I had an hour-long phone conversation tonight with my high school batchmate based in Japan since we are doing this personal computer donation drive for our high school as part of our year-long alumni homecoming project/celebration culminating in December. Aside from this, I am part of the homecoming program committee. So my batchmate said, you are pretty busy, huh? You’re a single mom and a journalist and you’re doing this project. I said, there is so much shit I deal with or dealt with and I’d better channel this negativity into something positive.

Just like during the long lockdown, it was my personal crusade to help feed jeepney drivers who were out of work and street dwellers. I had facilitated milk donations to Aeta natives somewhere north using my corporate connections. I channel my frustrations and grief into something more positive, so I don’t have to think about the bad things. My worst enemy is my mind. He said I had very troubled sleep during those days. I sleep-talked in my sleep. He caught me praying in my sleep and calling out for God. He heard me call for my father in my sleep. My daughter also said she saw my hands in a prayer pose while I sleep-talked. That’s how hyperactive my brain is when I am disturbed.

Since I’m still nursing this dying heart (will hopefully soon go dead), my brain is going on overdrive again. My daughter said I sleep-talked the night when they slept in my room. I don’t know how to turn off my brain. It’s a blessing when I work since but a curse when I need to quiet down.

I can’t fucking sleep!

I need to exhaust myself. Because I lack sleep, I can’t exercise. I rode his bike this afternoon around the village to go to the university campus but I got dizzy because I only had three hours of sleep.

So better channel all this energy into little projects like our 25th alumni homecoming.

As a side note: I didn’t know I was a popular kid in high school. I was just doing my thing in those days: drama club, glee club, hanging out with friends, playing football, science contests and whatever. I realized only now when my high school batchmates whom I didn’t hang out with during those days gravitated to me for these homecoming projects I am heading. This batchmate whom I just talked to said I should try to reach out to some of our classmates to bring us together to solicit help since they are more likely to respond to me. Which is funny because I always thought no one liked me. I thought I was pretty horrible during those days: ugly, not smart enough, unpopular with boys, etc. Now 25 or so years after, I can say that it’s probably untrue. It was just my insecurity eating me up alive. Too bad, I might have been a happier teenager if I only had that knowledge.