talk.

I went to our sala area where the TV was and thought of why I was crying. Yes, I am the type who analyzes everything, so I had to analyze, step back a bit and think of a reason why I was feeling the way I was. Sometimes, I over analyze things, but for this particular instance, I just had to think that I wasn’t just going crazy. I then got to the point where I drew the conclusion that I think I was feeling tired. And, knowing that it was my birthday tomorrow (since it was 12:00 am, Sept. 30), I wanted to just relax for a day.

What was making me tired? I am more tired now, I think, then when I was working. I think ‘I’ am making ‘me’ tired. I really don’t know how to relax. My husband asks me oftentimes, what did you do today. My usual answer is ‘Nothing much. The usual stuff’.

The usual stuff for me is made up of a lot of exploratory ‘business’ talks with people for Manila Workshops and my blogs, writing for my blogs and for sites that I am a contributor of, overseeing Manila Workshops’ event directors, trying to set up new businesses (right now, I am a part of three new ventures), managing and monitoring the finances of my businesses, creating presentations for my speaking engagements, attending online classes where I am enrolled in WHILE trying to also do the following: breastfeed Zeeka or express milk every three to four hours, carry her until she sleeps while yaya cleans the room, teach/ play with Zeeka and read to her, rush to the bank to pay bills, create plans for Zeeka’s birthday and fix the schedule for my business and household for the week.

I was trying to look at my life and I was indeed a busy girl. I guess it’s because whenever I get to meet people or whenever I discover things, I see a lot of opportunities where I could make this world a better place. What I do is I seize the opportunity and I go for it and I help out.

Although, for this year, I think I need to follow Ej’s advise and keep my life simple. I think I need to learn how to edit my own life, not just my articles. I need to set aside time for myself — to just ‘be’. I need to learn how not to think too much, how not to worry about a lot of things and how to just stay put and pray.

I need to be offline and not be online 24/7. I need to go back to yoga or running — yoga and running helps me relax and gives me more focus. I need to enjoy playing with Zeeka and not think about emails and plans while playing with her. I need to have more conversations with EJ during weekends and not look at my phone every 5 minutes. I need to stop and smell the roses.