“God always offers us a second chance in life.” — Paulo Coelho
A while back, I was on the phone with my friend Kimi, and she said something that made me laugh.
Kimi: Yeah, it’s funny. I either really liked your exes or I couldn’t stand them.
Me: That tracks.
Kimi: Remember that one we had lunch with at Santana Row? The one from the East Coast? I liked her.
Me: Melissa?
Kimi: Yeah, that’s her.
Me: She was a pathological liar.
Kimi: Oh. Well, I remember she was really nice.
Me: Sure. Nice. Still lied about everything, though.
Kimi: Yeah, too bad. I liked her.
Me: Yeah… she was really hot.
And sometimes that’s exactly how it goes. Someone seems perfect, at least on the surface, and you ignore the tiny red flags flapping in the wind like a pride parade for bad decisions. The heart wants what the heart wants, and sometimes it wants a disaster… disguised as a hot lesbian.
It’s been over six years since that season of my life when everything basically imploded. But I found an old journal entry from about two years after my breakup with R, and reading it now was a mind trip.
Because I could hear myself in it.
Still angry.
Still hurt.
Still trying to make sense of something that didn’t make sense.
It was the year after COVID. I was living alone, golfing a lot, trying to figure out what a new normal even was. I had just started working again after months of navel-gazing and climbing out of my own trough of despair. Everything about that time felt disorienting.
And I remember thinking I was doing better. I thought I was ready to date again. I met someone. I liked her. I thought maybe this was it. And then, after a month, she told me she wanted to go our separate ways because she needed to “work on her gains.” Whatever that meant. That's not what I wanted (and what I want typically doesn't matter).
What exactly was I supposed to do?
Argue?
Beg?
Try to convince her to stay?
No. Absolutely not.
That’s insane. And a little desperate.
I’m not going to force someone to want to be with me who doesn’t want to be with me. I won't stay where I'm not wanted. And I don’t care what K-dramas are trying to sell us. Persistence is not romantic when the other person has already said no.
Wearing someone down until they finally choose you is not love.
It’s pressure.
It’s manipulation.
It’s wrong.
And I’ve never wanted to be chosen like that.
Reading that journal entry now, I realized something. That was one of the first times I really stood in that boundary. Not perfectly. Not peacefully. But clearly.
You do not get to choose me because I convinced you.
You either want to be here or you don’t.
Back then, I was still tangled up in my past relationship. I missed her. Then I didn’t. Then I did again. I remembered the good parts. Then I remembered the chaos. The hurt.
And if I’m being honest, what I felt the most was anger.
A lot of it.
I wrote things like “I really hate her” and meant it at the time. And I’m not going to pretend I didn’t feel that way. I did.
Because anger is easier than grief.
It’s easier than admitting you abandoned yourself for another person. That you trusted someone. That you built something with them. That it meant more to you than it did to them. That some part of you still wanted the story to end differently.
But here’s what I see now that I couldn’t see then. I didn’t actually want her back.
I wanted the version of myself that existed when I thought I was loved.
I wanted the certainty.
The belonging.
The feeling of being chosen.
And when that was taken away, I tried to control whatever I could.
My narrative.
My emotions.
My anger.
I used to say, “I don’t care if they’re happy. I don’t even wish them well. I just don’t want to be miserable anymore.”
And honestly?
That part still stands.
But it means something different now. It’s not about comparison anymore. It’s about peace. And I don’t believe in closure the way people talk about it. Closure isn’t something someone gives you. It’s just another way we try to hold onto hope that the story could’ve ended differently.
It didn’t. And I don’t need to keep going back to try to rewrite it. It is what it is.
But I needed to understand myself, who I was at that time, and why I wanted so badly to make something work that was never going to. Not because I wasn’t trying. But because we never made sense to begin with.
And what I’ve learned, slowly, painfully, and more than once, is this...
You cannot force love.
You cannot negotiate it.
You cannot earn it by being better, calmer, easier, or more patient.
And you should not have to. If someone wants to be with you, they will be. If they don’t, no amount of effort on your part is going to change that.
And that’s not rejection.
That’s clarity.
I’ve ignored that little voice in my head more times than I’d like to admit. The one that says, “This probably isn’t a good idea.” And me, historically, have said, “Shhh… let’s just see what happens.”
And what happens is usually nonsense.
But maybe that’s what second chances actually are.
Not another chance with the same person.
Not a chance to rewrite the past.
Not a chance to prove you were lovable all along.
Maybe it’s a second chance to listen to yourself.
To trust your gut.
To choose differently next time.
To stop mistaking chemistry for safety, or hope for compatibility.
I didn’t know who I was becoming back then. I said things like, “I’m living my life by my own rules… whatever that means.”
And honestly, I still feel that way sometimes.
But now there’s a little more grounding in it.
A little more trust.
A little less urgency to figure everything out all at once.
I don’t hate them anymore. I don’t carry it the same way. But I also don’t need to rewrite the past to make it prettier than it was.
It was what it was.
It was ugly.
It was messy.
It had moments of beauty and real love.
I don’t discount the good parts. But I also don’t romanticize it into something it wasn’t. And it taught me something I needed to learn.
You can’t force love.
And you have to learn to love yourself first.
Lenten Reflection: Second Chances and Inner Knowing
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” — Proverbs 3:5–6 (NRSV)
Lent is a season of deep listening.
Not just to God.
Not just to the world around us.
But to that still, small voice inside us that keeps trying to tell the truth.
The one we override.
The one we bargain with.
The one we hope is wrong because we want what we want.
Today, sit with this:
🔹 Where have I ignored my inner voice in favor of fantasy, fear, or loneliness?
🔹 What old heartbreak am I still trying to negotiate with instead of accept?
🔹 What would it look like to trust myself enough to choose differently?
Maybe grace looks like a second chance.
Not to go back.
But to move forward wiser.
Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. 🩷
“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
— The Fellowship of the Ring, JRR Tolkien
I’ve been around the block a few times. In dating. In life. In trying to figure out who I am and what I’m supposed to be doing here.
And if you looked at my life from the outside at different points, you could probably make a case that I was… wandering. Aimlessly. However, what I was doing...
Pivoting.
Starting over.
Walking away.
Trying something new.
Again and again.
And I think for a long time, even I wondered if I was lost.
When I was 33, I trained for a marathon. Which is funny, because I hate running. Always have. I ran track in high school, but I stuck to high jump, shot put, and discus. I could’ve gone to state. Running? Absolutely not.
But I decided to train anyway. And like everything I do, I didn’t just dip my toe in; I went all in.
Four months of training. Starting with a mile, working up to 25. They say if you can run 25, you can run 26.2. Weekend runs that took hours. Three-mile maintenance runs three times a week. The kind of commitment that makes you question your life choices. The entire time. But, mostly when the alarm went off at 7 in the morning and I had to crawl out of bed to go run 10 miles.
Most people can run a marathon if they’re physically able. The mind is a powerful thing. The real question is, what kind of person willingly does that to themselves?
Apparently… me.
I didn’t do it because I loved running. I did it because of my depression. I needed something to focus on. Something that forced me out of bed. Something that proved to me I could push through my own wiring, not erase it, not outrun it, but learn how to manage what was already there.
And of course, I didn’t just run any marathon. I ran the 27th Florence Marathon. In Italy. Because if I’m going to suffer, I might as well do it internationally.
And I finished it. And I never ran another marathon after that day.
My brother, on the other hand, ran cross country and still runs half marathons pretty regularly. Good for him. Love that for him.
I don’t run anymore. A back injury made long-distance running difficult. So now I play golf.
But the thing is… this was never really about running. It was about me. About how I move through life.
For a long time, I didn’t realize how avoidant I was. How my instinct, when things got hard or uncomfortable, was to leave. To move on. To start over somewhere else.
And if I’m being honest, that didn’t come from nowhere. It’s what I learned. Emotionally unavailable parents. Inconsistent nurturing. You figure out pretty quickly how to take care of yourself, and how to not need too much from anyone else.
Running just happened to be the perfect metaphor for that. Because we like to say life is a marathon, not a sprint.
But no one really talks about what it takes to run a marathon. You don’t just show up and run 26.2 miles.
You train for it. Constantly.
Even when you don’t want to.
Especially when you don’t want to.
And I think that’s the part I’ve been learning. You don’t get through the hard parts of life by running away from them. You get through them by staying. By doing the work. By building the endurance to sit in discomfort instead of escaping it.
You show up.
You try.
You mess up.
You try again.
And somewhere along the way, you get a little better. Or at least… a little more patient, and more conditioned for longevity.
Because that’s really what all of this is about, conditioning. Not just physically, but mentally. The thing I’ve learned, through all of it, is that the brain is powerful.
It can learn new things.
It can adapt.
It can rewire itself.
It can push you to run one more mile even when your body wants to give up.
But it also holds onto old stories.
Old memories.
Old hurts.
Old wounds.
And sometimes, we react to what’s happening today based on something that happened 10, 15, 20 years ago. Like it just happened yesterday. That’s where things get complicated because your body remembers. And we continue to carry that with us everywhere we go.
Into relationships.
Into friendships.
Into how we see people.
Into how we see ourselves.
We meet someone new, and without even realizing it, we’re already rewriting a new story with an old plot. Projecting old pain onto a person who hasn’t done anything yet. Assuming the ending before the story even begins.
I’ve done that.
We all do, in different ways.
But here’s what I understand now that I didn’t fully understand then. Wandering doesn’t mean you’re lost. It means you’re moving.
It means you’re trying.
It means you’re learning, sometimes the hard way, what works and what doesn’t.
It means you’re becoming.
I don’t think life is as linear as we were taught it should be. Career. Marriage. House. Stability.
I tried that version.
It worked… until it didn’t.
And for a long time, I thought maybe that meant I had failed. That I couldn’t stay. That I didn’t know how to build something that lasted.
But now?
I think I was just unwilling to stay in something that wasn’t right for me. That’s not failure. That’s awareness.
So yeah, I’ve wandered.
I’ve left things behind.
I’ve started over more times than I can count.
I’ve made mistakes. Different ones each time, but mistakes all the same.
But I’ve also learned.
I’ve learned to see red flags.
To choose differently.
To choose myself without abandoning myself in the process.
And I’ve learned that new people don’t deserve to carry the weight of old wounds. They deserve a chance to show up as who they are, not who I’m afraid they might be.
I don’t know exactly where all of this is leading. I don’t have some grand, polished answer about destiny. But I do know this, no matter how messy or ugly forward progression feels, it’s still better than falling backwards. And I’m still moving.
Still learning.
Still showing up.
Still trying to build something that feels real.
Not all those who wander are lost.
Some of us are just… on the way.
Lenten Reflection: Not Lost, Just Becoming
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” — Psalm 119:105 (NRSV)
Not a spotlight.
Not a full map.
Just enough light for the next step.
Lent is a season where we’re invited to slow down and pay attention, not just to where we’re going, but how we’re getting there.
And sometimes, it doesn’t feel clear. Sometimes it feels like wandering.
Like circling back.
Like starting over.
But maybe it’s not as chaotic as it feels.
Maybe it’s formation.
Today, sit with this:
🔹 Where in my life does it feel like I’m wandering?
🔹 What have I learned in the seasons I thought were detours?
🔹 Can I trust that I don’t need the whole path, just the next step?
You don’t need to have everything figured out.
You don’t need a perfect plan.
You just need enough light to take the next step forward.
And maybe that’s what becoming looks like.
Let’s keep going.
Take care of yourselves.
And take care of each other. 🩷
Back during COVID, I did what a lot of us did... spent a lot of time navel-gazing and cooking.
One of the things I wanted to get back to was cooking the food I grew up eating. Growing up, we sat at the table every night and had dinner together. I don’t remember what we talked about, but I remember the feeling. The routine. The intentional time together as a family.
It meant something.
And it’s one of the things I miss most from my childhood.
So I started cooking traditional Filipino dishes. And one in particular always brings me back to that place of comfort.
Lugaw.
It’s a simple Filipino rice porridge my mom made all the time when I was a kid. It’s not complicated, but it holds a lot. It can be either sweet or savory. It all depends on what you put into it.
My mom would make it when we were sick. It’s like the Filipino version of chicken noodle soup… but way better.
I’ve made it a few times now, and it never tastes the way my mom made it.
And I think that’s the point.
Food has this way of bringing you back in time. Not perfectly. Not exactly how it was. But close enough that you can feel it for a moment.
The warmth.
The memory.
The version of you that existed back then.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the past lately. Probably because of law school, probably because of life, probably because when things get busy, your brain likes to wander back to places that feel familiar.
And if you watch enough shows or movies, you start to notice the same themes over and over again, regret, resentment, revenge.
Holding onto what happened. Replaying it. Trying to make sense of it.
There’s a quote that stuck with me, “Resentment is a mental resistance to something which has already happened… an emotional rehashing, or re-fighting of some event in the past. You cannot win, because you are attempting to do the impossible, change the past.” — Maxwell Maltz
Because if I’m honest, I’ve done that. Replayed conversations. Revisited moments. Tried to rewrite outcomes in my head.
But the truth is… we can’t change what’s already happened.
We can only decide what we carry forward.
Which brings me, somehow, back to golf. Because everything in my life eventually loops back to golf.
There’s a quote by Bobby Jones: “One reason golf is such an exasperating game is that a thing we learned is so easily forgotten, and we find ourselves struggling year after year with faults we had discovered and corrected time and again.”
That’s not just golf.
That’s life.
We learn lessons. We grow. We think we’ve figured something out. And then somehow, we find ourselves right back in the same pattern, working through it all over again.
This year, I played in a winter golf league, so I didn’t feel like I was learning how to golf all over again once the season started. When I picked up my clubs and took them out into the wild, I wasn’t shanking the ball nearly as much as I would have if they’d been sitting in storage for four or five months.
And honestly… it felt good not to feel like I was starting over.
And I think that’s the point.
We don’t lose everything we’ve learned.
Even when it feels like we’re repeating ourselves, we’re not the same person we were the last time we were here.
I’m a creature of habit. I like structure. I like knowing what I have control over. And the truth is, we don’t have control over much.
But we do have control over how we spend our time.
Right now, most of my time is law school. Reading. Writing. Thinking. Trying to keep up.
But if the weather is decent and my body is willing, I’ll go play a round of golf. Only after I’ve done what I need to do.
Because that’s something I learned as a child finish your homework and chores, and then you get to go play.
And I still believe in that.
Also, if you need an emotional support beverage or cheese stick to get through your day, of tedious adulting, I fully support that too.
We do too much in our lives to deny ourselves the simplest joys.
Because sometimes, it really is the simple things.
A warm bowl of Lugaw.
A quiet round of golf.
A moment of stillness in a busy day.
The past doesn’t have to trap us.
It can still nourish us.
The old can become new again, not by recreating it exactly as it was, but by carrying forward what mattered.
Lenten Reflection: Letting Go, Holding On
“Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” — Isaiah 43:18–19 (NRSV)
Lent invites us to reflect, but not to stay stuck.
We’re not called to rewrite the past.
We’re called to learn from it. To carry what matters. And to release what no longer serves us.
This week, sit with this:
🔹 What am I holding onto that I can’t change?
🔹 What memories bring me comfort, and how can I carry them forward without clinging to them?
🔹 Where is something new trying to grow in my life?
The past shaped you.
But it doesn’t have to define you.
The old can become new again.
Take care of yourselves.
Take care of each other. 💛
*** This savory Filipino chicken rice porridge (Lugaw/Arroz Caldo) is made by sautéing ginger, garlic, and onion, then simmering bone-in chicken and rice in broth until thick and creamy. For best results, use a mix of glutinous and jasmine rice, seasoned with fish sauce (patis) and topped with fried garlic.
Ingredients:
✔️ 1 lb (or 2 lbs) bone-in chicken thighs or drumsticks
✔️ 1 cup white rice or a mix of white and glutinous rice (malagkit)
✔️ 6-8 cups chicken broth or water
✔️ 1 onion, chopped
✔️ 4–6 cloves garlic, minced
✔️ 1-2 thumbs ginger, julienned or sliced
✔️ 2 tbsp fish sauce (patis)
✔️1-2 tbsp cooking oil
Optional: 1 tsp turmeric or safflower (kasubha) for color
Garnish: Toasted garlic, spring onions, hard-boiled eggs, calamansi
Instructions:
🍲 Sauté Aromatics: In a large pot, heat oil and sauté garlic, onion, and ginger until fragrant and soft.👍
🍲 Cook Chicken: Add the chicken pieces. Cook until light brown. Add fish sauce (patis) and simmer for a minute.
🍲 Simmer Porridge: Add the rice (and turmeric/safflower if using) and stir to toast for 1-2 minutes. Pour in the chicken broth or water.
🍲 Boil and Simmer: Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to low.
🍲Cover and simmer for 30–40 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent the rice from sticking, until the rice is cooked and the porridge is thick.
🍲Finish and Serve: Adjust seasoning with fish sauce and pepper. Serve hot with garlic, onions, and calamansi.
Tips:
🍲 Visayan style: Often features more ginger and may use smaller pieces of chicken.
🍲 Consistency: If the lugaw is too thick, add more broth until you reach your desired consistency.
🍚 Best Rice: A mix of 1/2 glutinous and 1/2 jasmine rice gives the perfect texture, creamy yet distinct rice grains (Calrose is the best rice for this).
