Reflections | Sunday Slow Diary (Belated Tuesday Edition)

It’s Tuesday, and I’m finally sitting down with my cup of coffee, the scent of rain faintly brushing against the window. I’ve missed this — the quiet rhythm of writing, the stillness that comes with reflection. My Sunday Slow Diary is a few days late this week, but perhaps that’s what life has been lately — a series of beautiful delays, reminding me that meaning doesn’t always arrive on time, but it always arrives when we’re ready to listen.

Last week was supposed to be a restful one. Annual leave — two words that sound like a promise of rest, peace, and reprieve. Yet somehow, I found myself busier than ever. There’s a strange irony in the way “time off” often demands even more of us — the cleaning we postpone, the errands that pile up, the thoughts we’ve ignored quietly asking to be written down.

But what made this week heavy wasn’t just my to-do list. It was the weight of distance.

Back home in Cebu, my family and friends were caught in the path of Typhoon Tino. What began as another rainy day turned into a night of flooding, fear, and uncertainty. I watched the news from thousands of miles away, my heart tightening with every image — streets swallowed by brown water, children carried through rising floods, families clinging to roofs that could barely hold them. It’s a strange kind of pain — to see your hometown suffer while you stand under a clear foreign sky.

I remembered the nights we used to light candles during power outages, how Mama would boil water on a small gas stove, how neighbors shared what little food they had. The Filipino spirit has always been made of quiet resilience — we don’t just survive, we hold each other’s hands while doing it.

And yet, I felt the ache of guilt that comes with being far away. The kind that whispers, You should be there. But maybe distance doesn’t mean detachment. Maybe love, too, travels across oceans.

So, I sent what help I could, reached out to friends back home, prayed quietly for strength — for them, and for me.

Here in the UK, life continued — as it always does, unaware of the storms elsewhere.

On the fifth of November, the skies exploded in color for Guy Fawkes Night. I stood among friends, our faces lit by bursts of red and gold, laughter rising between crackles of fireworks. There was something poetic about it — the way fire can mean both destruction and celebration. I thought of Cebu again, of the contrast between the sparks in the sky here and the lightning there. Two different kinds of brightness, two sides of survival.

A few days later, I visited a friend who had just delivered a baby girl — tiny, perfect, and wrapped in pink. There’s nothing quite like the way a newborn makes you pause. The world softens around them; the noise fades. Holding her, I felt an overwhelming sense of hope — that even in a world often battered by storms, life insists on beginning again.

Then, over the weekend, I attended a christening — another celebration of life, another reminder of grace. The baby, dressed in white, was carried to the altar, surrounded by family, faith, and gentle music. I found myself thinking how every ceremony — whether it’s birth, baptism, or even mourning — is really just humanity’s way of saying, We are still here. We still believe in something good.

Looking back, I realize that the week wasn’t about how busy I was, but about what each moment revealed.

From the typhoon’s aftermath came a reminder of compassion — that no act of kindness is ever too small. From cleaning my house to standing under fireworks, I learned that joy can exist even when the world feels heavy. From holding a baby to watching one welcomed into faith, I saw how beginnings can heal what endings leave behind.

Life lately has been an orchestra of opposites — chaos and calm, sorrow and celebration, exhaustion and renewal.

And maybe that’s what adulthood really is: learning to hold both the pain of what’s happening there and the beauty of what’s unfolding here, without losing gratitude for either.

Sometimes, rest doesn’t mean doing nothing; it means slowing down enough to see the meaning in everything.

So here I am on a Tuesday, a little late but more grounded. The storms reminded me of fragility. The fireworks reminded me of light. And the babies reminded me of hope — that no matter how rough the past week has been, life keeps offering us another chance to start anew.

Lessons I’m Carrying This Week:

• Distance doesn’t weaken love; it teaches it to stretch farther.
• Rest is not the absence of movement but the presence of peace.
• We can hold grief and gratitude in the same heart — they are not enemies, but neighbors.
• Even after the storm, the world asks us gently: Will you still choose to see the good?

Song for this entry: “Fix You” by Coldplay — for all the moments when the light goes out, and we remember that even in the dark, someone somewhere is still praying for dawn.