Thirty-four.

Some days, I have lived a thousand lives,

other days, I am just feeling my way through;

a consequence, perhaps, of allowing oneself

to change one’s mind

to change one’s life

as many times as needed.

I blow out my birthday candle,

and instead of wishing for something, as I have in the past,

this time, I whisper

thank you for this life.

—

Seven.

My mother told me swimming is a life skill I needed to survive.

Just a few days ago, I learned she never knew how.

I think I’m a pretty decent swimmer,

so confident that at twenty-six, I paddled into the open sea

chasing a wave bigger than me. 

My surfboard’s leash snapped, and for the first time in my life

I cried for help.

In that moment, and in all the years before and after,

I knew—I would not be here without the kindness of others. 

—

Nineteen.

A student and a part-time studio photographer,

spending weekdays in anthropology and film criticism classes,

weekends taking photos of babies in pots, dressed as flowers.

At twenty-two,

while my friends were mapping out their lives after college,

I was a breadwinner with odd jobs

assisting in scuba diving lessons,

helping an artist sculpt hands and feet

for an exhibit about extra-judicial killings,

filming someone’s 18th birthday,

documenting a dying oral tradition.

I may not have earned as much that time,

but I learned a thing or two

about birth, 

about death,

and the vast, uncharted waters in between.

At twenty-five, whether by fate, by chance, 

or simply by saying yes before I even felt ready

I was directing for television,

travel shows and documentaries, 

back when people had patience for long-form content.

A year later, I added executive producer to the things I get to do,

working on projects my father and I had only dreamed of 

when I was fifteen,

watching Globe Trekker on Discovery Channel 

in our makeshift living room—

a garage we turned into our home.

My father said,

One day, you’ll do that too.

Dad, every show and film I’ve ever made, and will make, is dedicated to you.

—

Twenty-nine.

I had crossed off everything I once promised myself I’d do.

An arbitrary list I wrote at twenty-one, heartbroken from my first love.

A relationship that lasted only eight months 

but took me five years to heal from.

The first time I learned what it meant to choose myself - 

to dream, and to make my own dreams come true.

I spent my 20s wide-eyed, chasing the world.

Sleeping on a cliff’s edge under the stars,

waking to mountain sunrises,

traversing the archipelago north to south, and back,

then moving across the globe.

Scuba diving, mountaineering, wild river rafting,

canyoneering, bungee jumping, skydiving, 

surfing,

as if time was running out.

You’d think I wasn’t afraid of dying,

but the truth is, I thought about it all along—

not with fear, but with urgency.

Back then, living fully meant saying yes to everything, all at once

to see how far I could stretch possibility.

Funny how when you’re young, you think time is running out.

But the years that followed taught me something else—

that a life well-lived is not just in the rushing, 

but even more in the staying.

We have time. 

We are time. 

—

Thirty.

I moved back to the Philippines,

after crossing oceans for a life I thought I wanted.

At twenty-eight, I moved to Lisbon for my master’s,

a scholarship I spent a year preparing for;

then to Budapest, then to Brussels the year after that.

Never in my life had I imagined even setting foot on this continent,

yet there I was, relearning the most ordinary things:

ordering coffee, reading food labels, exiting the right train station,

saying hi, excuse me, thank you, sorry— 

over and over again.

At thirty, I returned to Portugal to graduate

carrying with me more than a degree.

I had learned not just in classrooms,

but in kitchens, in shared apartments, in long walks home.

I left it behind, a little wiser about the world,

more certain of myself,

while stepping into an uncertain future, in a world on pause.

By then, I had made peace with not knowing.

By then, I had learned to trust.

I returned to the Philippines, 

and moved in with the boy I met when I was fifteen.

—

Thirty-three.

I called him my husband.

The same boy who asked me to be his grad ball date in high school

and whom I drifted apart from for a whole decade after that.

Until twenty-seven,

when I found myself in Melbourne,

extending my stay by a week just because. 

Universe? Serendipity? Cheesy?

Or the invisible hand that’s been guiding me?

He saw my post—he was there too, just streets away.

Would I like to grab coffee?

Somewhere between then and now,

we moved to an island, adopted a cat, got married.

The unfolding, surreal yet natural,

the next step appeared just in time

like headlights in the dark, revealing just enough of the road ahead.

But to be completely honest, coming home wasn’t always as easy

the way I tell it now.

It meant changing careers—yes, that one—

the dream I had shared with my dad,

the only path I had ever known until then.

Coming home, I was twenty-two again:

broke, jobless, uncertain.

Shoots were canceled, productions halted.

People were kept inside their homes—

a blurry, dystopian time in our collective history.

I took a remote job with an organization that took a chance on me. 

Still, thankfully, it was about films—

about supporting filmmakers 

in my own region, my home. 

Creating space for stories often overlooked, 

for issues few dare to openly discuss.

And there’s still so much work ahead.

For all the moving I had done,

this was the first time I truly allowed myself to sit still.

A life well-lived is not just in the rushing, 

but even more in the staying.

In staying, despite it all.

—

Now, in my 30s, 

I’m re-learning what once came naturally as a kid: 

To fail, without letting it define me. 

To achieve, without letting it define me. 

To rest. 

To ask for help. 

To feel— without judgment. 

To play, simply to play.

Each year, a revolution around the sun, 

cracking open new landscapes 

within me, unfolding

with unclenched hands, fluid, 

letting it shape me as it will.

Thirty-four,

I thank all the versions of myself 

that brought me here,

that let me write this

slowly, unrushed.