To New Adventures. To Second Chances. To Life.

November 11, 2013. Three days after Yolanda, we evacuated to Cebu as our house was ripped apart and the living conditions in our city proved to be impossible for our two boys. In the days that followed, our lives changed dramatically, abruptly, tremendously.

The overwhelming weight of the reality of it all was too much to bear. But we bore it. With the love and kindness of family and friends. With the humanity of strangers from foreign lands, we were able to bear it.  One day at a time. We began to rebuild our lives, our house, everything that nature took its wrath upon.

Rebuild. To build again. To pick up the pieces and put them back together. To discard useless shards of whatever. To carry only what matters.

How does one start rebuilding? How does one begin the mending? The healing? I have no answers. All I know is that six months have passed and we are here now.

And all I know is that  we survived Yolanda, Haiyan, a rose by any other name. And the days that followed.

If there is one singular lesson I have learned from everything we have been through, it is this: To remember what is important.

What is important? What is my greatest truth? My boys. Garret and Morgan.

To survive the typhoon is to realize that I have been given a second chance at being the mother my boys deserve. To know I have been given the opportunity to do what I have been procrastinating to do for so long-- to make life an adventure, to make life a work of art, to live my life as a work of art. To be art. To be alive.

So yes, I've been attempting to work on my physical strength and stamina. Call it staying fit. Building strength. Recreating, reinventing my body. Crossfit. Something that is way out of my league, out of my comfort zone. I am not athletic by any means. But I have an able body. And muscles. Somewhere. (Haha.) And I have two boys who depend on me. Who will grow up to be bigger than me. Who will need me to be very much alive and, forgive the cliche, kicking. So I'll take any pain thrown at me to be the mama my boys deserve. And when the pain gets too be too much that it'll make me want to give up, I'll remind myself that today I am stronger than yesterday. And today was the yesterday I was afraid of, I was uncertain of. But today I am alive. And the kicking will come real soon.

So to the pathetic 22-pound kettle bell, to the sore muscles I did not know existed, to the joints and ligaments lying dormant for so long now awakened and stretched like hell, I will see you again tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and the next and the next. And I will work my butt off to do another 3 reps of ten lifts of you, darn you, with 3 reps of ten air squats and lunges, pull-ups and box jumps, even if it takes three shirts soaking wet and my breath going in and out hard and fast like I have never breathed before.

How does the rebuilding begin? How does one start the mending? The healing?

Could it be in the sweet delicious ache in every part of my body? That pain and that moment where my body is screaming "no more, no more!" Perhaps, this is where the healing begins.

So here's to new adventures. To second chances. To living my life as a work of art.

Here's to life.