Tahanan

All my dreams are coming true this year and every few days I get hit with that reality. My life has been so marked by heart break and pain. Milestones are times when I overcame something hard and learned lessons from it. This last year and a half since falling in love with my partner I am often taken aback by happiness. It may be a lifetime of unlearning that good things don't always mean that bad things are on the horizon. I have learned some in these last couple of months just to celebrate and to enjoy what's happening and silencing the irrational fear that it could all just end in a moment. I deserve good things too, even though I'm still healing. If I am not vigilant I find my mind stepping back into times of extreme pain and I start creating contingency plans of survival. 

Survival. For the first time in my life I do not feel like I am living everyday in survival. I feel so absolutely spoiled because now I don't worry about what to eat or how to pay my bills. I feel safe for the first time ever. I finally feel like I belong. I finally feel like I am thriving. I choose to receive that and choose to fight the urge of false guilt and feeling like I do not deserve this because so many people are still hurt and lonely. I don't want to make anyone feel bad for celebrating the goodness that my life has come to. I want to invite people into this story that God has written for me because it's so much better than what I had written for myself.

My life had been for so long wrought with pain and loneliness and longing. I needed to take care of myself. I needed to take care of my family. This is as good as it gets. Maybe next time. One day. 

That one day is now. The next time is right here. I get to celebrate and step into endless gratitude because of how far I've come. I get to invite people into celebration. I get to invite people into hope. That hope is alive and real and does not disappoint. 

All my dreams are coming true and I feel like I am standing under a waterfall after long hot hike up the mountain. I am refreshed and restored under the water. I am overflowing with light and love and I mustn't keep it all to myself. 

We bought a house and I am moving in this weekend. A house, I've always dreamed of owning one. I tried saving up for one but every time I tried saving up for one something always came up and I spent all the money for other things. A house, a home. A place to dig roots, a place to mark up the walls and make into our own. A place to invite people to feel safe and to rest. 

In tagalog home translates to "Tahanan" from the root word "Tahan" which means to stop crying. In my language, a home is a place where you stop your crying.