Just a quick post about how lovely it is to be in this moment. This is what home is all about. Cooking smells wafting through the air with Beatles for background music, and the sound of the tropical forest chiming in. I cooked with my front door open, because why not? My kids went to church with their cousins and auntie and they will be watching a movie in the city further southeast.

I can smell the rain coming. I will open my windows all the way up to feel the fresh breeze passing through.

Today I won’t be able to do my campus walk since bff is coming over. Let’s see tomorrow will be conducive for it.

I have so many thoughts running through my head right now. Let me process it later.

You know you’re in good company when you don’t take photos of yourselves being together. Because there is no need to prove anything. That’s how it is with my good friends from way back elementary or high school.

So my best friend and I started talking from merienda until dinner. We were just in the moment and planning trips together, either to the upcoming Big Bad Wolf to gallivanting abroad (last time we did this was in Kyoto in 2009). I said we need something to occupy ourselves now that my house building is almost done while her fervor for hopping from one concert to another, here and abroad, is waning. Because of that, she got tempted to start using Bumble to meet guys and the last one who claimed to be from my industry was a very bad experience. Really bad. As in scammer, gas-lighting bad.

My bff has a problem with saying no and always gives so much.

She was advised by other friends to stop using dating apps and I said the same since she and I are magnets for the wrong people because we’re gullible. We both have self-esteem issues as we are both products of dysfunctional marriages (the weird thing is our dads were classmates in college). The thing that has kept me safe so far is that 1) I was religious with my therapy and I researched a lot about my disposition that instilled self-awareness in me (blogging helps); 2) I am devoting time to learn how to love myself and heal and learned not to berate myself for taking a long time; and 3) I now live with the mantra “If he wants, he will.” I can’t live a life anymore where it’s always me who is walking to bridge the last mile between us; always me who is bending backwards. Be it chatting through different time zones or reaching out to say, “Hey I learned you’re in town. What’s up?” to giving moral and emotional support. It’s exhausting to always be the giver.

I told her that I’m trying to accept that I may be like this for a very long time because I can’t go into another relationship still angry and I still carry with me the toxicity of the previous relationship. It doesn’t matter if it is already 2.5 years and it could be another 2.5 years before I can forgive and forget. If I’m not healed properly, I will just be in for another heartbreak because I will be ignoring the red flags just to escape singlehood.

But then, what’s wrong with being single? Just thinking about living with someone again is already exhausting.

Do I miss it, being in a relationship? I really don’t know, honestly. That’s why I’m not actively looking. I could have flirted a dozen times as I meet a lot of people with my job but there’s no desire to do so. I could have put out a signboard on me that says “single, ready to mingle” but I don’t. Maybe it’s a testament that I’m not yet healed and all I think about is that it’s exhausting–be it dating or being in a relationship.

But when I’m idle, with no big project to occupy me, that’s when loneliness will strike and all of a sudden everything is a green flag 🤦🏻‍♀️ This is why I told BFF that we need to be busy. If we need to travel, then so be it. If we are to chase all the concerts she wants to watch, then by all means I will tag along. I just can’t be idle again.