Original entry of these thoughts of mine was dated 25 October 2010... exactly one month after our vacation retreat.
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We are back... from a "retreat vacation" we gave ourselves to just get away from it all.
I realized looking through my previous entries that the last time I actually wrote in our son's blog was August. Thinking back now, it was very much intentional. I had my reasons for not doing so and one of them is that I usually feel quite vulnerable expressing my raw emotions in this blog. I couldn't help but feel judged - or worse pitied - by people who follow our journey through this online journal. It almost felt like being naked in front of hundreds of people.
When is personal, too personal? I felt Jhon and I had an obligation to share our experiences in this blog to help others who are also going through the same tasking journey. We felt we had a mission to help. But where do we draw the line?
I never stopped writing, it is my form of release and expression. I still wrote in my personal journal and there I jotted down every emotion I felt without repression. I was free to be me.
Though I felt this little blog of Marcus shouldn't stop with entries of only sadness and grief. There should be progress. People and parents going through their own grief should be told that there is light at the end of the tunnel. That eventually life will get better again. This precise entry is just about that.
This is our story - at least from my point of view - of our one month journey to real recovery. A milestone.
When September came and the topic of my birthday came up, I suggested to Jhon that maybe a weekend away would be fabulous. The thought of just disappearing far away from the chaotic city life sounded very enticing to us. We collectively agreed that we were finally ready to travel and that was a good sign, it was progress on our part.
We eventually realized that a weekend away just did not seem enough time to recover from all the stress we were experiencing. So why not a full month then? And so we did.
We needed a break. We needed a totally different atmosphere. So Jhon and I (together with Lola Talula) packed our bags and headed to a tiny island paradise that is called Boracay. There we rented a beautiful apartment atop a mountain, the highest peak of the island away from the tourist crowd and noisy party scene. It was our place of Zen for one month.
We found the peace we did not know we were craving for and greatly needed all this time. The setup God blessed us with was the perfect scenery for a personal retreat. Just to be able to hear yourself think and listen to your own thoughts was precious.
Jhon and I agreed that we had to detach ourselves from everything we got accustomed to in the city. We took great effort into forgetting about technology and that included cellphones and the internet. We barely even watched television.
We immersed ourselves in books about self-realization and reflection. After 4 years from the first time I read Your Best Life Now by Joel Osteen I began my retreat by reading this inspirational book from cover to cover. Little did I know that by reading this book I will reach the pinnacle of my recovery. I am forever changed.
To be blessed with a spectacular view that we wake up to every morning aided us even further. Everyday, we get up and are greeted by the beauty of nature in all its glory... the favor of God. I couldn't help but be thankful of each passing day. It was pretty hard to ignore each day that we were blessed with and it made me see the beauty of life once again. I was still very much missing my baby Marcus though now I was seeing him in the beauty of nature. I felt him in the gorgeous sea breeze, I saw him in the turquoise blue waters, in the blue skies, the green mountain tops. I confidently felt that he wanted us to be better, he wanted us to be happy again. He reassured me that he is happy and at peace in every rainbow we see.
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