For the second straight year, I haven’t been to Big Bad Wolf book sale, which is basically a huge warehouse of books marked down to 60%-70% of their normal prices. This time, though, they managed to have an online book sale until 7 July and during the first hour I was able to snag some books for my girls–boxed sets–but overall there are only a few good titles and most of the books for me got sold out in a few hours. I only managed to get one, which is a memoir by Salman Rushdie during the time he went into hiding after the fatwa on him was issued following the publication of his Satanic Verses.
I still have tons of books on my shelves that I have yet to finish. Always on the “to read” pile. Tsundoku.
My mom just messaged me on Viber that there is a growth of something where her malignant mole had been. She had surgery years ago to have that removed but now it seems like there’s an outgrowth. She went to two doctors today and she will have new sets of doctors to see on Monday.
Lord, please don’t let it be full-blown cancer. 😞 It’s a difficult disease and she’s past 70.
I need to go home soon. 🥺
So many drastic changes this past 30 days. One of my househelpers is pregnant (I’m not surprised) so she will be going home to her province on 15 Aug. Another person gone from my household. J had been urging me to send her home earlier because there’s an excess labor here at home and they’re not being maximized and I’m just wasting money. But I said I’ll just wait for her to resign on her own since it was just a matter of time that either she will get pregnant or get engaged, whichever comes first. I was right.
One of the people I had been helping for years has turned his/her back against me. For a petty reason. I guess I was not a friend at all, despite all the help I’ve been extending to this person.
Another reporter is resigning. Now I’m at my wits’ and how to bridge the gap.
Lord, give me and my mom the strength to deal with all of these.
Time carries us away From all the places we have come to love; Just wishing we could stay But maybe that’s not the point What makes this all so god damn beautiful Is knowing that its bound to fade in time If you listen you can hear the wind talking to the trees Like words of quiet angels, or so I’d like to believe I don’t know where I am going I don’t know where I want to be But as long as I have a soundtrack I’ll make it there breathing And so it comes, the heavy rain… The storm we’ve all been waiting for To wet our hearts and make sense of this pain From standing still for far too long… (from holding out and holding on to all the things You know will only hold you back in the end) ..like you’re just holding out for something better To steal you from these tired days that you don’t want What are you hoping for? Miracles happen all the time, so where is yours? The rain, it never lies Writing its secrets on the window pane You lose your focus in the subtleties of its poetic grace There’s just something about its sadness that makes You feel okay Do you remember that rainy afternoon When we cried in each other’s arms? When we knew we’d found perfection But somewhere deep inside Knew it had come too soon for us to hang on Or try to make it last We can’t forget these moments baby But our lives are now Don’t lose yours in the past Once we find ourselves I swear I’ll find you again someday But the western wind is calling me… I heard the angels say my name My loner heart is aching, so I’ll be leaving soon To start this lonesome journey When the leaves dance for the moon
This was a difficult week. I struggled with work, almost threw in the towel and quit. I am still three paragraphs into the story I was writing the entire week. There was a little writing here and there after some interviews but basically my brain was dry. I was trying to wring out some creativity from my body but I yielded nothing. Nothing. I resorted to writing on my notebook everything I needed to do per hour just to get me through the day or else I would be stuck.
Agenda for the day. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
To make me feel better, I sing after work. On Wednesday I wasted 2 hours just singing along Youtube. Whatever took my fancy. I needed to let it all out.
Tonight I fell into the rabbit hole of memories, of music I listened to growing up. Tears for Fears figured so prominently in my life in the 1980s because my brother played them constantly. The lone stereo, amplifier, and big speakers were in his room. We had to share it. I didn’t have a say in the music played then. So I drowned in New Wave music (which didn’t become as popular in the US compared to Europe), Tear for Fears, Fra Lippo Lippi, and the local band The Dawn.
We had an exercise in one of my communication courses in college where I had to be a disc jockey for an hour in our campus radio. I had to write the script, song lineup, make sure that the equipment was working before I went on air, research in our college’s music library for my spiels. I picked Tears for Fears to feature in my show. I didn’t care that it was already 1996-1997. Britney and the Spice Girls were rising. Monica and Brandy were battling it out in the airwaves. And yet here I was going retro, stepping 10 years back.
I missed their first and only concert here in Manila (because I was in Cebu at that time, baking under the sun in a lovely beach in Bantayan Island).
I am now being comforted by Roland Orzabal’s solid voice and Curt Smith’s brilliant song writing. Songs from The Big Chair and The Hurting were good albums but I think the best song they have written was Woman in Chains (about a woman’s freedom from an abusive relationship) from the album Seeds of Love.
I love concerts. When I was in high school and college I saved money to watch whatever concert I could afford. But when I started working, time was my enemy. I watched concerts when I had the time, which was in short supply especially when I had the girls.
I remember after one quarterly press conference with Meralco some years ago, Chairman Manny Pangilinan asked us reporters casually who do we want to see Smart Communications bring to the country. Without batting an eyelash I shouted, “U2! Sir, I would take a leave of absence on the day U2 will have their concert here so I can prepare!” He asked, “Really? You think many will watch?” I replied, “Sir, you have no idea about the number of people who would pay an arm and leg for their concert here. Although they are notoriously hard to book. You can entice Bono to one of your CSRs to pull his do-good strings so they will come.”
Seemed like MVP had seriously thought about it. So several years later in December 2019 it was finally happening. Sponsored by Smart. I didn’t go; I really can’t remember the specific reason why but I think it had something to do with J. I think it was because I was saving money at that time because I was supporting him so I didn’t want to spend so much on frivolous things. We were planning to go abroad together (I was scheduled to fly to HK in Feb, SG after that and SKorea in May for the ADB annual meeting) because he needed to be out of the country every 60 days. And U2 is not cheap; the most affordable seat was already equivalent to a plane ticket to Korea.
On the day of the concert, I remember it was pretty late, PLDT called and told me they had some tickets left and they were giving it to me for free. I looked at the time, it was almost 7 pm. The concert was supposed to start at 9 pm. I was tempted but it was such a risk driving late to Philippine Arena in Bulacan and friends told me there were no parking spaces left. Or no parking space to begin with.
I had to let it go. It was for the best. It was just U2. J was more important.
I skipped many concerts throughout the years. Alanis. Cranberries. Gin Blossoms. Because life happened. Because I had children and it was hard to get away during those days. Before I had the girls, I also didn’t have the time because I was putting to bed every night (even on sacred days like New Year’s eve) the business page of the newspaper I worked for. 🤷🏻♀️
But there were concerts that I had to watch, no matter what it took. The Eraserheads original reunion concert at BGC when there were zero skyscapers there back then. It was the time Ely Buendia collapsed backstage in between sets. Turned out his blood vessel had collapsed.
I also watched GooGoo Dolls by my lonesome. Because I had to–I waited for them for 20 years. That was the time I realized I needed to get out of my marriage because I was already watching live rock concerts by myself.
Now I spend hours watching and listening to concerts on Youtube. But of course, it can’t replace live music. One day, concerts will come back and I would be braver by that time, brave enough to watch concerts alone.
I had been writing on this blog about wanting to erase memories so it won’t hurt anymore. I wanted to do an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and be done with it, this grief.
On the flip side, there is this immeasurable pain because of losing one’s memories. This article in Washington Post reminded me of the long goodbye that comes with Alzheimer’s disease. My maternal grandma died of it in her 70s. My aunt has it now. Her memories of who she is and where she is come and go like the tide but it is less predictable.
I remember my cousins and I had our summer vacations with my grandparents so they would have someone with them in their home, even for just a few months, since my aunt (one of the twins) living closest to them cannot watch over them 24/7 as she also had a big household to manage. We didn’t know it at that time but my grandma’s AD had already set in when she became Cruella. We thought she was just growing more cantankerous as time went on. It came to a point that she banished my cousins from the house for some small reason that triggered her temper. My cousin and my older sister packed their bags and retreated to my aunt’s house. Later that day or a day after, my grandpa went after them and asked for forgiveness from his grandchildren (!) on behalf of his wife for receiving that kind of treatment. My cousins and sister cried because they couldn’t imagine our weak, old, white-haired grandpa chasing after them and yet he did. It was the only reason they went back–out of love for my grandpa.
Anyway, that was one of the early signs of AD that we didn’t know about. Later on my grandma got worse, to the point that one of my aunts who lived in Chicago had to come home here in the Philippines to take care of them because we couldn’t handle them. This aunt built a giant crib for my grandma because she escaped the house at 2 am to wander. Prior to this aunt taking over, I remember my cousins, sisters and I had to take turns in watching over my grandma at night so she wouldn’t go out of the house while we slept. We devised some booby traps/alarms to wake us up if she did. One time she was brought home with a lot of bruises, maybe she was side-swept by a car or she fell while walking in the darkness because she wanted to go to church at 4 am. There were also shouting matches, but mostly it was her shouting at us angrily. She thought we were some of her enemies from way back when she was young. She no longer had an idea of the time and space she occupied. She was no longer in our reality. She was already transported to the 1930s or 1940s. She was digging up her grudges, throwing at us her axes she had ground for so many years.
She also developed Parkinsons so taking care of her was harder. She was reduced to becoming a baby again, with stuffed toys around her, wetting her bed that we had to put diapers on her, and spent her days staring at the ceiling. Her mind was locked away somewhere we could no longer reach.
And my grandpa, who had loved her “up to the high heavens” as he told us, watched helplessly as the love of his life slowly slipped away and descended into a vortex of memories that were being sucked down into hell. It was a long goodbye for him. One time, because my grandma’s motor skills have gone downhill, she slipped and my grandpa sacrificed himself by catching her to break her fall with his body. He was in his 80s. He broke his hip bones and had to undergo surgery.
My grandma, who raised 13 children and worked for the family as a tradeswoman, was reduced to being like a doll staring at the ceiling at the end of her days. She had no emotions, no understanding of what was happening, no recollection of who she is, no idea of love and happiness. She was like a blank canvas.
It was a long goodbye. You helplessly watch somebody slip away. For someone who is losing her memories, her mental faculties, it’s a long slow death. It’s a snail’s pace to nothingness.
So would I want that for myself? As somebody who wanted to rid herself of memories so that it won’t hurt anymore, I don’t want to descend into that same path my grandma, my maternal aunt, and paternal uncle had gone. I am taking back what I said a few months ago about erasing memories. It’s the memories who make us what we are now. Those memories have broken us and built us to who we are today. And without those, who are we then? Am I still me if I can’t remember my name? Is it still worth living if I no longer know what love and pain are? If I don’t have any memory of being happy and sad? It’s like in the Pixar movie Inside Out, what are we without those marbles of memories? Who are we?
So just like that, I would just have to endure the pain, the hollowness, until I become bigger so the ball of grief inside me would no longer hit my walls frequently. It’s better to have those memories of having loved people who didn’t love me back than not remembering anything, of not having any memories of those in my life. Metaphorically, it’s just like what happened to my grandma, who ended up just staring at the ceiling and had no idea of what is it to be alive.
Ergonomically, they’re terrible workplaces. It’s hard to concentrate on work there. It’s annoying to have calls there, especially video calls.
But I miss working in those coffee shops. I need to get away from my room. I need to work away from these four walls. I am going nuts here. I will be confined to my 14″ laptop screen but that’s ok.
However, it’s still not safe until my children get vaccinated. What if I bring home the coronavirus? I may be asymptomatic since I already have the vax but I may carry it to infect my largely unvaccinated household.
Now here’s a different kind of missing. This essay by this NYTimes Madrid bureau chief has left me in a turmoil of emotions. I could feel his pain, you know, the kind of pain that hits your stomach when you haven’t eaten for a day or two. The hollowness makes the pain reverberate throughout your entire being. And for the writer, he has been trying to fill that void so it won’t hurt.
Then there’s his mom. Oh the pain of being stranded. I just realized that you can be left stranded all your life and keep waiting for that person who left you stranded to come back and rescue you with whatever boat that he has. But then you know within the deep recesses of your heart he will not come back. And you remain in that same spot for decades. That’s his mom. Tragic.
Why do people believe in fairy tales woven by the people we chose to love? Why do we hold on to flimsy memories when reality has already slapped you in the face that you were taken for a ride? Then we find ourselves standing on the same ground that we should have left long ago.
Today I watched a contestant in America’s Got Talent who has terminal cancer (last test showed cancer spread now in several vital organs). She said (paraphrasing) that you don’t have to wait until the bad times are gone to be happy. You can choose to be happy. She has 2% survival rate but she said it’s better than zero, and it’s something.
Happiness is a choice. After six months of grief, I choose to be happy in small ways. The camping we did last two days was refreshing and I want to do it again. I found my old self again, the one who climbed mountains and camped. The one who swam in seas. The girl who is happy going to different places. The one who is happy browsing through secondhand book shops. The girl who is happy curling up with a book on a rainy day.
I don’t have to be over this grief to be happy. I can carry it for a long time but I should make sure that I am growing so that grief would not be a big part of me like in Day 1.
Grabbed from Instagram
I have come so far, looking back. It’s still there and I think I have to accept that it won’t go away easily. It’s just forcing me to grow around it, this grief.
The only thing I wrote on my journal on that fateful day. I’ve come so far. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
And I took care of myself. I am finding simple joys in little things. Like adding RAM on my laptop and it’s a skill that none of my girl friends, as far as I know, have. Just like refurbishing furniture and painting walls. Being an all-around domestic goddess.
I’ve been operating on my laptops for quite some time now. Like adding RAM and SSD and attaching disconnected flex cables. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I had been messy when J was still here because I was busy and had been attending to 101 things all at the same time. Now that I’m taking life slowly, I finally got to my old neater self.
Assembling dual monitor swivel arms that I bought from Lazada. Photo by CallMeCreation.com A much neater and bigger desk space. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
It brings me peace that my workspace is neater now. I hope this would inspire me to be more productive when I get back to work next week.
I’m thinking of going to the onsen in my hometown and have a dip there for 4 hours. Just because.
