…and I have nothing to show for it. How did I spend my days? I already forgot. No roadtrip. No beach trip. I am taking care of two children under medication, one for TB and the other one for amoebiasis. I cannot just pack my bags and join my bff who is in Japan right now. I wake up at 5 am to make them breakfast before going to school. They just finished their quarterly exams.

Tomorrow is a visit to St Luke’s BGC to see our hema-onco and she ordered us a couple of blood tests. The usual, Twin A’s uric acid is elevated, her RWD-CV is high but MCV is ok = Vit B12 deficiency/iron, which is consistent with someone taking anti-TB meds that’s why we’re given the order to take VitBcomplex supplements. Her eosinophils are elevated = allergy/asthma. Not surprising. Even I am battling with allergens for a couple of days now. I had hives every other day, that’s why I had been knocked out by antihistamines yesterday and slept almost the whole day.

But all combined, I would have to wait for our doctor to say anything. I’m scared if she sees something that would link to any disorder that would keep us under her watch. I’m so paranoid now of anything that would indicate cancer.

I am scared of anything that would put my children in the same situation as what we had gone through in Aug-Sept…you know, praying to God for a lesser evil because the other alternative (cancer) is much more devastating.

There, I have an answer. My holiday has gone by without me realizing it because I am a mother. Moms don’t rest, specially the solo moms. I no longer have a housekeeper to help me out on the domestic front. It is endless cooking and cleaning. It’s constant worrying about what to serve them for dinner, sleeping on time, buying materials for school projects, helping with homework, etc.

After we get clearance from our hema-onco, I will fly to SG because I’ve been neglecting that part of my work and also to take a break from all of these.

In the meantime, some friends are coming over this afternoon. I hope I still have time to do my brisk walking on campus.

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The husband of one of my high school friends (who is also a high school classmate) said the view from my front door is beautiful. He also said my pseudo-balcony is nice. They like my tiny house.

These friends have their houses within their family compounds/parents’ properties; we all figured that if we want the university and grade/high schools accessible to us, we have to stay near family because there aren’t enough lots/townhouses, and single-detached homes available for sale. Within the span of 30 years, vacant lots within our vicinity had been taken up.

I have also unlocked a new skill today: fixing wonky power outlets.

It happened when the post of my bed/headboard kept hitting this outlet while the power strip for my desktop setup is still plugged in. A hinge broke. I had to turn off the power in my entire house via fusebox and stripped open the outlet. Figured out a way how to bring it forward and keep it in place even if one of the locks had been broken. Masking tape. Yes, masking tape, because I don’t keep a supply of electrical tape. 🤦🏻‍♀️

When you’re a homeowner, you learn how to repair small things like this. Then do a lot of DIY, like cleaning the water reservoir every 2 months.

Oh, the things I have to learn…

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OMG, how toxic is this man/boy? Like it’s women’s fault that men/boys like him are lonely. Get out of your mom’s basement and quit playing video games. Touch grass.

And OMG, sounds like he doesn’t even want a relationship. He just wants to have sex because he’s tired of masturbating. 🤦🏻‍♀️ Hellooooooooo!

A lot of men are toxic and have fragile egos. If a woman happens to be smart and capable, their egos get bruised. They ditch the woman, go look for someone lesser/a bimbo so they would look and feel superior.

And it’s always the woman’s fault, because she’s this and that but the thing is, deep down, insecure men can’t handle smart women. Most especially narcissists.

I’m so done.

I tried the local onsen this afternoon after cleaning the inside of our water reservoir with my new power washer. That left me itchy, cranky, and exhausted 🫠

To save my back, my sister and I booked a 30-min onsen + 2-hr massage. The massage was ok; I fell asleep. But the hot tub was so disappointing. The onsen relied completely on the heat of the natural spring water (which was likely near-surface level, hence, the warm temp and not HOT) and did not complement with artificial heater.

In some parts of our town the water is piping hot, especially near the lake. My mom said these areas have ground water nearer the magma level than in some other parts of town. My other bff told me about one hot spring dipping pool by the lakeshore which her triathlete coach of a husband frequents everyday to relieve his aching muscles after 100-km bike rides in the mornings. We’ll try that one of these days.

For now, my quick fix is invading my mom’s bathtub and cranking her heater to the highest setting, dumping a half bag of Epson salt, and wallowing here for an hour.

My one-week wellness break has been meeeehhh…🥴

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Why can’t we have nice things and efficient services?!

Oh yeah, Filipinos keep on voting for crooks, so everyone—from the Office of the President down to the rank and file—is useless.

I had my license renewal yesterday and guess what? We still don’t have license cards.

I use my license as my de facto national ID because our actual national ID is not honored by most institutions because of the fucked up way how they rolled it out. Those who have applied for the national ID three years ago have yet to receive their ID cards. Majority of Filipinos are just issued paper IDs that can easily be forged, mutilated, and lost. 🙄

I certainly don’t want to use my passport as my ID to bring with me everyday in my bag. 😑

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When you remember me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me. It means that even after I die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.
For as long as you remember me, I am never entirely lost. When I’m feeling most ghost-like, it is your remembering me that helps remind me that I actually exist. When I’m feeling sad, it’s my consolation. When I’m feeling happy, it’s part of why I feel that way.
If you forget me, one of the ways I remember who I am will be gone. If you forget, part of who I am will be gone.

Frederick Buechner , Whistling in the Dark: A Doubter’s Dictionary

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A trip around the sun. What have I learned from that journey?

Well, if I put my mind into it, I can accomplish almost anything. I built a house with no debt. Even though it’s small, it’s still mine.

I didn’t know it, but I realized I was a strong person to have withstood all the shit I’ve been through. My heart has endured so much that I wonder why it’s still beating.

I have voids somewhere inside me. They feel hollow and will never be filled up…but there are areas within me that have swollen so much with love to compensate for those voids that cannot be closed up.

My back hurts so much.

I am trying to come into terms with my not being able to get thinner. I need to accept that a woman like me who has polycystic ovarian syndrome will always have a battle with her weight.

Two years ago, I wrote here about self-preservation. Indeed, I’ve only been here for 5 months and yet I feel like I’m being hugged and protected whenever I come home. My world has become smaller as I retreated to my mother’s womb to be reborn. I have yet to emerge from my cocoon. I have yet to see who I will become.

And I’m about to take a driver’s license test today—a test I haven’t taken since I was 18 or about to turn 18. My 5-year driver’s license is about to expire in a few hours and I’m about to get a new one with 10-year validity.

However, I’m still figuring out how to navigate this LTO online portal.

Happy birthday to me. I’m old but I’m wiser. I don’t take shit anymore.

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1) She had been seeing a professional from UP Manila (maybe as part of the university’s support for all faculty members during the lockdowns) but when F2F started, she fell off the wagon. It’s hard to commute from our town to PGH to see your counselor regularly—schedules and traffic situation are always fucked up. Our common friend told me she was very comfortable with the online setup, just like me.

2) The husband did not pick her up at work. She drove herself as per usual, parked the car not in her usual spot but somewhere it wouldn’t be easily found. When she didn’t come home when it was already dark, that’s when the husband asked friends where she was and then they formed a search party.

3) She might have done it right after a student knocked on her door for a consultation but she told the student to come back on Friday. When they found her in her office, she was already discolored so it might have been more than 5 hours.

4) They didn’t find her immediately because the lights in her office were off so no one would think she was there.

5) There was a note.

6) Some people (police maybe, the people who have read the police report) have spread the story that the spouses had a fight because the husband (a high school classmate of mine) has a third party.

I’m sorry, friend. It’s too much for a mother of a child, who may be under the spectrum, with an iffy husband whom you love to bits. All the pressures of being in the academe. And the support that you had was lost when the world tried to go back to “normal”.

I’m sorry the world is unfair to mothers like us who try to do it all. We can’t. We can’t have it all. Something has got to give.

The world has now less light.

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After Twin I’s fever started to dissipate, her diarrhea stepped up so there was no way I could bring her to the clinic. She was in the bathroom every 30 mins. Then she had unbearable stomach aches. Confirmatory Covid antigen test is still negative.

This morning when she woke up she had stomach muscle spasms and then it’s gone. I still had the CBC and fecalysis just to make sure it’s not amoebiasis or I’m missing something. While I believe this is just stomach flu, I really cannot leave things to chance…

Meanwhile, Twin A’s MRI reading shows her insides are responding to the anti-TB meds and it seems like there is no thickening of the colon walls. No more scalloping of the liver. Lymph nodes shrunk, since the old CT showed the biggest was 2.1 cm.

I just learned this afternoon that a friend died by suicide late yesterday. She was the one who visited me in my house in July and we talked for 3.5 hrs about so many things. I gave a lecture in her class the previous semester. It became a college-wide lecture because they opened it up to other classes and even to graduate students. She and I talked about doing another one at the start of this semester but Twin A got sick so I wasn’t able to get back to her about the syllabus and about the schedule.

My brother and sister-in-law already knew last night but they didn’t want to tell me, maybe because I was already too exhausted taking care of my sick daughter.

A common friend told me about it this morning through FB messenger as I was about to get up from bed. I confirmed with my bff and she said the husband was picking up our friend after work but it was taking her so long. They found her office door locked so they had to force their way in. They found her in a creepy situation, already dead, that I don’t want to write it down here anymore.

She has been very sad for a couple of weeks now, my bff said. Anxiety was eating her up. As far as I know she wasn’t seeing any professional…maybe she didn’t recognize that she was going through a major depressive episode. Many people do not recognize this in themselves unless they are self-aware. When you don’t know you are depressed or could not put into words what you are going through, it’s difficult to seek help. People around you wouldn’t be able to help you because they wouldn’t know how deep is this depression or you’re just sad. There’s a big difference.

I can’t fathom her doing that when she’s so anxious about her only child. She’s so hands-on with her son and she homeschooled him for a long time before transitioning him this year to formal school. I don’t know how the child would fare now. 😞

That’s why we have to be kind to everyone. We don’t know what people are going through.

And to make things worse, I now see that two of the friends who chose suicide were writers. I know a lot of writers who are depressive or had been depressed. That’s why the stereotype of the drunk writers live on…because we self-medicate and use alcohol to numb the pain that comes with depression.

I don’t know, maybe because we live inside our heads most of the time? We are prone to digging into ouselves when we write? Just like painters or actors, we eviscerate ourselves whenever we do our craft?

I really don’t know.

Tomorrow I’ll just visit my friend in her wake.