The past few days were a whirl. On Thursday, my ass was on the line because I needed to produce that story that has giving me nightmares. There are just stories that are difficult to write because they’re complicated to explain.

At the same time I had to edit stories until 8 pm. I was so drained.

On Friday, I left at 6:14 am to make sure I’m at Manila Peninsula on time because it’s a free-seating arrangement. That morning, the DPWH and the Office of the Ombudsman had filed cases before the Sandiganbayan. Of course reporters were swarming the venue, together with the diplomats, corporate reps, and the execs that I’m chasing.

I filed a story at 6 pm and still uploading it at 7:30 while I was at the 40th anniversary party of my journalist organization.

It was a fun night as I saw colleagues and former journalists whom I haven’t seen for a while. They have left the industry to pursue other careers but once a journalist, always a journalist.

And I won a new Samsung phone! Haha! I would have to sell this in Greenhills.

And then, you think I would be able to relax yesterday after all that driving and people-chasing? Nope. Because I needed to sew my costume for Monday.

I sewed a costume but I think I like the other one that I didn’t work on. I also finished one panel of Christmas curtain I was sewing by hand.

I thought I can just lie in bed and doomscroll my day away today. Nope. I have to battle my way into SM today.

A fellow journo wrote 30 last Monday. I had worked alongside her for years, especially during macroeconomic coverages. We were both senior lecturers at the college where we had our graduate studies.

She was also a guest lecturer in one of the classes I taught.

She and I covered a week-long conference in Yokohama, Japan in 2017 and we stuffed our faces with yummy wagyu beef and the best sushi that the Japanese government can offer. Together with another macroeconomic Pinoy journo, they wiped out all the Nozaki’s corned beef in all of the kombini within our area.

As I was about to leave the wake, I was supposed to say goodbye to her best friend, a fellow journo, but the bestfriend told me, no, you shouldn’t say goodbye when you leave a wake, according to Chinese tradition.

So no goodbyes, C. No goodbyes.

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I don’t believe that mumbo-jumbo this socmed influencer is saying in the captions. The fuck! I forgot to buy my pills to stabilize my estrogen and I’ve been off it for a week and now I’m so unhinged. My menstrual cycle is out of sync (it came back after 10 days), I have pimples, I’m bloated, and my mental capacity is zero. I was unproductive last Friday and I couldn’t figure out why. It was really basura day.

Then I suffered from debilitating headaches on Friday and yesterday. Then I bled. And bled. I’m aching all over. I wanted to kill somebody in the past two days. Oh Lord, save me from myself. 🤦🏻‍♀️

I walked to the weekend market this morning to get out of this funk that I’m in. It did help for a while but here I am, back to my aches and murderous intent.

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After almost a half year, I’m back to long distance walking.

Plantar fasciitis be damned. I went out to walk again, about 3.5 km for an hour, after shopping for veggies and my pills from TGP. I needed to beat this sluggishness, irritability, and depression due to drop in estrogen with some serotonin boost from exercise. 

I did everything on foot—from going to the weekend market, to going to church, veggie shopping, and a trip to the pharmacy—I need to keep my body moving. I need to keep the headaches at bay because they’re just unbearable.

I can’t do anything about the nightsweats but I can take melatonin so I can sleep well. When I was in HK in February, I remember it was 11 degrees C and I saw some locals in puffer vests while I was sweating in my thin Uniqlo shirt. That’s how absurd my perimenopause symptoms were. Not a night passes by when I don’t wake up at 3 am because of too much sweating and it’s so hard to get back to sleep. Then I have to wake up again at 5 am to prepare my children’s lunch and breakfast.

My circadian rhythm is out of whack. Everything is out of whack. The bad thing is that the symptoms last for years until you hit menopause. 😵‍💫

Oooh my back hurts!

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Today is basura day.

I was at an event at One Ayala last Wednesday to say hi to a CEO and stalk one source. I only stayed for a bit because I needed to bounce to a cocktail event in Shangri-la BGC. The distance is less than 4 km and the drive normally takes 12 mins.

But nhoooooo… That drive took me more than an hour! The entire McKinley Rd from Edsa to 5th Ave was frozen! 😭

Suffice to say I was really late to the BGC event.

Christmas rush is already here. 🫠

I got home at 12 midnight. 😵‍💫 Then I drove back to Makati yesterday (Thursday) to have dinner with some editors and some executives of the company that hosted the dinner.

The traffic is the same: horrible.

I wanted to browse a bit but…

I’m tired.

I took time off yesterday because I didn’t sleep from Sunday night until the rains abated at 5 am Monday. The winds were still strong, the tailend of Typhoon Uwan.

The editor from the land of bubblegum pop, however, was lacking in tact and I didn’t like how she took my emergency leave. Like she was saying I was already off for more than a week and then I’m off again. I told her I worked my ass off last week. It’s just that today the government has declared a national state of calamity. Let me rest.

I complained to a Pinoy colleague that this is the problem with people who have never experienced catastrophe upon catastrophe: they lack empathy. I think people from the land of bubblegum pop do lack that because they’re so comfortable in their world that they forget that people outside their bubble struggle immensely.