Fruits and vegetables along CP Garcia Ave. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
So yeah, despite having a really bad night waking up at dawn because of a dream, I managed to ride my bike this morning to buy fresh vegetables because we’re already running low on supply. I wasn’t able to buy from my suki inside UP because the university is in a total lockdown since Monday. So my bike trip last week Thursday was my last ride there. God knows when they will open again. 🚲
Breakfast and lunch. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
That workout this morning wasn’t much but it made me hungry. It was freaking hot outside!!! Made myself ham sandwiches for breakfast and lunch. I’m still not losing weight.
Folded folding bikes of my girls. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
It’s a sad sight. My girls’ folded bikes are a reminder that it will be a long time before we can ride out again. Everything is depressing right now. I’m searching for places where I could catch some sunshine to make this dark world brighter.
As I told a colleague, this is the worst time to be nursing a broken heart because I can’t see my friends, can’t escape to anywhere (the four-day Anilao trip is cancelled indefinitely), can’t do anything but be stuck in this room with his ghost. I can’t watch movies because that too reminds me of the moments we watched movies together on iPad or on the TV screen in his Airbnb apartments. Gardening is gardening. Sewing curtains make my hands busy but it doesn’t make my mind occupied. It actually encourages introspection, which is the last thing I need right now. I don’t want to be overthinking the entire lockdown or else it will drive me mad.
We’re on the third day of ECQ a.k.a. No One Leaves the House. It’s dragging me down mentally and emotionally. I couldn’t bike or walk outside the 6-9 am window because I’m a nocturnal creature so I wake up late. I tried exercising every morning a couple of years ago but I always end up tired by midday, which is hard for me when I need full concentration during writing or editing. So now I’m stuck.
I haven’t had any in-person intelligent adult conversation in weeks. This is driving me nuts. I just want to randomly call friends but I know I would just be a nuisance to them so I haven’t done it. Been ranting about this government on Twitter for God knows how long. It’s maddening. I must stop doom-scrolling in the next few days to ease the tension in my mind and body.
I had been sick the past few days; it’s probably psychosomatic. Probably too high gastric acids due to stress. I just woke up with this gut-wrenching stomach pain that I associate with hyperacidity, an affliction I haven’t experienced again since 2014 when I had my gall bladder removed. Following that stomachache on Monday was the debilitating diarrhea that left me weak and almost dehydrated.
But I had to work yesterday. I edited one story and wrote one story as well. The day before I did an hour-long interview despite the pain and overall weakness that I felt.
Cat loft. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Again, thank God for cats. They’re my stress-relievers. It’s also a constant battle to keep Kimchi from climbing the curtains and going up the windows and the shelves.
Kimchi up again on the shelf. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Despite that, they’re good company and they always crave my presence and always beg to be let in my room and just lie on the floor to be with me. For them, I am their mommy.
Sushi keeping me company while I sew curtains to replace the ones destroyed by her sister. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I asked myself this question when I was analyzing the situation with my ex-partner, J. What we were was really a combination of so many layers, of so many things. One thing about us is that I felt like I was not part of his plans. I never figured in it.
One time we were watching this Indian movie about the ‘Pad Man’, the true to life story of a guy who invented low-cost menstrual pads for Indian women. He was ostracized by everybody (because, India) as menstruation is taboo and a man tackling that is double taboo. Anyway, J asked me if I would support him if he was Pad Man. I said, I would, all the way. Even if it sounds crazy, even if it is daunting, I will give all I got to support him
Which I did. I never discouraged him from anything that he was thinking he wanted to do. I helped him do the leg work. For everything. The co-working space idea, the medical cassette whatever that is, and the last one was investment banking and consultancy. I pulled all the stops and did whatever and supported him to be where he is now.
But then, I couldn’t see myself in this future he was building. He didn’t include me. I asked him the last time we talked face to face, where are you headed? I don’t know where you are, I can’t see you, I no longer know what’s inside your head.
Maybe he doesn’t know what he wants. But he knows what he doesn’t want. Me.
I may be wrong but part of his restlessness is brought about by this need to prove something to other people. I don’t know. I just feel that he has to put on a face to his family, especially when he hid himself on LinkedIn from his cousin after he quit the large firm almost 3 years ago. I asked why. He said I don’t want them to know I don’t have a job/not successful/whatever. Aside from that I always felt that he was on a race to something, that by xx time he should already yy.
Meanwhile, I am probably on a different plane. I don’t have anything to prove to anybody. I’m not on a race. I have a classmate who is a literal rocket scientist helping to launch satellites into space. Half of my classmates have PhDs or whatever. My siblings are PhDs and experts in their fields, and so are my parents. However, I don’t feel any urgency to follow their paths. I may aim to be the head for Asia Pacific for my company and I can achieve that if I put my mind to it but it’s not something I would be killing myself over for. It would look nice on my CV but if it happens, it happens but it’s not really the goal.
I don’t have that much chip on my shoulder professionally. I am my profession, which is also a vocation. I’m in that unique space where my job is my passion. Which is in some way limiting as well because I couldn’t leave it without being torn apart. At some point I would have to leave because I have two dependents and their father is not contributing financially to their upbringing. Staying as a journalist is not financially rewarding but it feeds my soul.
So do I have anything to prove to anybody now that I’m in my 40s? Do I feel some pressure that I should be this xxx by age yyyy? I don’t know, not really. It’s hard to set lofty career goals when you’re also the primary caretaker of your children. Their needs come first. Women, especially solo parents, most of the time dial back because they have to take into consideration how career advancement would affect the children. I honestly haven’t been on top of my children’s school work because my own team at work is struggling and I manage them remotely while I need to hit my personal goals at work at the same time. For the life of me, I don’t know how I would be able to manage them if I don’t have my helpers to do the household chores. I don’t have the mental space for anything else. So when the grief button is pushed at random times, my weak walls crumble, become inanimate for a day or two and I have to work my way back up again.
What do I want to prove? I don’t know. I just want to live peacefully and meaningfully. I no longer think about what others would think. I don’t have anything to prove to my mother and she accepts me for what I am and what I have achieved so far. I don’t need my siblings’ acceptance and approval. As long as we stay away from each other’s business, we’re cool. My children love me. I no longer think I need a partner to make me feel loved and important. I’m still working on this mantra but just thinking about the work it entails to have another person in my life is exhausting. Besides it would surely lead to heartbreak that I don’t have the capacity to carry anymore.
Everytime I step out, I am playing hide and seek with death (reports of lung opacity and intubation of 19 year old COVID-19 patients with no comorbidities mean everyone is fair game), reminding me of my mortality. It makes me realize I’m on borrowed time. On our deathbeds, we don’t say I wish I became the global head for this and that before I go… My dad, a few days before he died, told his friend that he can already go as he already made peace with his children and he had settled all the things he had to settle. He was already satisfied.
So what do I want to prove? Nothing. I just want my children to be good human beings. Nothing else.
We’re back to enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) a.k.a strict lockdown where you need quarantine passes or IDs if you are an essential worker i.e. healthcare, food service, and logistics.
And just like last year, this stupid and incompetent government still doesn’t have contingency plans!!! The presidential spokesperson said wait for the details on Monday… WTF!!! why can’t they treat this with urgency?! People need to go to work on Monday and there are no clear rules on transportation, financial support for the most vulnerable…
But unlike last year, we are now logging 10,000 new COVID-19 cases the other day. And these new variants are overwhelming us as the government is bungling our vaccine procurement.
I knew I would be so distressed so good thing I was able to make it to the Fabric Warehouse along C5 before everything shuts down. I bought 18 yards of fabric to make into curtains. By hand. To destress. To relieve me of my anxiety.
I just sewed one panel tonight and finished it at 2 am today. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I have seven panels to finish until Easter Sunday so I guess I will be pretty occupied until April 4.
Since weekdays bleed into weekends and the distinction is getting blurred once more, I am putting more effort in cooking on weekends, just to make it distinguishable from workdays. So every weekend, I barbecue meat on skewers or chunks of chicken in sauce, grill stake, or do Korean barbecue… Just like what we did when J was still here.
Just because he’s no longer here doesn’t mean we can’t have good food regularly. I am getting better at starting the fire and have ember as soon as possible.
On a related note, the girls are now learning to eat spicy food bit by bit. Last week I ordered the spicy Korean fried chicken from Jjangkae along Kalayaan Ave just the other day. Yes, they struggled but at least it’s a vast improvement from before when they simply had refused anything with a hint of spice.
Spicy Korean fried chicken with side dishes. Photo by CallMeCreation.com.
Although this is not really spicy but at least they’re already eating yellow curry (either the Otogi brand or McCormick). It will take a long time before I would be able to serve Thai green curry or red curry. I still have all those Thai and Malaysian curry mixes (rendang!) here stuck in my shelf. Because no one eats them here except me and J.
Ah one of these days I’m going to cook them and send to friends who are stuck in condos with no proper home-cooked meals.
US is full of racists and I understand, based on first hand stories and literature, that Asians are the invisible colors there. We tend to try our darned best to blend in and not raise hell.
From J, I learned that the affirmative action was a disservice to Asian Americans. They get left out. They get dismissed and are the least priority.
From my relatives, the stories are like the expectation is that they need to do well, extremely well, for them to be acceptable. There was no other way. Asians needed to work doubly hard so that they can achieve at least the same level of acceptability or success as the whites do.
What I miss about J is the dining table conversations we have about these things (well it was just me listening and him talking). The Atlanta shootings of Asian Americans would surely fire him up and he would be talking nonstop over breakfast about this and that. The photo of that Chinese grandma attacked in California would make him worry about his grandma and also his brother in Alabama, of all places.
Xiao Zhen Xie was attacked in San Francisco. (GoFundMe.com)
They were actually the first thing on my mind when the killings in Atlanta happened.
Asian discrimination of Asians is present too and I’ve been a recipient of that. There was one time I cried when I was explaining to J why I didn’t like being in Singapore. He didn’t understand the hierarchy among Asians, him being Korean and all.
Since working with this xxx who looked down on Filipinos, he somehow got the idea where I was coming from. Why I had to assert myself, that I’m as good as everybody else. That our being poor is not an excuse to dismiss us that we are all gold diggers, incompetent, and brainless.
I remember a coworker remarking that I must have Chinese blood because I was skilled, very good in what I do, and well spoken. I say WTF 🤬 can’t I just be Filipino and just as good? That’s how low the view us.
I always get this: “Oh you’re not Filipino/can’t be Filipino. You’re fair and pretty or this and that.” WTF WTF WTF!
Yeah, racism is one of the evils of this life. It tastes bad.
I needed this alcohol break. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Yesterday I had back to back webinars and calls and I was writing and editing in between. I barely had time to eat.
But it was good. It made up for the patapon days I had that dragged me down. I have to admit my blog post the other day riled me up when I recalled this young biatch of J’s and the treatment I received. I keep suppressing my emotions so I can move on but when they surface, it’s like being hit by a train.
Repeat after me: I deserve better. I deserve better. I deserve better.
What is better? Me. I should love me. I don’t need anyone. No one else would look out for me. No one else would love my children and accept them. Except me.
There are days when I’m so pumped up, with interviews left and right, online conferences to attend, a lot of edits to finish. But there are days that are just garbage. So yeah, the past days since last week were utterly garbage. I have been too lethargic that I no longer know what to do with myself.
Just this evening I was still editing a crappy compilation that I simply had to rewrite everything. 🤦🏻♀️ I was supposed to go biking to clear my head and have some exercise but it was already 6:30 pm and I still wasn’t finished.
I’m losing my mojo. I’m so tired. I’m tired of carrying the weight of the world. I’m tired of lockdowns. I’m just tired of pretending that things are going to be all right.
