•••
06
April 1, 2018
Sunday
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Dear Cloud,
Hi baby.
It’s a beautiful Sunday afternoon right now. I’m currently onboard a plane, the destination: back to our country, to home.
And since it’s a Sunday, that means we’re allowed to be honest.
Since that’s the way it has always been for me.
Today, I’ve never been more happy.
I’m happy and overwhelmed and excited because the Springtime brought you to me and because of you, I was allowed to restart my life over again. I am able to reinvent myself until I become a better version of Me. To continuously adapt and transform with everything life has blessed, gifted and thrown at me so that I can make my way towards You.
You who are everything and you who mean everything to me now.
Which is why I now know what’s in store for me. What’s waiting. It’s such an impossible dream but I know, I feel it in my soul, that I’m shaping my life to become better for you.
To prepare for you.
I also know that right now, I’m the one thing, and only thing in my life I can control and yeah. I do have a lot to work on because a convenient, easy, safe yet wonderfully challenging, and happy life is what I aim for, what I want to give you. And while it will take so much hard work, patience, faith and time, mixed in with more blood, sweat and tears, these can and will be built in 6 years.
For now, I’ll do right by our promise and begin piecing our life together with what I have. Laying down the foundation for the next great adventure of my life. To start working on and writing out the first draft of tomorrow—a tomorrow that leads to the reality of you.
And these will be built from love and everything I love right now, and the happiness I chase. Because the best things in life are mostly free and I am blessed to be able to grasp most of what makes me incredibly happy in my hands because they are right in front of me.
Such as being blessed with the unconditional love and support I get from my family—our family. Like the wonderful opportunities of being able to see the world and everything it has to offer with new eyes. Being able to enjoy the Universe’s kindness through the reality of real friends and strangers. To also seeing each day as an opportunity to keep learning and growing, while also failing upwards too, towards the best version of ourselves.
But do you know what’s a favorite of mine from all these, the one that can make me instantly incredibly happy?
It’s the music and all the songs I get to listen to. And all the rest that’s just waiting to be made and discovered and then listened to—once or always, anytime, and on repeat even.
There’s so much of the world to uncover, and I promise you we will do these together, but the hard cold truth is that sometimes that takes time and a lot of money—things I don’t always have. But, mang, we are so lucky, so blessed, because music?
Music will always be there. It has been there for me, for my Home, and now it will be there for you.
It will be there for you whenever you need it, or even when you think you don’t need it. For music has been there for me since I can remember and will play such a huge part in our lives.
It has helped me go through hard times and happy ones. It’s what keeps me sane and pulls me back from walking off the ledge, over and over again. It’s what helps me keep the faith and keeps me a little farther away from the Bully and Death, helps me manage my Issue, drowns out what might hurt me and shields me from all the words that can cut me down like knives, words shaped like bullets aimed at my soft, human heart and my struggling hypothalamus. It’s what anchors me, keeps my heart in the clouds and my feet on the ground, and reminds me constantly that music connects me to Home—no matter how far apart we are from each other.
And I am excited for you. Excited for you to hear and feel how music and songs will be there, just for you, patiently waiting for you.
I can’t wait for you to listen to your first song. To discover new music and see what makes your ear holes and soul so happy you can’t help but dance.
I’m also excited for the songs that will pull at your heart gut and make you feel everything. And the music that makes you cry. And cry.
And cry some more.
I want you to hear, and really listen, and let your soul, mind and body embrace everything and I am so, so, soooo excited for you. You have no idea, my darling.
I cannot wait for you to find your favorite band or musician, discover what you’ll consider as your favorite songs. I cannot wait for you save up your allowance to buy your first CD and listen to an album straight for the first time, because that will never ever happen again. To really crack open the plastic wrapper and mull over the album and absorb everything and anything from this piece of important plastic. I cannot wait for you to beg me to take you to this gig or ask for tickets to this concert for your next birthday—and I promise, to always, anytime say yes, begrudgingly even when I know you have school or exams the next day (but if you’re grounded, that’s another story, dear).
I cannot wait for you to cry over a band breaking up, or a music legend you look up to passing away. I cannot wait for you to get weird and sad and whiney over a musician that makes your heart burn. I cannot wait for you to keep discovering and listening to new genres and getting to learn how to appreciate every one of them without bias because good music is good music is good music, regardless of what other’s opinions are about them (—music appreciation is yours and yours alone. Accept rec’s, but my goodness, don’t stop listening to what you like just because someone else doesn’t appreciate these. Don’t also force your favorites on anyone. Just offer these and then allow them to build their own appreciation or opinion on your musical taste. But don’t worry, I have amazing taste in music so you’ll definitely have this as well since it’s ingrained in our DNA.)
I cannot wait for you to come up with your own playlists and mixtapes, arranging the songs and letting them flow and sound good to you and to whoever you want to gift these to. Or when you make these for yourself to commemorate your favorite experiences or even those that suck or make you feel like shit. I cannot wait for you to associate songs to feelings and experiences and even people. I cannot wait for you to feel the most kilig over songs, muling the lyrics and connecting them to your latest muse. I cannot wait for you to rage about something that annoys you, that you listen to angry music so that you could be as spiteful and petty without hurting anyone and just release all that violence by listening to anything loud and mad and then calm down after such a deafening but mood-changing music experience. I cannot wait for you to hide away and tear up when someone breaks your heart and you listen to sad songs on repeat for comfort (—I’ll make sure to bring you chocolate, bought or homemade, and wrap you in hugs and pepper your face with kisses, and just stay quiet, and to just listen if you want to share the sadness with me.)
But most of all, I cannot wait for you to love OPM, to really listen to the lyrics that come in Filipino or English, or both, or in a different dialect, or any genre or form these songs come in. I want you to love old songs, the classics, and appreciate and discover new local artists and support them by sharing their music with more people. I want you to love the songs that make up your history and the songs that you will carry with you forever and will fit into any mood, or your feels, or experiences you live out.
There is so much to be excited for, my dear. So while you are not here yet, allow me to make you playlist after playlist of the songs I love and I hope you will soon love too.
But if you don’t, it’s okay. I just hope you still listen either way.
Love, always, anytime
Your mother
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