"This new self takes no prisoners"

I just had to re-post a part of this blog entry that my friend Karla shared with me. It's from Frances Amper Sales' blog. Frances is the editor of OK! Magazine Philippines. I just love how much of an empowered mother she is.

Like her, I know motherhood has changed me. But reading this has amplified that change by a hundred-fold. And I realized what she said here is also the reason I care less what people think--even much less than how much I already cared less then.
 
"With a child, I have less time now so something better be worth my time. I care less for the trivial. I care even less about what people think.

At the same time, I feel I have so much power now. So much life! I feel I can take on the world and it will bow down before me because I am a mother now. My old self died the day I shed so much blood for my son and a new self was born. And this new self takes no shit. This new self takes no prisoners. This new self has the hands that rock the cradle. And so I rule the world."

Thanks, Frances, for your re-affirming me of my newfound power. Click here to read Frances' article.

Where am I?

Taxi driver (to a security guard on the road): Boss, 'san ang Emerald Avenue?
Security Guard: Ah, Emerald na po ito!

I overheard this walking along Emerald Avenue with colleague and friend Karla, and it made me laugh aloud. I thought the driver stupid maybe, or just thought the whole thing funny.

An hour later now and I find myself thinking back on that convo. Why was it so funny? Someone's already there and he doesn't know he was until a guy on the road told him. Pretty mundane, yes, but somehow I see myself in it. Maybe that's why it made me laugh.

Because I would constantly ask myself, unknowingly, where the heck am I? I'm always out of time, out of touch to many friends, always longing to do things I used to do. Where am I?

I'm lost in a sea of work, deadlines, bills to pay, motherhood, being a wife. I'm always everywhere but nowhere, I feel. Sometimes I do get to sneak in things I fancy but it's rare that they last enough for me to lay back, put my feet up, close my eyes and just feel good.

Where am I? I can maybe ask my husband, but he'd tell me something I probably already assume. Because we're together. We're in a family, we're in a home. We're in love. But me, the girl with wild hopes and vast ambition, the woman who once did everything and anything she set her mind on, the daredevil, the adventurer...where's that girl?

Maybe I'm somewhere I already know where, but I've no security guard on the road to tell me.

Shucks. One of those days, one of those.