The Woman I Didn't Expect to Become

I had a conversation about identities. We are clearly (at least I hope) not the same person in our 20s that we are in our 30s and 40s. So much has happened in the two decades since I decided I wanted to write a book. I grew up wanting to be a teacher like my aunt but underneath that want was a dream to be a writer. I held on that dream for so long. My first poetry acceptance was sometime in junior high/high school. I don't remember what it was about or to whom I sent it to but I remember getting a letter with my poem and that acceptance letter.
College me befriended an Evangelical at Texas Women's University and I started to explore my faith; mostly questioning the Catholic faith and why we believe and do all the things. I was to put it mildly, so into this searching for God and who I was supposed to be that I know I set some pretty rigid and high standards for what friendships and relationships should look like. To be perfectly honest, I judged everyone. I was not a person you probably wanted around. ​

me and my husband in 2005

Ellie and I in the NICU

And then I fell in love and my view of faith started to change when I was diagnosed with Preeclampsia. Motherhood truly changes you. I don't know if 30 year old me and 20 year old me would have gotten along. While my faith didn't truly waver - I still believed - I saw faith through Mary's eyes. I prayed over my child, over the sickness and multiple visits to the hospital. I would do anything for her. But I instinctively knew that she wasn't truly mine. She was her own person with her own dreams and hopes. One day, she will leave, make mistakes and do all the things while I watch from a distance. 

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Ro in the NICU

And then I had my little dude.
​I had postpartum depression and saw and felt darkness and despair. It was a different type of prayer, a different type of helplessness in the middle of wanting to be faithful. 
Faithful exactly to whom? To a Divinity that chose to ignore my cries at the time?
To a Father who didn't understand what a burden and hardship motherhood can be?
I bargained. I cursed.
I lost myself.
And in finding my way back did I realize that that in itself is faith in action. The unknown, the questions, the wavelengths. Faith is not linear. 
I am still a Believer in Christ. But the Christ I know questions, throws tables and bargains. A Man. 
The Christ I know died on the cross for the 20 year old me who judged everyone she deemed unworthy. 
The Christ I know sat with me in the NICU praying over a baby covered in tubes.
The Christ I know reached out while I was in the dark not to comfort or shine His light, but to give me strength to pull myself out. To will myself to live. ​

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Evolution

My dreams as a writer evolved as well. I wanted to be a romance writer and only write happily ever afters. But I hated writing the 'plot twist' of how the girl or the guy shows up to do unrealistic things such as moving across the country or choosing to be a Vampire instead of a human all in the name of love. I wanted to write 'realistic ever afters.' Endings true to the character and not how we hoped it would be. I wanted to write the 'next great American read,' that high schoolers across the country would pour over and discuss. 
I ended up writing the cliche 'write what you know.' If it wasn't so obvious by now, let me tell you a little of who I am in my 40s.
I write about motherhood; how this journey has shaped me, wrecked me and made me be who I am now. My preclampsia, my postpartum depression, my anxiety all of that is woven in everything I write. 
I write about who I am: a Filipina. An immigrant. A naturalized citizen. A Texan. I am simultaneously proud to be a Texan and fear that I've become complacent that this is just how things are and nothing we do will ever change who's in charge. I still show up to vote anyway. 
I write to advocate for issues I hope my daughter takes for granted one day. She wouldn't and shouldn't have to think twice about her reproductive rights. She wouldn't and shouldn't have to choose career or family. She wouldn't and shouldn't have to sacrifice her mental health. 
I write musings about my children; how their parents are trying to break not just generational 'curses' but intercultural challenges. 
I write for that 9 year old little girl dreaming about being a writer. Her biggest dream was to walk to a bookstore and find her name written on the cover.
​Guess what? We've done it and we'll do it again. We've been asked to share our stories in a panel, to an audience of 500 people. We've been interviewed. A stranger who heard you speak stopped you getting on an elevator to tell you about what your story meant to her - a new mama. And in Her Divinity, the Universe decided weeks before your planned return to the Motherland that all your musings and writings was noticed and your body of work in poetry, in advocacy was looked at. 

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Who am I now?

And maybe that's the point.
20-year-old me thought faith meant certainty.
30-year-old me thought faith meant endurance.
43-year-old me thinks faith is having the courage to keep showing up anyway.
To keep asking questions.
To keep writing.
To keep loving.
To keep believing that our stories matter.
I am no longer the girl who thought she had all the answers.
I am the woman who has lived long enough to know that certainty is overrated and grace is not.
I am a mother.
A wife.
A writer.
A Filipina.
A believer.
An advocate.
None of those identities exist separately. They inform one another. They challenge one another. They have all shaped the person writing these words tonight.
And maybe that is what becoming really is.
Not finding ourselves.
But returning to ourselves, over and over again, carrying a little more wisdom, a little more compassion, and a few more stories than before.
The girl who dreamed of seeing her name on the cover of a book was never really dreaming about a book.
She was dreaming about being heard.
And somehow, after all these years, she still is.

Teenage me in 1997/98

This is me

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Finding myself in advocacy