Finding My Miracles

I’m surprised with my mood these days. My responses are not quite consistent with the real-life scenarios, because now, I am relatively happy and oozing with optimism. I don’t think I’m accomplishing anything important. I’m just going through everyday at snail’s pace. At this point, I don’t believe I have the authority to use the gift of hindsight to reassure me that everything went well as far as I’m concerned. That would be indulging my ego too much. My confidence is still suffering and I still feel that all I’ve done during the past year was to plug a hole, be in the position so that somebody is there nominally, albeit being dispensable anytime. If this was the old, predictable me, I would have been depressed for the past two weeks. I mean, I have the right to be depressed. But oddly enough, sometimes I do surprise myself. Because at this very moment when my brain is telling me I should be sad, why, I’m simply not miserable at all!

I can’t attribute this to my hormones either. This is supposed to be the time of the month when I should be feeling most bloated and cranky. But here I am, enjoying a fairly decent length of sleep and going for hours without munching a bar of chocolate. My coffee intake is at its lowest. All I need to bring a day to a close is a cup of tea, a few pages of non-medical reading, and a prayer. I still don’t exercise and I still spend too many hours in the office twirling around my chair and staring at nothing. My elation may not last for a long time, and I’m already anticipating another big time slump. But for starters, it looks like Depression is not going to get the best of me yet.

These days I find myself actively searching for my everyday miracles. Those tiny details in my life that do not follow a pattern: certain events, images, words, or people that may seem simple but are actually redeeming. A folded bill in my old wallet when I’m broke, a gift of galunggong with sukang pinakurat from my staff during a toxic day, a post-duty day with no consult at my continuity clinic, a report that my kids earned more than P100,000 from our 3-day rummage sale, a free movie with good friends after a bad day, a statement from a revered mentor, a ‘thank you’ from an old intern, excellent endorsements of a shy clerk, a discovery that my old journals still exist, an old poem I wrote on a page of an obsolete medicine textbook, a whiff of a familiar scent, a familiar song playing on a patient's transistor radio, an appaluse from a crowd, a smile from a stranger, an unexpected text message from an old friend.

Interestingly, I find that a blighted spirit has a heightened sensitivity to details. Perhaps this is the body’s way of compensating. It’s like in Endocrinology. Our body’s organs send out some sort of signals to the brain, and there exists a form of positive or negative feedback mechanism where the ultimate goal is this: to cope.

(Ahh, the perfect explanation. And I was vehement when I was told I was left-brain dominant. haha!)

I’m suddenly finding myself smiling more often. There’s a lightness, a certain freedom in my heart that I would like to share to everyone I meet. Recently, I realized how easy it is, how absolutely natural it is, to forgive. And then I knew what happiness is: it’s when you believe even before you understand, when you trust even before you judge, when you forgive even before you are wronged. And then everything just follows. Everyday you find miracles. And you're just so sure that despite of, inspite of, and because of all this crazy crap you have to live with, life is indeed worth all the trouble.