star!!!

The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other’s welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

There are days when you open the news and it just hits different. Not in a "wow this is wild" way but in a "why are we like this" way. A shootout inside the senate building. A senator wanted by the ICC who keeps appearing and disappearing like a bad dream. Another senator caught on record saying hide the CCTV footage. And on top of all that, an impeachment trial for the sitting vice president. This is not a political thriller on Netflix. This is Tuesday.

And the worst part is you're not even surprised anymore. That's what gets me. The bar has been lowered so many times that chaos in the halls of government just feels like background noise now. We've been conditioned to just absorb it and move on, because what else can you do? You go to work, you commute, you pay your bills, and somewhere in Manila, people with actual power over your life are out here acting like extras in a teleserye.

I get why people want to leave. I really do. When you look at all of this and then think about what it costs just to live a decent life here, the thought crosses your mind. It's embarrassing to admit but it does. Not because you don't love the country, but because you're tired of loving something that keeps getting let down by the people who were supposed to take care of it.

But then. I don't know. There's still something that makes you stay, or at least makes you hope. Maybe it's the people around you. The ones who still show up, still care, still get angry because anger means they haven't given up. Maybe that's enough to hold onto for now.

HAVE YOU CONSIDERED

'18Donnie watching '12Donnie pipe up with information about their current mission and '12Leo immediately listens intently, maybe even going over to him to look over his shoulder and see his screen

'12Leo momentarily being out of commission and '12Donnie begins barking orders at '12Mikey and '12Raph. '18Donnie watches them not only listen to his plan but rush to follow his lead

'18Donnie's brothers need non-tech expertise and '12Donnie comes in the clutch with a list of facts and the solution to their active problem

'18Donnie's fancy staff gets broken or knocked from his hands, and he looks over to '12Donnie only to realize that he's been taking down baddies with a random object he borrowed from their surroundings

'18Donnie has done nothing but brag to '12Donnie to show off since he appeared and '12Donnie has always conceded (if not reluctantly) to how impressive his tech is and how much more professional his inventions are and hasn't fought his superiority for a moment. '12 has even talked down his own 'junky' equipment in favor of promoting '18Donnie's, which takes the steam out of his pride (though he can't name why)

you go to the well to get some water, and here’s Miriam’s boy, staring at the sky, completely still. his expression is unreadable. you hazard a hello and ask how he’s doing, and he slowly, unblinkingly, lowers his gaze on you (he’s 8 and is missing his frontal teeth, not that this is making you any less uncomfortable) and says “I cannot speak of the state of my being, Nathan son of Saul, my brother, but rejoice for the water you shall take today will be as pure as the soul of the children of Heaven”

*sees J boy, 8 yo, staring at you from across the street*

kid JC, coming home at twilight, a single white dove following him and chirping with weirdly human-like precision:

 moth̫́er,̦͌ ̮̉i h͙̉av͔̽e ͓͗b̘̃r̞̓o̮͘u̲̒gh̟͒t̺́ you a do̗͐ṽ͙e̢͘ ͈̾m͒͢a͈̽dē̝ ỏ̘f ͈̓c̆͜l͔̂aỷ͇ aṋ̑d̳̿ g͢͞i̹̾fted̖͡ ̻͐it ͓͂w̖̿it̎͜h t̥̃h͙͒e ̨̒m̧̂i̡̍ŗ͒â̫cḷ̔è̤ ̛̻of̞̅ l̘̈i̛̦fè̳

Miriam: ! that’s my little boy :) now let’s go get ready for dinner :) 

her husband Yosef, a carpenter who only marginally got signed up for this: 

But these two bits are SENDING ME

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.