HAPPY NEW YEAR - 2016!

It is January 1^st today and I am happy. I am happy because it is 2016, and I am happy about the experiences I had in 2015. I will summarize some of the best things that happened in my life during 2015:

• March 5th, 2015 was my five-year wedding anniversary and I surprised my wife in a romantic way. I had dreamed about surprising her like that for more than a year, maybe 2 to 3+ years before I did. That was one of my favorite days of all-time. The New Year (2016) wasn’t as fancy but I had a similar feeling, I love you Emafe and I love being in your presence :)


• October 1^st, 2015 was the official launch date of It’s More Fun In Davao City, a project that will eventually include the most comprehensive website about Davao City, Philippines.

Throughout 2015 there have also been many developments in Davao City: Local developers have pledged to build more shopping malls, subdivisions are finally finishing up their amenities and a lot of roads + highways have been widened. This makes me happy, especially since we invested in a small house. Our family as a whole also did very well last year. 

Thank you everyone, I am signing off now, I just wanted to share my happiness. I will read this in the future so I remember 2015 and the start of 2016.

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PRESENT

At Paradise Island with my wife and her younger brother (mid-2014)

March of 2015 will mark the 5 year wedding anniversary that I share with my wife. It will also be my 6th year in the Philippines starting in August of this year. The longer I stay, the deeper I think. I usually think about how I would envision my future before and the beautiful things I ended up experiencing.

I am sure I am not the only one who thinks more deeply as time goes by. I don't think it has as much to do with moving to the Philippines as it has to do with getting older. That leads me to point out that humans are constantly thinking since there are so many thoughts that travel in a person's mind.

One of the things I think about is patterns. I notice patterns in my life that happen over and over again. Some of them are positive and some of them are negative. A specific pattern that has happened in my life more than once is starting a new life. I started a new life when I was adopted into a foster family and I started a new life when I left my foster family and friends to join the military in 2002. I also started a new life in 2009 when I moved to the Philippines.

The important thing for me is breaking the old patterns and continuing the cycles that benefit me and the people I love. I am okay with moving around and changing my country of residence, but I don't want to let time and distance divide me from people who helped me and encouraged me to grow. It's a noble concept but in a world where everyone's busy and travel isn't cheap, it isn't always achieved. I however have confidence that if I start now I can slowly reconnect with everyone in my past and bring together the bits and pieces of my 'pasts' and unite them with my present.

At the fishpond in Davao City w/my wife and her dad (December of 2014).

At another park in Davao City w/my wife, her brother & mom (November of 2014).

Next to my wife and her brother + cousin (4th quarter of 2014)

Eating w/my wife, her brother and two of her cousins (October of 2014).

Meetup w/friends we met from YouTube (September of 2014).

Meetup w/more friends we met from YouTube (4th quarter of 2014).

Meetup with friends from YouTube again (January of 2015).

Meetup w/our friend Vengie (4th quarter of 2014).

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4 Year Anniversary & Finding Happiness

This is one of my favorite birthdays and it is also one of my happiest. I can feel how much I am loved and cared for and I also have the support of my wife to do more than what I am capable of doing myself. This is our 4 year wedding anniversary and it is also my 29th birthday.

We have been through a lot of mental and emotional trials but through it all I have become a better person, and through it all I have grown to love Fema more and more. And through it all I have felt more loved and cared for than I ever have.

This is an official thank you to my wife, Emafe Rice (Fema) for standing by me.. for loving me.. for sacrificing and suffering through my own weaknesses and hardships. This is a letter of happiness for finding the person of a lifetime.. for falling in love and finding happiness.

I love you Fema. Don't stop believing in your dreams and remain happy with me and your loved ones. We are in this together!

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Happy Birthday for 2013!

I have seen you struggle in life and I know about the struggles you went through before we met. And I know how difficult it is to be the responsible one, the one who remembers, reminds, organizes, disciplines, plans and corrects.

But I have to believe that you and I will create the life of our dreams, and that I will somehow manage to get better. I believe this because I have to, and I believe this because it’s right.

I started taking a supplement a week ago and feel some results. I am not sure if it is just a placebo affect or not. But I will blog about it in a month or so. Hopefully by then I will have made some progress.

We go through hardship together but we are never alone. I am proud of the commitment we share, I am proud to be your husband, and I’m proud to be a part of everything you’ve accomplished.

Happy birthday on my blog again Love. I want to look back on the letters I write for you. Stay pretty, stay sweet and be with me always.

Happy Birthday Emafe!

Love, Your Husband Chris.

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Pasalubong - Symbol of Care

Photo Credit: André Karwath

I have not written a blog post in a while and the last one I wrote was a little intense. So instead of writing about life’s challenges, I am going to write about a tradition I learned from Filipinos in the Philippines. It’s the act of buying “pasalubongs” for people who cannot go with you on your travels.

As I suggested above, pasalubongs are gifts bought whenever you visit another region or country. It can be bought in your hometown for people you visit, or it can be bought when you travel for loved ones back home. It usually includes things like key chains and candy but imported chocolate is the gift of choice.

A pasalubong is a symbol of care.. it is a gift.. and a token of friendship. So make sure you buy a pasalubong whenever travel. It will be remembered as a kind gesture and an act of kindness.

Thank you Mama, Papa, Tita Flor, Tito Titeng, Sang and Chris, Jackie & Skat, Mimi & Peter, Dymes and everyone else who has given us a pasalubong over the years.

Yeah, it’s pretty common!

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My Hopes & Dreams . . . .

 

For those of you who do not know, I have been suffering from an illness that got me discharged from the military in December of 2005, two days before Christmas . It has left me mildly fatigued, depressed (not unhappy but with a lack of interest), and with severe bouts of avolition.

For friends and family who know me but do not live with me, I look fine. I can walk, talk, eat and go out for special and random occasions. But in the comforts of my own home, I am not fine. I have not carried out any of our household responsibilities that required fair amounts of time or consistent effort. And I have only been able to show people I care about them in heart (for the most part) as opposed to showing them with constant and repetitive actions.

I know that it is good for a person to accept themself and know their position in life, but being hard on myself is the only way that I can find the motivation to improve myself and find a better way.

I know this blog post is really intense and it is very personal, but I wanted to share this with the people who did not know or understand my situation.

These are the things that I want to accomplish on a daily basis without ever stopping. For some of you, the first few steps might seem easy, but I have not even done half of step 1 for five percent of the time since I moved to the Philippines (I had less responsibilities when I lived in the United States).

So that is where I am. Although I am behind a lot of other people in life, I am determined to get ahead, not in relation to other people but in relation to myself.

These are the list of goals that I have and they are the things that I want to accomplish as a man and a husband. I want to do these things so that I can live a good life and give a good life to those I love. 

Goals to Accomplish and Maintain by 2017

1. I want to be able to clean up after myself and our whole household on a daily basis

2. I want to be able to do a lot of things for my wife on a daily basis such as helping her with her work & projects or doing things like giving her a massage every night. She needs massages for her health and well being since she gets sick without them. It may be a stress or mental thing but she needs to receive them either way.

3. I would like to be able to handle all of our responsibilities on a regular and continuous basis (i.e. tourists visas, paperwork, immigration visas, taxes, household needs, fixes, etc. etc.)

4. I would like to be able to cook three meals a day and anything we need in between. I want to be able to work really hard and do what I want to do.

5. I would like to be able to do favors for friends and family such as giving them website advice, downloading things for them and sending them information about things that they need.

6. I would like to be able to find a profession that I can do, do well and make enough money to earn my own keep.

To my dear wife, Emafe Rice. . . 

Thank you for loving me and staying with me through all of my troubles. And thank you for supporting me and always encouraging me to do and be better, from step one all the way to step two. 

You have been and are my biggest inspiration and I will always look up to and admire the effort that you have put forth, from birth to where you are now. You have accomplished wonders my love and I am your biggest fan!

I love you :)
- Christopher

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Happy Birthday on Your Special Day - Thank You

Dear Fema,
I wish that I could say the perfect words to express how I feel, appreciate and cherish you as a person. The words "you are everything to me" does not give justice to the inner committment and appointed importance that my actions so desperately try to impress.

You have been by me for three straight years, and you know all of my imperfections. When I fall short you see my failures, flaws and shortcomings. You have shared the burden of my problems while working hard on my behalf, striving so that we can be happy and live a good life, from now and into the future.

Thanks for making up for all the things that I can't do, and thanks for being on my team and moving forward when I felt like it wasn't possible. You are and will always be amazing to me, and I am so very happy to have you in my life.

Happy birthday birthday girl. . . :)

I love you!!!!

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A Letter to My Wife for 2012

Dear Fema,

It is a new year and we already have so many more hopes and dreams.  I want you to know how proud I am of you for doing so many things that I am not capable of doing myself.  

A lot of people do not know how much work you put into filming, editing and blogging, but since I am always with you, I most definitely know.

It has been 2 years since you were first introduced to 24-hour internet access.  At the time, you did not know what YouTube was, how to "Google", film, edit, blog or crop, and you had to have me by your side to learn things everyday.  But look at you now and see how your shining! Your talking, writing and creating everything all by yourself. You are also more fluent in English and you teach me new things every day.

Sometimes it is hard to see how far we have come but it might help to remember the hopes of your past. Like wanting to be a YouTube Partner, adding a channel banner, filming in HD, reaching 1k, 2k, 3k, 4k, and 5,000 subscribers. And things like learning how to cut out your own pictures in Photoshop.  These may be minor accomplishments by themselves but as a whole they are "massive".
  

Continue striving and always remember to remember all the mini and macro accomplishments you have made along the way!

Love,

-- Chris

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Creating a Peaceful Life

Photo Credit: Rock Base


If I want anything I want a peaceful life, full of love, happiness and everyone I know safely included.  But as I've learned so well, recklessly trying to make things end the way I want and fighting every alternative off with a stick is useless, pointless and counter-productive.

Loving to the best of my ability now and today for as long as I can and as much as I can may be all that I can ever do.

Love & Happiness

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My Mom, My Memories & the Absense in My Heart :)

This blog post is about my mom, my memories and the absence that was left in my heart when we were separated.

Although it was traumatic for me, I don't really have any memories of my mother aside from wanting to be reunited with her since we were separated when I was very young. It is incredible what the human goes through and what we endure throughout our lives.

I don't know the whole story or what the details were, but as the story goes my mom left me with one of my Aunts or relatives promising she would return. Well, my Aunt had so many kids of her own and taking care of me along with her own proved to be an enormous task.  Somehow and for some reason the government got involved and took custody of me and placed me in foster care.

Hence, the beginning of my suffering.  Had I never been adopted and remained in my original family I may have suffered all the same but the life I lived is the life I know, and as a child and into my early adulthood suffering was always there.

It's hard when the person you're longing for, the person that you are most connected with, your mom, is unreachable.  Especially as a child when you're helpless, without options and not capable of assertive action.  All I did was long and suffer. I'm not sure whether there's another way to explain my experience aside from saying: You smile, you play, you do what you do as a kid but inside you are still hurting.

I lived that way until I was about 13 to 14 years old which is when I found out that my mother had passed away.  I hadn't seen her since I was 4 years old and I no longer had any memories of her. It was nothing but blurriness and emptiness.  I don't hold hard feelings against anyone but it's alarming that I was eventually told she passed away but for some reason the people who told me about her passing had no interest or at least very little interest in ensuring that I saw her while she was alive.  Such is life, imperfection, mistakes, and hindsight is always 20-20. Part of that was actually my fault for not acting, not pressing and not ruffling enough feathers.  But when a person is trained at a very young age that they'll never see their mother again, by the time they're 12, 13 and 14 they've pretty much lost hope.

But by the time I was 23 I had a new identity, new friends, and a new life.  Looking back, I would say that buying my first car in May 2009 was the beginning of my life as I know it today.  It is also the same time, at least by a month, that I met my wife Fema.  Those were beautiful days.  I would spend time with my friends in San Mateo, California eating dinners, laughing, talking and spending money to call Fema with calling cards and Skype.  I really enjoyed that time of my life as it was extremely magical.

I came to the Philippines full of inspiration and to my luck it played out according to my heart's desire.  Fema and I ended up enjoying each other in person as we did over the phone, and I had a real experience of bonding with her family in Manila and the province.  We got married here in Davao City, Philippines on my 25th birthday, March 5th, 2010.  It was and is a dream come true.


The painful absence has since left me.  And the inner suffering has vacated without a trace.  I still have daily challenges like everyone else, but underneath everything I'm at peace.  I'm a happy husband, a son to my new parents, and a brother in-law to my new brothers.

Although my life as I know it today started when I first bought my car, the transformation from inner suffering to inner peace started when I was 20 years old.  From then on, my outward and inward experience in the long run has continued to improve.  I cannot say what the future holds but hopefully it's bright and not just for me but for all of us!


Here is another photo of my mom:

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