2020 Vision (A 2019 Year-End Post)

My dear friends,

If you read the past two year-ender posts I’ve written, I’d doubtless assume you’d feel sorry for me. 2017-2018 will have to be two of the most challenging years of my life, and yet, as I look back now - I can absolutely say that the deepest valleys I traversed were only to prepare, and highlight, the hills that had been waiting for me in the glimmering delight that is 2019.

It’s difficult to write about my life’s highlights, because currently, I’m in a deep state of depression, (it seems I always am, whenever the year is starting - overcome by fear of what’s to unfold, and overwhelmed by the things I’ve to let go of as another year wraps up - ) but I kept telling myself that I needed to write these things down before they succumb into dim lights of memories just wiggling to make space in my brain. 2019 was the best year (yet) of my life and I’ve all the images, and now hopefully, the words, to relive it by.

For one, I met the love of my life.

Recently, I had a hosting with my brother, Victor, and for fun, I asked him onstage what he was most grateful for the past year. I thought it would be some light banter as our stage managers were scouring through the tech booth to figure out some raffle mishaps, only to be taken aback by his response to my question. He said that he was most grateful that I’m already engaged. He jokingly said that, for the longest time, it was all I wanted, and now it’s here, and then he gave me a hug. My brother is a very sensitive guy. He’s picky, and he likes things his way. He’s flamboyant, extravagant, and far more strong-headed, than most people can manage — he’s very successful, especially for his age (although that phrase doesn’t seem to mean much these days), so he has a plethora of things to choose from, when asked what he’s most grateful for. And yet, he picked - and he’s never one to say things just to please anybody - the fact that I’m engaged to be married. 

For one, I think that speaks to the deep love we have for each other; as I always say, Victor is the only person in the world I would die for, and I the same to him, he would profess. We grew up with a bond only a few pair-siblings have, in that we knew we had each other’s backs whatever happened. He’s my favourite person in the world, even though I hate his guts sometimes, because he’s compassionate, and a protector, and I feel like he’s the only one who truly knows me well. It’s probably also the reason why he loves Juancho very much. I see it, in the way he interacts with my fiancé. He’s gentle with him, and curious, and brotherly in the way that he is brotherly to me (and that’s very special) - he likes spending time with Juancho, and he seems to want to spend more, he even laughs at all of Juancho’s jokes (he usually likes to stifle laughter with all of my ex-boyfriends, just to show them who’s really the man of the house), and most tenderly, he talks to him about life, and about how he sees it through the perspective of being a child of God.

And not just Vic. My family loves Juancho; it’s one of the many important reasons why I’m confident in my decision to marry him. Many people were startled by the swift pace of our relationship, and if we’re being stark, even both our families were surprised. But every time I step back and really look at my fiance, how he interacts with the most important people in my life, and how they’ve grown to also love him, I know that God has set us both apart, from eternity past, to spend our Earthly lifetimes together.

Juancho is the most kind-hearted person I know. I get cruel sometimes, especially when I’m angry — I tend to say things I regret, even before speaking them, and I don’t always (I almost always never - ) have the willpower to keep it inside — and yet he always strives to speak to me like I’m a child. Not in a condescending way, but gentle - a child just making a mistake, throwing a tantrum, needing a loving adult to understand her (which is all I am sometimes, really). He’s intelligent, and I mean, forms and hones his own worldview, will not be vegan just because some smart dude told him to, solves problems I get stuck in, responds with the wittiest banter and leaves you breathless in the process - kind of intelligent. He’s emotionally and intellectually intelligent, and that’s rare, Jadeite- rare. I’ve concluded that people don’t listen to him enough to know how smart he is, because they’re usually too busy staring at him. He’s six foot tall, with the healthiest head of hair (and eyebrows) you could ever imagine on a man. His facial features are beautiful, and handsome, and odd, in that they can be both. One time, we were eating at a restaurant, and the Japanese guy cooking our food couldn’t believe that he was Filipino; he kept saying that Juancho looks like a European movie star (he told me I was ‘maganda’, I knew he was throwing me a bone and so I chewed on ravenously), - and he does, even when he’s drooling in the car seat next to me, while we travel to work for Unang Hirit. I could never condense him to just tall, dark and handsome, though; he’s beyond all those things combined. And everyday that I get to slowly chip my way deeper in his heart, I am even more enamoured.

We started going to church together, then we went to pre-marital counselling just a couple of months into dating. He laid our his intentions with me, sincere, as always, expressing the most genuine love. We spend our hours talking, and laughing, and praying together. He loves his family, and looks up to his parents so much, that he’d often integrate our conversations with fond stories about them. He adores his siblings more than he ever lets them know (like a real cool kuya), and he’s deeply loyal to his friends.

My love is so precious, I could go on all day talking about him. And whenever I get to hold him close, and go on about the life we are building together, the God we serve, the family we’ll one day have, I know that all the heartaches, and all the pain, and all the mistakes I had made in my past relationships were not in vain, for it led me right between the lanky, loving, juicy arms of my God’s best, in 2019. We may not have the most perfect days. We may even sometimes hurt each other in ways we ought not to, and fight over the silliest things. But I know deep in my heart, that he is the man who God has appointed to lead and love me, and for that I am most grateful.

And to think I made up such a corny (but catchy) hashtag for us even before we got together. #Juanchoyce forever.

It seems I’ve poured over my heart in just one of the aspects that made this year the best yet. Though I shouldn’t forget, that this is also the year God allowed for my anxiety to heal, though slowly and incrementally. For almost the entirety of 2018, I was suffering from extreme anxiety and paranoia, heavy chains that dragged by the balls of my feet and kept me from training for triathlon, reading books, or riding long-haul flights; but this year (after learning the right lessons, I suppose) it finally started letting up. Only by God’s grace, I’m sure of it. The most arduous thing about mental health is knowing that you’re really just battling with yourself (although I reckon that’s how it is with most bodily illnesses - it’s your mind being jolted with the awareness of the things that are not going right in your brain, or limbs, and in joints, ligaments, cells -) sometimes the medicines don’t work, or you struggle to find the right ‘cocktail’, or you get even more anxious because your doctor doesn’t seem to care in the minutest way you want them to, or it’s just extortionate. But I suppose the most fascinating thing I discovered was that, my mental illness, was also a gaping spiritual battle.

The reason why I was so anxious was because I had anchored my value solely on the things of this Earth, without knowing it. And without fully grasping it, also, I had a keen understanding that everything I see, experience, feel, touch, own, and am capable of doing — are all fleeting. They ebb and flow without regard to who I am and what I care for. Here today and out the next. I could die in an instant, I could also become a millionaire the next (suppose I joined the lottery, or had a great great great great grand aunt who decided to pass on her riches to me, improbable, but not an impossibility). 

I started to also look at other people’s lives and nitpick its superficialities - success was an illusion, money’s just a made up currency, everyone’s just trying to be famous, everyone’s just trying to survive — which, being a worse critic of myself than of others, also led me to introspect and look at all the supposedly weighty things I’m doing, and really seeing them as they are: just empty day to day pursuits that give me something to post about on social media.

It wasn’t until I accepted my vulnerability, the fragility of my life and of everything else around me, until I had kneeled in prayer and surrendered to God all these things, and accepted Him for Who He is —  the creator and sustainer of all things, able to give life and take it at any moment He pleases; on Whom I am solely dependent, for Whom my life should be lived. You’d think that as a Christian, this was one lesson you learn, clock in, file in your brain, then move on to the next — but what I’ve realised is that the crucified life is a moment by moment surrender, and it can be excruciating, but it’s also the only way to truly live free.

I still sometimes wake up in the middle of the night feeling like I’m drowning in abysmal anxiety, struggling to go back to sleep, let alone breathe. I still cry during take-offs, and I’ve nights when I just can’t seem to drive my own car… but it’s gotten a lot better. The worst things that could happen still keep playing out in my head, but I also remember that the best thing has already happened. Christ is Risen, and my God is sovereign. I will allow myself to be anxious on days when I just can’t help but be anxious, and as long as I anchor my faith in the eternal, everything else will make sense.

So many other things, really, to be grateful for. I had the best brands I worked with and endorsed this year, I hosted for three shows in my network, my digital platform keeps evolving, and now my podcast (which only started out as a passion project) is a full-blown digital talk show. The past few years, it seems, have been a lead-up to 2019. All that painstaking rah-rah-rah that I had to keep repeating to myself whenever I felt like I had reached (yet another) detour, or another bitter end to a relationship, a job, or a fight with my family — it all leads up to this moment of wholeness: where my God has allowed for me to thrive in both my personal and professional life, a career in full-fruition, a startling love-revelation, and the most tender family-restoration; right when I expected it the least, and when I had needed it the most. 

This right here feels like the perfect cue to go all motivational on you and tell you that you only need to power through difficult seasons and one of these years, eventually, you’ll get your own version of 2019 too (if you haven’t already) — a time-space glitch in the Matrix where everything just seems to be going right. But the reality, really, is that for some people, a 2019 never comes, and all we’re dealt with are seasons after seasons of a steady mix of both the good and the bad. And when it’s really bad, sometimes all we get are the tough seasons, compiled in one mushy, squirmy pile of a year. But I reckon living life meaningfully has a lot to do with taking both the gains and the losses, and not letting it define who you are - instead, growing exponentially beyond it, and seeing them as they are: just gains and losses in the constant flow that is life, until Kingdom comes and there is no more. So how do we find purpose? If, whether good or bad, the key to a happy life is the perspective in which you operate no matter what circumstances you’re dealt with, then how does anything gain meaning?

Well, in Christ I’ve found life’s deepest meaning, and death’s sweetest resolution. In Him, I see people as souls that need to be saved, valued, served, and loved absolutely. Through Him, my work has meaning, in that I am of service not only to those who I work with and for, but ultimately, to the Master of it all - my skills, my hands, my gifts, my opportunities. Because of Him, life makes sense, even though it is fleeting - because I understand that the deepest longings in my heart that could never seem to find its satisfaction in the things of this world - albeit them being the most wonderful, fascinating things a girl could ever have the audacity to conjure up in her most ideal realities - have found satisfaction in Him, and in the eternity He promises awaits me. I never prayed for this level of ‘wholeness’ in my life. I guess a part of me always felt like I didn’t deserve it (and I don’t), but also mostly because good seasons make me anxious in bracing myself for the next few ones that might not be as grand. But I’m incredibly grateful for it, and I’m even more joyful in knowing to Whom I’m grateful.  

Only by His grace can I face another year without fear, after I have experienced this terrifying, all-encompassing, sublime level of elation; because I know that even if I get something stale after I’ve had feasts to my heart’s content, not only will I have the outpouring favour of remembering this beautiful year I had, but I’ll also always have Eternity to look forward to; and nothings is ever too good, or too bad, compared to what is yet to come in Christ Jesus.

In that note, I wish you a blessed new year. May God grant you the delight of truly knowing and loving Him — through which comes the understanding of life’s deepest meanings. As this year I fully step into the role of being a wife, and open the decade with an entirely new book that I get to write with my husband, I’m asking that you pray for us. May God strengthen our love and allow it to grow ever exponentially, with Him right at the center.

As for you, my dear friends, may you serve and love others, and celebrate life with the clearest vision, as prescribed by the year itself (2020 vision, get it?). 

Blessings, and with love always,

JP