Friends and family had been sending messages, greeting me and asking me what my plans for today were. I said I just want to lay down in bed, savor my airconditioned room while the girls are downstairs doing their crafts. Which I did.

However, I had to attend first to my new babies, my plants, and had to water/spritz on water, and make sure there were no caterpillars. Then attend to the cat litter. Other than those chores, I did zero. Ever since our other househelp left, the dishwashing duties, dusting and vacuuming are now assigned to the girls. I really have no reason to get up from my bed because they can take care of themselves now. My ideal day.

If it weren’t for the kids, I wouldn’t bother with the food. But of course I had to feed them so I ordered ramen from Botejyu via Grab. Yesterday I already ordered 3 tubs of ice cream for the girls and my househelp and a blueberry cheesecake from Conti’s and have them delivered at home while I was having my car checked. Twin I has been singing praises about the cake sent to me last week by a friend so she pestered me about ordering cheesecakes.

So it seems like her prayers had been answered again after I received two cheesecakes today from a good friend from the industry and another from a PR person.

I have the girls off my hair today since they were busy eating and painting or doing some crafts. Which was lovely as I get to have peace and quiet.

• 

• 

For dinner, we just had leftovers from yesterday and ham & egg sandwiches. And oh, I was able to revitalize leftover rice from the fridge into fluffy white rice using claypot.

Tomorrow I should keep myself wide awake because I will drive the girls to my mom to spend their semestral break there for a week. Then I drive back here tomorrow evening because I have back-to-back calls on Monday.

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I’m a year older.

What have I learned from the past 12 months? Last year I was miserable and I took an antidepressant so I can balance all the things I had been juggling without having to dwell on the fact that I felt rotten and spent and that pill kept me from breaking down. I knew I was being treated shabbily but I pushed on, thinking that things might get better if I did more.

But no, you cannot win the love you already lost. Or never had.

Last year on this same day I was so lost and alone. I was the loneliest with J. I was confused why I felt that way. I couldn’t fathom why I was wretchedly unhappy. I felt like I was sinking into an abyss. Like it was my fault that it had come to that.

But I was always gaslighted.

I felt helpless.

I was always dragged around because it was always about him, him, him. What about me? I needed comfort and support too but I didn’t get it because it felt wrong if I asked for kindness and love. I felt neglected and tired. But isn’t it enough that he was there with me?

But no. He wasn’t there with me for quite some time. He was already so far away.

It was unfair. He was unfair. He should have left in June, the time when I felt I lost him. He shouldn’t have used me like that.

I’m in a better place on my birthday this year. I have showered myself with love today by being kind to myself. That for once I am not mommy or a woman who must attend to every whim and caprices of her partner. Friends have sent their support and love to me today. I didn’t have to ask for it.

It hurts just thinking about it now. How could have I been unkind to myself for letting me think that I do not have to feel special and loved? That I should just accept what I had then?

I think my return to my hometown to raise my children is my way of sheltering myself from being hurt again like that. You don’t know how much J killed me everyday for several months, especially after that thing with that kid in my circle. What’s worse is everyone knows that by now. And my friends explained to me, in my drunken stupor, that J was chasing her so he can tap into her network, which she doesn’t have. As if she can summon conglomerate owners and C-level people to talk to him like I was able to do for him. As my friends said, why would he go for someone like her when clearly she didn’t have anything on you except youth? “Sex maybe?” I answered in my alcohol-fueled raspy voice. Being infront of the camera doesn’t mean you are the best there. It just so happened a lot of them in that network left (the network is not doing that great) and they had to promote people from within. After one year or less as a researcher, she became an on-cam reporter because she was there. Of course J doesn’t know that; he just probably thought that being on cam she would have more clout, my friends said.

It’s only during my Covid isolation that I firmed up my decision that I should make some drastic changes so I can never let anybody kill me like that again. Now I am beginning to realize that I am retreating from the world by returning to my hometown and will be embracing spinsterhood. My hometown is a small world and there is less chance for me to get involved with someone else because I know everyone there.

Once I uproot ourselves here, that signals that I have finally closed the door. I will start building a fort around me on top of that duplex that I just have drawn plans for. Yes I would still have a queen-sized bed but that is all to myself. Yes, I will be traveling more frequently by next year because of my job and meet a lot of people but I will never ever let anyone near me again like I had let J. It will all be distancia, amigo.

That is how I will love myself–self preservation. At 42 years old, I don’t think I can waste more years and energy again for somebody who never thought I was precious and never put me on a pedestal like the way I did with him.

I cannot afford to be that unhappy anymore. Life is too short.