Ask me who I am.

Who am I?

Guillrey Anthony, that's the name I rarely use. My friends call me Ernald. And according to my parents, Ernald is simply a product of their names: Erlinda and Reynaldo. But according to some baby-name-book, which i discovered when I was no longer a boy, though not yet quite a grown-up man, Ernald comes from an old Germanic word which means NOBLE EAGLE.

It takes a little getting use to, as it can be a mild tongue-twister, Ernald, that is, but when one gets a hang of it, calling me by my nickname becomes second nature.

Some people who have known me only as a "true-blue-blooded" Atenean, born and raised in this bustling metropolis, and having worked tirelessly as a junior manager for a bank for almost five years after college may think that I'm pretty cold, stuck-up, dull, and too serious.

I'm really not that reserved, even when I dearly value my own privacy. I delight in the company of others as much as I enjoy prayer in solitude. I like being with cheerful people (even entertaining them with a song when necessary), as much as I savor private conversations with a confidant. I also like laboring for a cause with generous people as much as I am at ease with just being in solidarity with those who feel helpless and yet continue to hope. I desire to live a life outside my own cloister and be with those whom He has called me to serve; as much as I desire to be deeply introspective and come into union with Him who endlessly loves me to be, with Him who gives meaning to who I really am.

My name would have been an easy response, but we all know how that remains to be an incomplete answer. (Is it then a mystery that the answer to this perennial question remains to be a mystery?) Expressing my desires, however is a worthy insight in beginning to understand the richness of this mystery, of this reality of who I am. In time, hopefully, the question will be answered definitively. But for now, let my name, Ernald, suffice.