I no longer know what to do without a car. This is like having withdrawal symptoms. I am now making memes for the amusement of my kids.
I need the car next week because I need to meet a general partner and an investment banker. I couldn’t commit to a date because I don’t want to go to Makati from QC via Grab because it will kill my wallet.
I’m still figuring out how I will get to Hotel Jen for the central bank event without catching Covid again.
The weekend is almost here again. Funny how days pass by so quickly now compared to last year when everything seemed to drag and torture me. The difference in mindset makes a lot of difference in how I see things now.
I’m loving life right now. ❤️
Even though I’m going insane without a car and I couldn’t go anywhere. 🤣
I got lazy and didn’t go to the vax center for the Covid booster. Because it rained. Hard to get a taxi.
Then my 2-3 pm interview with a Singapore telemed startup got cancelled because the founder had a personal emergency. Another rescheduling issue on my plate.
Spent the rest of the day closing the loop for the contract of my new/old hire and finally it got signed by him and a director from our HK office. I don’t want to deal with London office for a while, if I could.
I didn’t know where my day went because I barely left my seat. It was exhausting. Just as I thought my day already ended, my Outlook’s alarm went off, reminding me I still had an MS Teams call with London people 🙄 I didn’t have time to cook myself a proper meal so I had this:
Noodles with spicy fish cake. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
While I was having my late dinner, Twin I was torturing Kimchi.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Half of my cats’ day is spent sleeping and the other half is spent trying to avoid the girls 😂.
A lot of people are reacting to my profile picture change, which is unnerving. One friend said, hey you got a love life? I said yes, with Park Seo-Joon but he doesn’t know it. 🤣 But kidding aside, this is just me saying I am just one session away from graduating from psychotherapy.
I’m supposed to take my antidepressant until August only. I think I’m on track. And my shrink will let me go after that.
I changed photos today because I’m no longer grieving. My old profile photo was taken right after I had my hair chopped off a few days after the breakup. That photo was an act of defiance but it still reflected my grief.
This new photo is like a graduation photo; I now have a genuine smile. I’m growing my hair back. I will wear it longer. I have more crow’s feet but I’m wearing it as a badge of honor.
I am truly moving on.
Why do we hold on? I learned that we couldn’t move on because we believe what we had before was the best we could ever have. We don’t let go. We become prisoners of what we had, of the past, because we believed that it was best thing and would not be able to have it again.
But once we realize that there’s something better for us after the dust has settled, we easily can let go.
That’s what happened to me. I realized that while I was dancing in my room to my Spotify tunes that I had been constricted for a long time when I was with J. I conformed and molded myself to his liking. To make him happy and accept me. But in doing so I killed a part of me.
And in the end he didn’t even accept the whole of me.
Now that I’m free, in the truest sense, I realized I missed this crazy part of me. I missed the artist in me. I missed singing. I missed the playful me who goes into escapades because I can.
I am now a better version of me, a happier me that he will never see.
That better version of me that somebody else would be able to appreciate one day.
So I miss my car, that heap of rusted teenager car. The car shop sent me photos of my very rusty back bumper that they will replace with a new one.
So wow, it’s only the paint that has been making it look decent all this time.
After the ironworks comes the paint. Hopefully the rains will stop so the humidity will not affect the painting and drying process.
Keeping my fingers crossed that I can hail a taxi tomorrow for my second Covid vax booster and hopefully they can enter my data soon in VaxCertPh so I can generate the ID before I leave for Singapore. Traveling these days is so much of a hassle that I wonder if it’s still worth coming to Seoul in September or October.
I just had a stressful couple of weeks because I had some kind of battle of wills with the parent firm’s HR dept in London. And there’s this guy from legal (also in London) whom I want to punch in the face. He wants to change our contracts in SEAsia to freelancer mode to be paid on a per article basis due to “legal risks” in the old contracts our old company had prior to being acquired by this parent that does not have any idea how to run a media company.
That made me fume.
I told my boss in Shanghai via MS Teams that I will quit and the rest of the team will follow if they touch any of our contracts. It was a risky move but I stood my ground. I asked them to talk to our global editor and even the chief of correspondents (who unfortunately is on holiday) to talk some sense into this asshole.
So I spent the next 24 hours on tenterhooks. My stomach acids went on overdrive and I was in and out of the bathroom this morning while waiting for the verdict.
Finally, the asshole grudgingly relented after calls and calls and some more calls from bosses.
And I searched for him on LinkedIn, the asshole turned out to be this KID who just graduated from law school and is just a legal analyst and yet to be a solicitor. The kind of language he used and the tone of his email sounded like he’s the fucking boss.
I wanted to punch him on the nose. I wanted to kill him.
So now I understand why they’re not announcing my promotion. Doing so would force them to overhaul my contract and that could lead to another battle of wills with London and this d*ckhead.
I knew from the get-go that my transfer to Singapore would have been very complicated had I requested it.
I showed a friend in Edinburgh the LinkedIn profile of that KID and said just give me one chance to make his nose bleed when I get to London. Just one punch would make me so happy.
You know, I was just cheerful last night that I was dancing in my room to my playlist. Then that “ping” from my Outlook and that email thread from that KID who was throwing his weight around eroded the rare happy mode I was in.
My best gay friend, K, and I often exchange Spotify songs or playlists. When I discover a new song that I’m totally into, I will send him the link to that song on Spotify.
So last year, most of the songs I shared with him were from my “Broken” playlist. When we had that Christmas lunch in Glorietta, we mashed up our playlists and we discovered we’re both fond of Original Pilipino Music (OPM), particularly Ben & Ben and Ebe Dancel. Strangely, we both listen to Lewis Capaldi.
Nowadays, what I’m sharing with him are songs from my “Chill Hits” and I’m totally into LANY now and Lauv. For some reason I can’t explain.
I’m making a lot of progress in terms of my mental and emotional state as my playlists can attest. From playing the saddest fucking songs of heart brokenness to listening to chill music that I enjoyed by the beach just recently. When I hear LANY’s Dancing in the Kitchen, I often find myself dancing in my seat.
Another friend said music saved him from depression. I said the same and I’ve blogged about it here. Music (and art in general) has saved me many, many times. It brings me to a place that only I can reach through the music that seeps into my consciousness.
I remember exchanging tapes and CDs with my college friend whom I had a falling out with later (and he recently reached out to me on IG, as I blogged here a few months ago). He lent me his Tony Rich Project album since at that time I was so into Soul and R&B and I wasn’t able to return it to him because he became weird (as I related in my past blog entry how he became weird). I think that tape is still at my mom’s place, inside those plastic bins of memories.
I’m happy to report that these days my tendency is to play more electronic dance music (EDM) than listen to Armi Millare, whom I played to death in 2021.
My drives are more tolerable with music playing in the background and I am singing along. I remember feeling constricted when I drive with J next to me and being grumpy. He doesn’t like noise. Such a curmudgeon. It’s hard when it’s a long drive, like when going to Los Banos hot springs or Tagaytay (for spur-of-the-moment dinner at Balay Dako) or Anilao, and I don’t have music to keep me from falling asleep on the wheel.
Come to think of it, he was always grumpy and complains a lot and I’m always the punching bag.
Anyway, good now that I can play whatever I want. And my kids cannot complain because I am the driver, I get to choose the music. 🤣
But every now and then I still play my “Broken” playlist, just to feel a twinge of sadness but generally to congratulate myself that I can listen to the entire playlist without tearing up.
Am I getting better? Yes, definitely. It took a long time but yes, I made it. I can look back and say, I’ve done it. I’ve come so far. I’ve come so, so far…
And as a graduation gift to myself, I’m dancing in my room naked with this song in the background.
So we went to UP riding our bikes to buy vegetables. We are now on stage One Entire Week of Being Carless.
Water break. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Everything was going well even though we went out at almost noon, so there was danger that we will get fried.
Got two bags of veggies for only PHP 680. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
We went to Nomu, the milktea place beside Bahay ng Alumni.
When we were waiting for our teas, I heard a loud “pop!” And that sickening hissing sound.
A flat tire. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
The stupid thing here was I took the longer route going to the UP gate near Krus na Ligas. I told the girls to bike their way into Science while I walk with my bike and then we’ll just meet at the corner where we used to turn right going into Science.
While waiting for the girls. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I guess I was bad at giving them directions so we spent the better part of that hour trying to find each other. After several video calls, they finally located me at that corner where they were supposed to meet me.
When we finally agreed how to proceed, I let the girls bike to the Krus na Ligas exit while I walked again.
Long story short, the guy at the bike shop along CP Garcia Ave fixed my tire by changing the interior and said that I had a busted tire pin. Good thing I had extra money then to buy a new tire interior.
Then off we rode our bikes back home. Got home after four freaking hours.
Gee, I am so tired.
I need to buy more wicking running shirts from Decathlon if I am to do this again regularly.
I PROMISE I WILL EXERCISE MORE SO I WOULD NO LONGER BE FAT.
There’s a Cebu Pacific seat sale (PHP 88 base fare) going anywhere but for travel in February to May 2023. It’s hard to buy tickets that advanced; you’ll never know what will happen in the next month or so. I mean ever since Covid, it’s hard to plan life very far ahead.
I want to go to Siargao and Bohol again. Then if I have enough time, I will go to Palawan.
It’s hard to shoehorn holidays like that because I may have to travel to Singapore in August and November. I’m scheduled to leave next month as well.
May have to go to Bangkok in between.
But right now all I want is to be near the sea. I sleep well when I hear the waves crashing against the shore or rocks. It’s some kind of lullaby. For others, the sea may be terrifying but it has only been kind to me. It has always been a comfort to me.
Bantyan island, Cebu. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I have shared my love for the sea with my children. I’ve also shared it with him.
Someday, I will share it with somebody who will equally love it the way I do. My kids know that when I die, they will cremate me and scatter my ashes into the sea. We’ve often spoken about that.
