Tag Archives: changes

A Promise to be Grateful

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2024 has been full of challenges and wonderful things. Looking back, I can only go, “Whew! I thought I wouldn’t survive that!”

In late June I moved back to the Philippines for good. New house, (kind of ) new workplace. Having worked abroad for 21 years, I did not find it easy readjusting to life here. And I thought I could get our house ready in the first two weeks of my arrival, but it took me a couple of months to make the place feel like home. And even now there’s still much to be done!

There’s work, and my PhD, and conferences to attend and papers to write, and my son getting sick, and me getting sick — October was the peak of challenges. I was ready to give it all up. But like good things, bad things, too, come to an end.

All in all, 2024 has been a good year. All the challenges I’ve met this year made me stronger in my faith, and in my appreciation for my husband and my son, and everyone who has been good to us as we start a new chapter in our lives.

So for 2025, I look forward to starting the year with gratitude, and finding things to be grateful for every single day. Just as Donna Cameron started A Year of Living Kindly years ago, I hope I can have years of living with gratitude as well.

Thank you for stopping by, and I wish you and your loved ones a very happy and meaningful 2025.

Blessings,

Therese

Daily Prompt: Passenger

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passenger

I can see the island from here,

A part of me is eager to see

What it has to offer,

What kind of people I’ll meet.

But a voice inside me tells me,

“This island won’t be any different

From the one you just left. 

The stories you will see 

Unfold before you,

Will have the same plot,

Different characters,

But the same endings

Because you are the same you. 

Wherever you go.

Your story never changes.” 

T.

 

Daily Prompt: Passenger

Changes, Transitions and the Passing of Time

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JMU at 6A.M.

Yesterday I went out for a walk at about 5:15 in the morning. These days sunrise is usually around 5:30. As most of the students have already left for the summer, the campus was blissfully quiet when I walked around.

Jimei at 6:30 P.M.

In the evening, I went out again after spending the whole day working on the computer. This time I went out of the campus. I took a picture of this new bridge that will replace the rickety temporary one that they put up after closing the old underpass, which I kind of miss because of the memory I have of the people who were always there during my first year here: the friendly fruit lady, and the old man who played the erhu, the melody of which echoed around the walls of the underpass and even above ground.

Jimei at 7:15 P.M.

Getting back to the campus, I walked towards the west side. I  took a photo of these new apartment buildings situated in what I used to think was a swamp. A taxi driver whom I’ve known for as long as I’ve been here once told us that they used to take a boat from their home on the southern part of the district to this place where these buildings are now.

For me, Jimei  has changed so much in just over a decade. For the quinquagenarians and older, even more so.

Everything changes. Everyone changes. 

All one can do is move on.

Have a lovely weekend!💕
T.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Delta