Category Archives: personal

I offer thee

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Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Pahinungod (Cebuano) {pa-hi-nu-ngud}– dedication (n), offering (n), dedicate (v)

When I was a college freshman, I joined the UP Pahinungod, the volunteer arm of the university. During the summer break I was sent on a mission to Mindoro Oriental to teach English and History to incoming fourth year high school students in a sort of bridge program to prepare them for the UP College Admission Test. My time and experience there was a rude awakening, prompting me to write a scathing article about the sorry state of education in this country, especially in the rural areas.

In high school (also under UP) I was already an activist. I didn’t take things sitting down; I had to fight for what I believed was right and just. I was always pushing the envelope. I used theater and writing as instruments for my activism.

I knew at some point I would end up teaching or writing or both. Which I did in 2013 until 2014. It was my payback to the university that employed my family and that gave me free education.

I’ve stayed in this country because I wanted to use my pen to change things for the better when I could just have packed my bags and sought a better future elsewhere. Messiah syndrome. But aren’t all journalists like that? I had been dedicating my life to this cause and it brought me joy and grief.

I wonder if this love is worth fighting for. This love of country that has been tested over and over the last five years. I was almost giving up.

Because you can only fight so much.

Now that I don’t have anything, except my children (plus I am already emotionally bankrupt), I’m thinking of throwing myself at it again, one last time. I’m going to use my pen and voice (podcast?) again to fight. I don’t have anything to lose now.

And if I end up giving up, because loving this country is madness, I would have to pack my bags and lick my wounds somewhere. Heal.

Carve another road.

No space

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Photo courtesy of Cubo.ph

I had been chatting with one of my closest friends since college and I told her I want to buy this modular tiny house from Cubo.ph and I just need to hunt for a 100 sqm lot either in our hometown or by the beach.

She asked, “Do you believe in The Secret?” “No, it’s New Age. I avoid New Age stuff,” I said.

“You know, the visualization of something you want to have or what your future will be,” she said. “It seems like you don’t have space for another person in your life.”

Damned right, I don’t, I told her.

Don’t close your door, she told me.

Well, I’m tired. The same bullshit happens. It’s better to save myself from heartache that is sure to happen. Some people are made for this; I am not. I should be kind to myself and not subject myself to that ever again, I told her. Life is too short to be unhappy and miserable. I’d rather be happy alone and just devote my life taking care of my kids until they fly away. I can have a fulfilled life alone.

I may die the next day, who knows? So I just make the most of it. Buy ourselves this tiny house tomorrow since I can pay for this in cash. Do gardening, and do crafts outside my day job, save rent money and spend it for more meaningful things like travel.

Or fulfill my childhood dream of being a NatGeo journalist or a war correspondent. Having a small house is not much of a worry when you’re away for a long time because you’re on assignments.

“Don’t you want to share it with someone?”

No. Been there, done that. Both ended in ditches. I have been taken advantage of. Twice. No need to go through that again.

How could I have been so blind?

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I’ve been blind for months and months or probably years. I didn’t realize that he has shut down his life from me. Limited my access to his social media, like I’m some kind of stranger. Before, I could still see snippets but he moved to limit my access to everything about him more than usual months or even a year before we broke up. I didn’t even know what was going on in his head. I couldn’t see him. And nobody knows about me from his side. Like I didn’t exist.

How could I have been so blind?

I realized he just used me.

He stuck with me until he got more stable and independent. Then ditched me.

When he was down and out, at his lowest, I was there for him. No questions asked, I took him under my wing. I was there and gave everything I had.

But what did I get? He was just stringing me all along.

Move on. Just move on, girl. Please, just move on. He didn’t deserve you.

And you should never, ever let yourself be duped again. You’re so fucking gullible. The only way to make sure of this is not to let anybody near ever you again. Ever.

Anilao, Batangas. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Channeling all energy

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Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I had an hour-long phone conversation tonight with my high school batchmate based in Japan since we are doing this personal computer donation drive for our high school as part of our year-long alumni homecoming project/celebration culminating in December. Aside from this, I am part of the homecoming program committee. So my batchmate said, you are pretty busy, huh? You’re a single mom and a journalist and you’re doing this project. I said, there is so much shit I deal with or dealt with and I’d better channel this negativity into something positive.

Just like during the long lockdown, it was my personal crusade to help feed jeepney drivers who were out of work and street dwellers. I had facilitated milk donations to Aeta natives somewhere north using my corporate connections. I channel my frustrations and grief into something more positive, so I don’t have to think about the bad things. My worst enemy is my mind. He said I had very troubled sleep during those days. I sleep-talked in my sleep. He caught me praying in my sleep and calling out for God. He heard me call for my father in my sleep. My daughter also said she saw my hands in a prayer pose while I sleep-talked. That’s how hyperactive my brain is when I am disturbed.

Since I’m still nursing this dying heart (will hopefully soon go dead), my brain is going on overdrive again. My daughter said I sleep-talked the night when they slept in my room. I don’t know how to turn off my brain. It’s a blessing when I work since but a curse when I need to quiet down.

I can’t fucking sleep!

I need to exhaust myself. Because I lack sleep, I can’t exercise. I rode his bike this afternoon around the village to go to the university campus but I got dizzy because I only had three hours of sleep.

So better channel all this energy into little projects like our 25th alumni homecoming.

As a side note: I didn’t know I was a popular kid in high school. I was just doing my thing in those days: drama club, glee club, hanging out with friends, playing football, science contests and whatever. I realized only now when my high school batchmates whom I didn’t hang out with during those days gravitated to me for these homecoming projects I am heading. This batchmate whom I just talked to said I should try to reach out to some of our classmates to bring us together to solicit help since they are more likely to respond to me. Which is funny because I always thought no one liked me. I thought I was pretty horrible during those days: ugly, not smart enough, unpopular with boys, etc. Now 25 or so years after, I can say that it’s probably untrue. It was just my insecurity eating me up alive. Too bad, I might have been a happier teenager if I only had that knowledge.

Pledge

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My battlestation. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Today I will be a badass journalist.

I had never been enough to anybody. So I promise myself I will never be pathetic again.

No one will come close to hurt me again.

No more looking back. Bawal maging marupok, nakamamatay.

Free

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Binangonan, Rizal. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

Let me tell you a story.

There’s a man who is constantly searching. Searching for what, we don’t know yet. I think he doesn’t still know it yet. He is always wandering, never staying in one place for too long. Even if he stays in one city for a couple of years, he gets easily antsy and finds that he needs to move houses after a year or so. He is a restless soul.

At some point he thought what he was searching for is a home. He asked her for a home and she gladly gave him that. For a time it seems like he was home.

However, his spirit could never be still in one place. She knew that from the very beginning it was his nature but she thought that the ticking of the clock, the natural propensity of the body to get weary could finally anchor him down. It was her worst fear. But the time has come: his spirit longed to fly again. He felt caged. She refused to believe it was happening again and it was already too late when she realized that some people are created to be lone wolves. He may be an ambivert on the surface but deep inside she knows that he will thrive more being alone. It was already too late when she learned that there are different kinds of partnerships; it doesn’t mean that they have to be together. A partnership is an understanding of each other’s spirit, supporting each other without having to cage one another.

She had to let go and let him sail into the horizon against the setting sun. Sunsets mark the end of a chapter; but it is also a promise of a new one that both of them could write separately as their spirits dictate. She is just asking the Boatman to take care of the lone wolf in this journey. She whispered to the winds and waves and asked them to be gentle and to carry the wolf and the vessel safely to wherever the Boatman will direct them.

Then she scattered light on the boat as a farewell, to serve as a beacon in the night until daybreak when he finally writes a new chapter.

Maybe someday he can look back and remember he used to have a home somewhere on that hill, in that island in the middle of nowhere. Maybe when he comes to visit, that house in the middle of nowhere could be locked as nobody is home for she has embarked on an adventure of her own like slaying dragons and casting spells over kingdoms.

Or maybe it may still have smoke billowing from the chimney and a warm glow of candlelight that can be seen through the window from the outside, welcoming him back.

Maybe.