i’m tired. i feel tired for taking care of the negligence of others. and by others, i mean my loved ones. people who are dearest to me. i’m so tired of saving them. i’m so tired of taking the responsibility. i am tired, but i love them.

i wanna runaway, but at the same time, i don’t want to. i can’t. i love them and i want to save them as long as i can.

as much as i don’t want to stress myself of it, i really could not help it. i’ve been trying my best to get out of the financial insecurity spiral. my parents didn’t really know the correct way of handling money, so i can’t deny that i grew up with little to no financial security.

so when i am finally able to earn on my own, i’ve been trying my best to get on top of my finances, i try my best to educate myself for it -- to be financially literate, but it’s so much of a challenge when the people closest to me, the people within my circle (i’m not saying all of them), are not on the same page as mine. they don’t give enough importance to financial literacy, financial security and financial independence as much as i do.

they don’t try to handle money well enough and every time they mess up, every time they incur a debt they cannot handle, they run to me so i could save them. then, it stresses me out. it changes my mood. it annoys me. i get mad on the inside. but i can’t say no to them. i always try to save them. i always do.

and so no matter how much i try, i am always back to square one on fixing my finances. it’s so hard to pick myself back up when they (unintentionally) drag me down every time i thrive.

it’s a tough battle because these are the people closest to me. so i still am not sure how to manage this well. for now, i am not yet sure what to do. i am still having trouble with saying no, but i hope i could be of influence. little by little, i am trying be open to them about my journey. i try to share to them what i know and what i do. i try to encourage them to read what i read and watch what i watch. but i must admit, that these tasks are no easy. it’s so much of a struggle as well. so i am trying to learn to focus my energy on myself first. to work on the things that i have some control over. i have to learn to stop stressing myself out for the things and people that are out of my hands and out of my control.

I HAVE TO LEARN TO SAY NO.

i hope by the end of this year, i can finally say that i am already financially secured, but if it’s too huge as a goal within this timeframe yet, i hope at least i can say that i am at 25% of my journey towards financial security. baby steps. just baby steps.

my definition of financial security, by the way, is “the peace of mind felt when we aren’t worried about money. often, this means having enough income to comfortably cover expenses, being debt-free, and having savings to cover emergencies.” (source: oberlo.com)

my current standing is, i am debt-free but with TOO MANY bills to pay every month (for myself, for our household and for a family business that is distressed and greatly financially mismanaged) with no emergency savings anymore. maybe i can create another entry in the following weeks so i can dive deeper into these.

let’s check back on this by the end of this quarter, shall we?

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on a separate note, i want to be very open and honest with this blog as much as i can, while at the same time, keeping some privacy still. and so i hope that no one in real life cares enough to visit this site at all anymore.

but if you happen to be reading this and you're someone i know in real life, anything and everything that you see on here, please keep them to yourself. whatever is on this blog should remain on this blog.

nevertheless, it's an honor that you took the time to visit my humble little corner on the internet. thanks! i hope you get a learning or two =)

you can have flaws, be anxious, and even be angry, but do not forget that your life is the greatest enterprise in the world. only you can stop it from going bust. many appreciate you, admire you and love you.

hello there! happy saturday!

i am in the office as of typing. yes, on a saturday, because i had to attend some meeting to resolve some difficulty that we have encountered at work. but it’s not so much of a trouble or anything like that. we just talked about how we will be able to manage our time better and stuff like that, so we can be on top of everything and meet deadlines. it was a good talk with the team. i love conversations like that. i love to talk about improving one’s self and the whole team as well.

anyway, i am supposed to grab my lunch now so i could be on time for another meeting (outside my full time job) at 1pm this afternoon, but it’s raining hard outside with some thunder every few minutes. so there’s no way i can go outdoors at this point yet. also, i forgot my umbrella after drying it off last night. oh no, not a good time to forget it. gosh.

so now, i’ll have to wait for the rain to subside. i hope it subsides the sooner possible.

it feels good to be able to spontaneously hit my fingers on the keyboard and type something down here. i can feel a little bit of nostalgia. i am reminded of those days when i used to blabber anything and everything on here. even if it already meant “over-sharing,” i just didn’t care.

these days, it worries me to over-share. or it doesn’t really worry me. it’s just that... i am no longer comfortable to share too much about myself and my life online. or maybe i have made an unfavorable decision of sharing my blog out in the open. and by that, i mean... linking it on my instagram account and other socials where people in real life can see and visit it anytime. maybe i was just happy and proud of how this blog turned out that i got giddy and excited to share it to everyone. not the right move, i guess? but it wasn’t bad either. it’s just... it made me feel uneasy.

with that, i made the decision to remove the link. i thought of changing my url, but the domain that i currently have ain’t free and there’s no way i should waste it, so okay, let’s stick with this for now.

uhm.. no, there’s no way i am hiding anything on here. it’s just that this blog was initially created for my future self, and well... maybe for the “strangers” online. i’ll have to put the emphasis on s t r a n g e r s, so you’ll get what i mean.

i don’t know. i just feel like i want to remain mysterious in real life where they can’t do anything but just assume stuff about me. hmm... i think i used to be really mysterious until i became active on my socials. but idk, maybe i was still intentional with the stuff i shared, but sometimes, i feel like i should have not shared them, ‘cos it seemed that i gave too much info about myself, and that’s not so me. or at least, not the way i knew myself.

on another note, i don’t have social media apps (except messenger) on my phone for a week now, and i feel great. but i’m planning to only have instagram on my phone every two weeks, and just on weekends, then uninstall it again before monday starts. i’m perfectly fine with no facebook and twitter on my phone. i can just open them on my latptop whenever i have to.

alright, i think this is enough blabbing already. i just wanna say hi.

hey, there! here's a collection of photos and clips i got during our most recent buruanga trip, but before that i'd like to put out some quick (which ended up to be a bit lengthy) side note that has nothing to do with these photos that i'm about to share.

hmmm... i'm in this stage in my life again that i'm quite hesitating to share stuff on my social media accounts, but if you know me, i'm such a memory hoarder. i love documenting stuff. i love collecting photos and videos of both the special and simple moments, and i like to put them out in some place that i could always go back to whenever, wherever. social media is pretty much the easiest medium that i could put them into, but gosh, i really got this love/hate relationship towards them that i can't stay on them for too long or else i'm gonna lose my sanity.

facebook, oh facebook. i don't share too much in this platform 'cos it's just too crowded for me. although i don't have lots of facebook friends, i still feel like there are tons of eyes in there, so i always drop this every time.

late in 2019, i deleted my instagram account because it felt like it was serving me no good any longer. i had a good number of followers in that old account back then -- from my family to my friends and acquaintances in school, and even up to some strangers that i never met, but then one, day it just felt like i am no longer comfortable posting stuff that many people could see, also the newsfeed felt overwhelming. and my best way out at that time is to permanently delete that account, and so i did. not too long after, i created a new one to serve as some creative outlet for me, and it was actually initially created to serve as some little extension of this blog. i used to have it in public, but recently, i decided to put it in private because i grew a little uncomfortable with the public feature again. idk, i'm just uncomfortable with people knowing my whatabouts and whatnot, although i'm pretty sure no one cares, anyway.

twitter... the same thing happened. i deleted my old account and recreated a new one. i have been keeping the new account as intimate as it could since then, and i always make sure to delete followers that i don't know. it's the place where i share my random thoughts that i usually don't say aloud, so i'd like to feel safe in there as much as possible.

okay, okay, i don't think i'm putting my point across at this time yet and i have already blabbed to much, so to cut the story short, i'm in torn. i always want to post photos and videos in social media to serve as my gallery of memories but then, i'm again at this point where i don't like to post too much on those platforms. i don't like to show people (especially those i know in real life) what i'm currently up to. that's why, i'm back here again... trying to revive this blog for the nth time already. this is my safest place, my humble abode here on the internet, because if i post something in here, nobody could see it right away unless they will intentionally visit this site. if you know me personally, i really am not the kind who would tell stuff about me that the other person aren't curious about. if you don't ask, i won't tell. that's it. this blog is for myself and i post here for me, but if you're curious, you're always welcome to pay a visit. =)

by this time, allow the following photos to tell a quick story of this trip.

we quickly stopped at the longest bridge of aklan and took some few pictures before the rain started pouring hard.

and this is another quick stopover in jawili falls, aklan.

we were like playing inside with the vehicles as we tried to take photos on this landmark.

and after some three to four hours of travel (including the quick stopovers and our breakfast), we're almost here. this is the way to the resort's entrance.

and finally we're here!

we needed to go uphill to get to the entrance of the resort and then downhill to get to the main area. it was breakthtaking, yes! lol.

what a beautiful view right here.

and of course, i always need to take some mandatory shoe-fie every time i get to visit a new place. *wink wink

and the resort people welcomed us with some delicious lemonade.

we're now ready to dip ourselves in the salty water.

then, i watched them ride the kayak.

we then went up and enjoyed the cold water in the pool.

the dishes we had for lunch were really appetizing!

this is my most favorite group photo during the trip (insert jude who took this photo haha).

okay, i'm awkward like that. well, thanks to bam and her boyfriend for this photo and most of the photos.

and we chilled by the beach. they drank beer while i enjoyed the view ('cos i don't drink, nope).