moments

Posted at the egroup by Jacqui Lozada (aka Amay)

you may want to read this or not...this is a little bit of the other side of me :) i am simply giving you all a heads up so you can delete it before you go any further and find yourself bored...

first of all, great set of pix and family, lucy... even though i did not know you until now...pictures help paint a person in one's head even as you get to know them through correspondence...i must say, i have enjoyed going through the albums... so many faces i don't recognize and a handful of those that i do...but even then, i feel i know you all a whole lot more now than when i was a student of SMA...

i was telling WIN2 earlier that after being "found," i could not quite understand what i was feeling...whether to be happy about it or start cursing a blue streak, of course, i was joking...as i explained to WIN2, my classmates from the previous school had decided to make me an honorary member of their batch and they had been heavily corresponding with me since december...mind you, they are a smaller group of 68 (95% found)...then, over the week-end, you guys found me --- to think, should we all be found, it would mean over 200 members. having close to 300 people in correspondence on top of my family (which is no small group in itself), personal friends, church group, and work-related ones --- i feel like i am slowly going insane!

the main reason for my being overwhelmed, is the language issue...i know :) some of you have gone cross-eyed reading my postings --- i have a need to vent and i apologize for having you at the receiving end of it. back to the language... well, i email to the other batch in a mix of cebuano, english and a smattering of tagalog & chinese...then, since the week-end, i've been doing a lot of tagalog and murdered english...trying to remember which classmate belongs to which school/batch and which country they are located has left me with a brain fart...i communicate with them in yahoo and the messenger which leaves me with my eyes crossed when all the windows start popping up...i forget if i am supposed to answer in tagalog or in cebuano or in english...results of middle age crisis, i suppose...but i am hoping you can imagine the situation...

i am not complaining, mind you...i feel so overwhelmingly blessed and i wonder what i have done to deserve such blessings...i thank God each and everyday for all the people He has placed in my path and walk in life...and that means ALL OF YOU...i may not have all the material wealth in the world, but with the friends and family that i do have...i feel like i am the wealthiest person walking on this planet. i just want you to know, that you are all appreciated :) even the ones that i kid about having given me a hard time in the past...each one of you that i do remember as a part of my past have in one way or another impacted me in ways you or even i cannot imagine...they have all helped in making me the person that i am today...you know who you are :)

in fact, i want to thank MAMENG, for remembering the name of that english teacher, MS. CADIZ. MRS...DE GUZMAN and MS CADIZ both had a powerfully positive influence in my life during a turbulent time of family crisis with the added problems that come with teen-age angst...a slight comment which may have been meaningless or said in passing was good enough encouragement that i still remember to this day...

on that note, i would like to encourage those who have decided to shy away from the gathering and the bonding of this batch for whatever reasons...your reasons may be legit or they may not be, they could be so old, the pain, anger and all it's accompanying negative effects have all but faded away and maybe you have not realized it yet...however, please do not deny yourself the opportunity to feel enriched by the knowledge pooled within this group who would only be interested in your goodwill and good fortune...a perfect example is the outpouring of advices given to CARMEN (hello, btw) with regard to her personnel issue...they could be useful, maybe not...but, like the saying, "two heads are better than one"...one can have an idea of how to resolve an issue and one can select from several possibilities....

yes, there will be some personality issues maybe, but those can easily be resolved if one is willing. one HAS to be willing, one has to be a friend before one can have a friend. we can still learn to accept each other for who we are, who we could be and for all our idiosyncracies. there is the advantage of our age...maturity!...experience!...they all help to make us a better person and hopefuly, better friends...it is all about having a whole lot of LOVE and COMPASSION for one another...until we move on from this life like some of us have, we need people in our lives to enrich us, to encourage us, to exhort us, to empathize with us, even to correct us when we are wrong...

anyway, one of the reasons i have not been able to post anything recently was because i wanted to absorb all that has happened since this past week-end...i needed to take a moment to savor my blessings and to be thankful to God for each one of you...i needed to take a step back...and simply enjoy being around you...this yahoo group has allowed me to be in your midst and i just wanted to sit still for a moment...and i truly imagine myself in the midst of everybody as each one is bonding with one another...i wanted to gather my thoughts, my innermost feelings so i could share them with you...thank you for letting me share them with you and for being a part of my life...may we all be continually blessed by that fabulous MAN above...

with love,
jacqui