I have to admit that the latest discovery about him chasing the kid in my circle hit me so hard like I was back to square one, like back in December-January. I had avoided him all these months and yet he is still capable of killing me several times over. How many times do I have to die?
I don’t deserve this pain. I don’t deserve this. I’ve tried so hard to claw my way back up and be normal again. But no, he pushed me back into that dark pit again. It took me days to feel a little bit myself again.
What my friends pointed out though is that with his latest antics, he sounds desperate–enough to chase shallowness (the kid) and not to mention creepy. If a much older guy goes pestering us on chat and goes personal, automatically we would think he is a dirty old man (DOM) and I’ve had my share of those kinds in my business. And J’s impulsiveness now has ruined his reputation within my circle. Even though I chose to remain silent, I can’t say the same for my friends and that girl’s friends and everybody else in my circle. They know who he was to me. We belonged in one trade organization anyway, where everyone knows everybody’s business. It also includes some of the country’s biggest publicists as affiliates.
I can’t do anything about it. He brought it upon himself.
It’s really, really painful. It put me down for a while and I got physically sick. I had to have myself checked and had to go through some tests. Well, the results of my lab tests aren’t pretty, based on the ranges as some of my numbers were out of range. I don’t know how my ECG fared so I would only know when I have my next check up.
I swear, I will be back on the saddle and will put on my running shoes again and do cross-training. I will be back to climbing mountains in no time.
I swear I will rise from this darkness. I swear you will regret everything.
An existentialist statement by Descartes that justifies one’s existence by his thinking process. This was my last drunken thought before I passed out last night. Because you know, even if the drinking session had just been online, you still have the license to quote Descartes and sing gnash at the same time when you finish one entire bottle of Italian red.
Then I woke up with a nasty headache at 4 am. I had to go to the bathroom to puke it out, which I did, then went back to sleep. It was a good wine.
Then I remembered my soliloquy…🤦🏻♀️ Well, it was a good release anyway.
Grief is love holding on. But I don’t want to hold on any longer. It has been exactly 8 fucking months today when he threw me off the balcony. But it’s still here but I don’t want this anymore. It has already shrunk me into nothing, thinking that I am not good enough despite giving everything.
But I don’t want to use other people who are showing interest in me just to validate me, to be able to move on. Where’s the dignity in that?
He is the problem, not you, friends said.
We just learned that he is after a kid in our industry, almost 15 years his junior. Her boyfriend got testy and the rest is… You could imagine what happened after. This girl’s college friends were my students (she didn’t enrol in my class though). I introduced her to J, together with other friends in the industry, during one of our industry events. They knew that we were an item but just don’t speak about it because of my annulment case. I asked her to help me pitch to her news desk coverage to events his firm staged. I also asked her to accommodate his principal for interviews a couple of weeks before he broke up with me, even though it was a tough sell because they were general news. She and the others whom I asked for favors entertained him because of me, because I am respected in our industry and some of them were my students. This kid knows my family because she hitched rides with me regularly because we both headed north after coverage. She and my daughters had selfie sessions in my car one time she hitched a ride. A friend said she tended to flaunt sources to other people to claim, yeah I’m close to such and such source that’s probably why she had entertained those video calls with J. Kinda like those questionable journos we have here who tweet pictures of them lunching with this so and so source. For clout. (But everyone in our industry think that is cheap and crass).
I just kept quiet about the breakup so my network would still entertain him. I left our LinkedIn linked so he can still use my network. Because love can make you do stupid things.
I purposely did not try to find out what happened to him after he ditched me even though I could. Because I want my dignity intact. I want to move on even though it’s so hard. I didn’t even know if he was still in the country. But I don’t know, the universe conspires and here I am learning about this.
My friends were like, gurl, this kid can’t even hold a candle to you. He is probably looking for somebody to manipulate because she is very young. Her generation is still concerned with the latest cellphone and such. She is very young and it will be like babysitting her and her friends. It’s a super downgrade, they said.
There is clearly something wrong with him, they said. A PR professional friend when she learned about this said, wow that’s so low. This industry is so small and he doesn’t know the extent of your network, thinking you wouldn’t find out. I said, he is free to pursue whoever he wants but going after a kid in my circle…I can’t wrap my head around it. And he pretends to be nice by saying let me know if I can help with the community pantry, and the kid was like, huh, what do I care about community pantries?
You know, I could have gone the other way and not keep quiet about this and tell my network not to deal with him anymore. But I just want peace so I will forever hold my tongue. The dignified thing to do. Yes, my self esteem nosedived when I learned about this. I knew he would go after younger women because my age, whether he showed it or not, was an issue for him. He thinks people in their forties are old.
It was hard dealing with this. I am back to zero again. Diminished. Making me feel like all the things I am and gave were nothing. I gave him nothing but love and kindness and yet he continues to hurt me so, even though I had purposely distanced myself.
No, my friends said. You are a complete person and when he came to your life, he was just an addition. When he left, you are still intact, nothing was lost. He needed you more than you needed him, they said.
One day all of these things they said to make me feel better will sink in but for now I will lick my wounds and figure out how to rise above this.
If there’s one thing Filipinos are good at, it’s poking fun of ourselves, even if the issues are of grave importance. This meme shows the incompetence of this administration that resorts to drama if they can’t even–ah well I no longer know what to say.
Meanwhile, our healthcare workers continue to bear the world on their shoulders. There were photos of exhausted nurses leaning on cars or walls outside hospitals, evidence of their exhaustion.
And as a person who cares too much about this society, this country, this is too much for me to bear. I got drained yesterday. As one of my journo friends said, not all journalists are like me, who goes out of her way to feed the hungry, who works round the clock to fundraise for disaster victims, jumps to drive straight into the disaster zone to report and at the same time volunteer to distribute relief goods. She told me I should stop caring for a while. “You care too much, that’s the problem. That’s why you’re always stressed. You cannot save the world,” she scolded me. That was a couple of years ago. I’m still the same. She still keeps on scolding me.
So today was a basura day and I couldn’t work well again. Save for a bureau chief call today, I was in util again. I just kept on messaging people on LinkedIn, emailing for requests for interviews, reading news to pick up leads. I have several articles pending but I had zero brain cells for that.
Plus I am battling something at work. I thought I found the solution but it seems like there is no relief in sight, not in the near-term. I already gave some kind of warning. I no longer know what I should do. I gave it a shot.
Again, thank God for cats.
Kimchi watching birds outside. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
My little stress-reliever.
I have trouble sleeping again, my body clock is out of whack. I ordered online a new fragrance for my scented oil diffuser to help me fall asleep. Well, it does help, that’s why last night i fell asleep at around 10 pm. BUT then I woke up at 2 am and got back to sleep around quarter to 4 am. That’s so messed up. Brain activity was high, that’s why I have trouble going back to sleep.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I should stop caring about everything. I should stop caring about other people and focus on myself. Other people didn’t care about me anyway. *shrug*
Here we have a president who’s supposed to be a lawyer who doesn’t know the basic laws of this land. The Commission on Audit is a constitutional body that is just doing its job. The state auditor who did the DOH audit just died of a heart attack yesterday because of the stress he has to deal with because of an in util president who doesn’t know anything at all and just uses his gangsta attitude to run this government.
And now this demon of a health minister is using emotional manipulation (no one is buying it, you idiot!) to play victim. Damn you! If I could only slap you in the face right now, I would. Tell all these things to the doctors and nurses who died without receiving their allowances and hazard pays.
Meanwhile, I’m joking to friends that former colonies of Spain only need two years of residency to apply for citizenship. I said we can now all apply for asylum status in Spain if Bong Go or Sara Duterte wins next year. Learning Spanish for us is not hard because our language, Filipino, is a hybrid of Spanish, Malay and English. It’s not like learning Nihongo or Korean that the grammar and script are completely different.
I envy my kids in a way, they only had to worry about small things while I am thinking that the Philippines will become Afghanistan. The Nancy Drew I ordered finally arrived so at least they can be away from their computer screens for a while.
A childhood friend and I talked for two hours tonight as she related to me that she has a boyfriend now after a failed marriage. I told her I am the worst person to talk to right now if she’s seeking advice or assurance that everything will be all right. I said enjoy it while it lasts and think about it when we’re 65, are you going to regret it? If yes, don’t go into it. If no, then just enjoy it and be happy. I’m just a jaded old crone who cannot say anything nice right now about relationships post-divorce/separation because I’m still processing things.
She says I will meet somebody and I’m still young blah blah. I said, you know what? Just enjoy what you have right now. If you’re happy, it doesn’t mean it’s your responsibility to make sure that everybody’s happy. I’m way past it. I don’t have any desire for romantic relationships anymore. Yes, there are those who are showing signs of interest but I don’t want it. I’m emotionally bankrupt and I don’t want to go through hell again.
So dear friend, don’t listen to me. Just be happy. Enjoy what you have right now. I’m a party pooper. Don’t be like me who gave it all and received so little. I ignored all the red flags and justified so many things. Stay away from judgmental people; they do not understand things. Do not ignore trivial matters that bother you because there’s a reason these “trivial” things nag at your brain, that they keep hanging around your amygdala. Do not be like me who has nothing left anymore to give another person.
And we have 14,000 new infections today. Very apt.
To make myself feel better, I tried again the oven and grill feature of my new stove top. Less oily food for us today.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I received some packs of Quorn products from its parent company as part of their relaunch in the Philippines. So for today I baked the vegetarian nuggets while i cooked tamagoyaki on top of the oven.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
After this I removed the pan and replaced it with a wire mesh to grill okra.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I haven’t tried grilling steaks on this gas griller and I don’t want to ruin a perfectly seasoned steak. Not yet anyway. But I tried grilling burgers on it last week.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
It has been quite a while since my meals have become irregular. Too much work. But it was last week when I realized that I had consistently been eating less in terms of serving and frequency. Only twice a day. I tried fasting yesterday with only milk as my source of nutrition (breakfast). By 4 pm I gave up. I couldn’t go without food. I needed to eat, especially after writing a 1,500-word article.
So if I should attempt again to fast, I should do it on a weekend and not when I am pressured to write epics. 🤦🏻♀️
I am distracting myself with cooking because right now I want to kill the DOH secretary. I don’t want to be stressed today with news about him and the COA report. And the mass resignation of healthcare workers.
Meanwhile, the lockdown may be extended given the steady rise in the number of new cases and hospitals operating at maximum capacity. A lot of people are going hungry again. I am in touch with one of the community pantry organizers here and they are now distributing food packs to jeep and tricycle drivers. I’ll see if I can give them a hand during my work leave.
