I just cooked spaghetti in white sauce for brunch and did the usual cat chores. That’s it. I napped. I just wanted to be brainless.

I didn’t want to be an adult today. My brain was fried yesterday and I didn’t want to think too much or exert effort.

I still refused to be an adult so I decided to just have bibimbap at Bulgogi Garden along Kalayaan Ave. They have closed down the barbecue restaurant above the grocery store and they just serve the fast dishes within the store premises. Twin A just stayed at home because she didn’t want to change out of her house clothes.

My bibimbap is much better than this, to be honest. My gochujang-based sauce is spicier than this. 😑 If tomorrow my mood improves, I will try to make gyudon.

---

It was just supposed to be an uneventful day but then I saw on my IG feeds the year-ago post I did. It was about the three ginger kittens we found here in the compund and have successfully found adoptive families.

Then it struck me: It was exactly a year ago today when I received a painting from J and learned about the truth that I had been suspecting all along. It was exactly a year ago today that I almost had another breakdown because of that. It was a good thing that I was already in therapy when that happened.

Because of the excruciating pain, I was bereft of words and the only way to express it was through drawing. I couldn’t sleep. I was figuratively bleeding internally but there was no way I could make myself rest and stem the bleeding. My hands needed to do something. Then I just found myself drawing the image from my PC’s wallpaper. My drawing was perfect in the sense that it captured what I was feeling. I struggled to find the words but my hands found a way to tell my friends that I was already dying inside.

Because I hurt so much, I rediscovered that lost skill I had when I was in high school. I had to die to make my art live again.

That episode a year ago also pushed me to make my plan of building a small home a reality.

I’ve come a long way from 4 Feb 2022, when I got triggered and had anxiety attacks. When I was in my car, screaming at my friend on my phone, telling her about all the truth I had confirmed. I was having palpitations, I was blacking out with rage while I was screaming at her.

She said, screaming back at me, “You are still a whole person. You are still you. Don’t you ever, ever forget about that!”

I wrote last year that it would be the last time I would cry over that person. I still haven’t and I will forever keep that promise.

I had taken down his colored-marker drawing of Istanbul that same day. I told myself, I will make my own art that I will hang on my walls.

I’m still keeping that promise as well.

I didn’t do what I set out to do, like start and finish a feature story that our Japan team is supposed to promote next week. I was drowning in hiring issues (interviews with candidates ate up a lot of my time, too). Then I had to help out in inviting courting executives of Southeast Asian conglomerates (Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Singapore) to speak in our upcoming conference🫠As this is a flagship event that is under my region, I am conscripted to do this.

To make matters worse, I was editing until almost 8 pm since an editor in London didn’t want to deal with a story that one of their reporters wrote… And after I labored over this badly written one, the journo didn’t have the courtesy of sending back the story with proper revisions. These guys really look down on us here in Asia, thinking that we have zero English journalism skills. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I just… melted. 🫠🫠🫠🫠

To rest my brain, I translated to piano a Breaking Benjamin song and kept playing it until the weariness lifted from me.

My kids are sick. I’m tired.

I don’t want to adult tomorrow.

I just got off the kitchen literally a few minutes ago. I had sauteed pork cubes for menudo and chucked it in the slow cooker with the tomato sauce mix, fish sauce, chopped tomatoes, bell peppers, snow peas, carrots, and potatoes. Cooking it for at least 8 hours.

That’s food prepared with love for my small family. In the morning they will wake up to the smell of menudo wafting through the air. They will bite into a melt-in-your-mouth meat poured over piping hot white rice.

That’s love.

Because nothing beats a home cooked meal prepared for hours.

---

I finally—FINALLY—I chipped through my huge to-do list. I was able to finish my car registration for 2023. And finally, I didn’t have to process it for a week, like last year. It only took me an hour today.

My rants on TV and Twitter last year had made an impact. LTO got its shit together. Doing renewals at the extension office instead of at the Main is wiser since the crowd thins out past 2 pm in the former.

Also helped push out two stories today. I’m so done for the month of January—the longest month of the year. It felt like this month went on and on forever and I had to deal with anxiety over so many things, a big chunk of that is my staffing problems. Although I did get CVs and I will be interviewing two candidates on Friday, I need to get more candidates because don’t just want to hire people because I didn’t have a choice. I need to work my butt off this week and gather more candidates.

Then the other nitty-gritty admin work and other stuff that managers do, like weekly calls with the commercial team, then calls with the bosses from the other side of the globe who suddenly flew to HK and decided, hey, we need to have this call. So I would be up to my neck with calls tomorrow until the evening.

Set up interviews for my stories. Then writing my pending articles before they go stale.

Then I had to ferry my children and their friends to UP Diliman for their picnic tomorrow afternoon.

That’s just all for Wednesday (today).

And Thursday I need to drive to my hometown to apply for a water connection to my house and I have no choice but to work from there and have a pre-interview call with a Singapore company.

OK, breathe.

Breathe.

I don’t have time for myself.

I think I need to work in Makati and meet friends next week. While I love that I no longer have to battle the horrendous traffic everyday, the isolation from the hum of business is driving me mad. I told my fairy gaymother, K, that we need to have dinner with our friends as I would be giving away bookmarks.

He said, why don’t you sell them?

Are you insane?! I’m not good and there are amazing artists on Instagram and Etsy doing just that. I feel like a scammer next to them, I told him.

I need to draw everyday to improve but I barely have time for that.

---

A friend just sent me this through FB Messenger a few hours ago:

Flowers (Miley Cyrus)

I told her, it’s a struggle and it requires a steep learning curve. I’ve been working at this for the past two years. Self-love requires a massive dose of self-confidence as well. As I said a few days ago, the little wins I had can quickly be eroded by insecurity and self-doubt. But hopefully I will be as solid as a rock and won’t have to deal with momentary vulnerability like that.

I just have to teach myself how to be numb and just work on being a superwoman.