I was about to write on this blog on my phone last night, reflecting on how unproductive I had been this month when I suddenly zonked out. When I opened my eyes, there’s already sunlight and my phone read 7:30 am. I must have been so tired yesterday.

Well, I’ve been tired for a long time now.

I had been juggling so many things, even my APAC boss thought I would be overworked during our conference, moderating two panel discussions, while farming out story assignments/coverage and networking duties. Having those endless calls.

I had also been working on the staff bonuses and I was already warned by my bosses that they are disappointing. 😑

Because everything is happening all at once–prep for the girls’ graduation, prep the household for my nine-day absence, arranging stuff remotely for our Singapore journo trainings that I would be moderating/conducting as well–my hair literally was flying all over and was always plastered on my face, my neck—basically a hot mess. I got so irritated with my hair that I had it chopped off once again last night. My hair should be the least of my worries when I’m running around here and in Singapore–two places where humidity has been oppressive.

I am no longer trying to please any man by keeping my hair long. Heck, I shouldn’t be trying to please anybody with how I look. Damn it.

I’m so busy running around that I neglected to schedule my sonomammogram and my HPV vaccine shots, both of which should have taken place last week. 🤦‍♀️ While I had been celibate for three years now, my gynecologist said that I could have a new partner and that it’s better to be protected from HPV.

In my head, I’m like–noooo–I don’t think so. I don’t think I will have a partner anytime soon or ever. But oh well, it’s better to be covered just for the sake of my children. I don’t want to be dealing with unexpected health issues.

But then I don’t think I can deal with another person, trying to meet expectations, berating myself for my shortcomings, going all through that soul-destroying process of giving myself to someone completely but never getting love in return.

Like nah, Doc, I’m fine. But ok, for the sake of my children that I need to live beyond 60 years old I will take all the vaccines you say I must have. ✌

Gotta work now. I may have more self-reflection I need to push out as I was overtaken by exhaustion last night. As I learned through my therapy, I need to take the garbage out regularly.

I am sooooo looking forward to the long weekend before I fly out. I am in a state of mini-panic right now because I have only half a month to prepare for the move. As I still do not have stairs as of today, I still cannot bring stuff inside my house. But I can sift and throw trash and give away usuable items on the curb just outside the gate of the apartment. I could start doing it by Friday during the Eid al Fitr holiday.

And before I drift off to sleep again, here’s a photo of my guardian.

At least for my cats.

After I drove my SIL and my nephew to the bus station last night, my cats took over my room again. They regained their kingdom. But before my SIL left the apartment, Kimchi was already warming up to her because my crafty SIL bought salmon cat treats–the real salmon, not the dry food one–to woo them. So when they were leaving, Kimchi was just watching them from her perch on the stairs instead of cowering inside the room or on top landing of the stairs. My SIL brought her hand to Kimchi for her to smell. She didn’t flinch nor turn away.

Which was good since my SIL, my bro, and my nephews would be frequent visitors to my tiny house when we transfer there. Because I can cook. 😂

They finished all my kimchi in my chiller. They love all things spicy.

I had back-to-back-to-back calls today and the last one was a webinar for undergrad students. I was up until 1 am doing the Powerpoint presentation for that and I was still at it until right before the webinar started. Doing that was exhausting; my brain just got fried. All 115 students (they were supposed to be 135 but some joined the webinar later) had access to privileged communication (in the legal sense, i.e. confidential) that’s why they couldn’t do screen cap/photos of my presentation or even do audio recordings because there are things that I said that could be used against me, especially criticisms of other media entities (of what should not be done based on universal media ethics).

Meanwhile, I had been emailing people for our trip to Singapore. Making reservations to Blue Ginger for the team dinner. My APAC boss wanted a restaurant near CBD instead of having seafood at some restaurant on the East Coast. I also need to order lunch for me, my APAC boss, and my manager because it will be a working lunch for us 😥. *sigh*

I have yet to finish setting up interviews for next week.

While I was reflecting on what I wrote last night, I remember asking myself during my lowest point if the men in my life learned this kind of behavior towards women from their own fathers, seeing how they treated their partners when my exes were growing up? It’s possible, just the way I learned this co-dependent behavior from my mom—the self-sacrificing kind of love without any regard for my own person.

“Codependent people need external sources (things or other people) to give them feelings of self-worth. Often, following destructive parental relationships, an abusive past and/or self-destructive partners, codependents learn to react to others, worry about others and depend on others to help them feel useful or alive. They put other people’s needs, wants and experiences above their own.”

Kathy Berman, quoting Daniel Ploskin on Medium.com

I am trying to understand and study all these because I see now how this is being passed down to my daughters. They have an emotionally absent father and now that we have separated, the more they feel neglected/unloved by him. Even though they understand that I am better off without their dad, the basic need of their id and ego to be validated and loved by the parent of the opposite sex is left unfulfilled, thus, leaving them with a feeling of unworthiness. Even if the superego understands, the lower levels of consciousness don’t.

It doesn’t help that they witnessed another relationship of mine that followed the same pattern.

Some time ago, they started declaring that they like girls better and that they won’t marry ever. I sat down with them and told them that I’m cool with them being lesbians if that is really their orientation. But if this is just their way of protecting themselves from being hurt by boys, as they have seen from my experience, then that is not cool. I told them that girls can be mean to their girlfriends as well, just like in any hetero relationships. Sometimes they can be worse because they know that their partners have a limited pool to choose from so they would stick to the relationship even if it was already sour, as I’ve seen from my friends’ experiences, I told them.

Now my daughters have stopped doing that because deep down I know they like certain boys from school or their review school because they don’t stop talking about them. Bukambibig baga. Plus they had been declaring their undying love for some male anime characters, so I know they really don’t like girls in the romantic sense.

It was just some kind of trauma response, from what they saw while growing up.

So now I have to untangle that and kind of fix that so they won’t end up chasing narcissists and go around begging for love and validation.

As for the men I’ve been involved with, they may always end up unsatisfied with current and future relationships if they keep on dragging their partners through their noses.

I’m just glad that it’s no longer me.

The girls are again with their dad today while my SIL and nephew went to church. The girls’ dad is trying to make up for lost time and he has been out with them every weekend and on their birthday. He knew he has little time left before we leave QC for good. Once we’re there, it would be more difficult for him to spend time with the girls on a whim.

It’s only now that the reality is sinking in for him.

🤷‍♀️

Well, he wasted 11 years and it’s only now that he realized that he has not spent quality time with them.

What an idiot.

When I was trying to arrange something special like lunch at a hotel or cook something extra for the girls’ birthday, Twin I said that there is no need for me to do that. “It’s just a birthday,” she said.

I admonished her. “Don’t try to make yourself small and think that you’re not special, that you don’t deserve this. That’s wrong.”

I continued. “I thought the same way all my life and look where I ended up. Darling, if you don’t believe you are special to people who love you and you don’t deserve these little things like celebrating your birthday, you will think your entire life that you don’t deserve the good things that come your way. That you will just accept things the way they are because you think you don’t deserve better outcomes. You will just accept crappy treatment from people; you will always think you don’t deserve love and that whatever comes your way will be the best thing that you will ever have.”

“Don’t think that way,” I said. “That’s why I ended up with bad men. I just accepted whatever crumbs they gave me and I thought going the extra 1,000 miles would make them love me. That’s not how it works, anak.”

“And I’m doing this for your birthday because you are special. Because you are my daughters. Because I love you, OK?” I said with finality.

I hope she takes this to heart because that nugget of wisdom I imparted to her would have made a big difference in my life if only my mother taught me that. But no, she taught me the opposite: how to be small to accommodate a person who doesn’t want to grow up.

She told us children that we just have to adjust to my father and understand why he is a drunkard. Why he became a raving lunatic whenever he came home drunk, which was often. We children had to lock ourselves in our rooms and cower in our beds when we hear his big motorbike, when we smell alcohol—because that’s all that we can do.

She told me not to complain about our husbands and talk to others about their negative traits. Do not make them look bad to other people. Absorb all of these because we must love them.

Lord God, she basically told me to accept the emotional abuse. Which I did.

They were so toxic, these lessons imparted to me by this supposedly very intelligent woman. It’s only now, after graduating from therapy, did I learn that these are very damaging. It’s only now did I learn those are the words uttered by a co-dependent wife, trying to excuse the abominable treatment from a man who is supposed to love and cherish her and her children.

It’s a complicated thing, but this is what I know: narcissism + co-dependency = recipe for disaster. I received little affection from a narcissistic father and I never felt special. I always had to chase his affection, like trying to make good drawings but I didn’t measure up. He told me they were bad. So I drew in silence.

All my life I had to chase the affection of narcissistic men, happy with the crumbs they were leaving me. Ignoring the others who were ready to lay the red carpet for me. I don’t know why I didn’t gravitate towards them; I just went after the ones who didn’t treat me right.

No one taught me the things that I just told Twin I. I had to learn the very hard way.

We went to UP Town Center today to check out some craft stores and books. I held myself from buying more books because I still have dozens at home that I have yet to finish. I just checked out some titles that I had put in my mental checklist of “things I will buy next time when I stop being a tsundoku.”

I was looking for more Diane Wynn Jones but none came up. I think I have completed her titles.

Since the girls were given birthday money by their aunt, Twin A was able to buy a manga that she liked.

I remember when I was growing up, we had a Booksale branch just outside the university campus. I bought books there every week whenever I received my allowance. I had many joyful afternoons spent there, rummaging through used books and seldom did I come out of there empty-handed.

My SIL told me that the franchise holder for the lone Bookesale branch in our town already moved to another town so they had to close the shop. I told her that one day when I decide to slow down, I will get a franchise from Booksale and open a branch with a coffee shop. I need to buy real estate though, because rent is expensive in the same area where the first Booksale was located. I don’t want to be a slave to landlords anymore.

SIL said it’s also her dream to run a bookstore and she will partner with me if I do decide to do that.

I just need to build up my savings again and generate enough capital for that bookstore venture. My plan to have a small house in Anilao would have to be pushed back further.

I love books and it has been my secret dream as a teenager to open up a bookstore so I can read all the books I want while still running a business. It will not generate much income but it’s something that I can do on the side while doing something else that earns me enough to live on. It didn’t occur to me at that time that the complementary activity to that is being a writer and deriving my main income from writing could be possible.

See? I may not live a high life but things like these bring me joy and contentment. Only a few people are lucky enough to be able to live comfortably on an income of a writer. I shouldn’t lose sight of that and shouldn’t be distracted by the noise that pushed me to look for alternative careers because I need to prove that I’m successful and had to keep up with the Joneses or with superficial people that I had once been with.

This sums up my fantasy business: books, art, and a coffeeshop where artists and writers can hang out, where ideas are exchanged. Just like the European salons of the past where artists and intellectuals usually hung out. Where art exhibits and poetry reading can be held. Where musicians can play acoustic sets if they want to.

But dreams do come true, right?

If I put my mind to it, I can make it happen ❤️

My cats went nuts and got so stressed when my sis in law and my nephew arrived at the apartment with me. They ran to my room and hid under my bed. I had been coaxing them to come out from hiding for hours.

And it’s 3:38 in the morning and they’re still there. And I’m still effing alive.

How are they going to deal with the move next month if they’re so scared like this when there are going to be other people (movers) around?

Finally was able to make the cats go. After my SIL and nephew quieted down, I saw that they were moving towards the edge of the bed. I knew then that they were already plotting their escape. I left the door slightly ajar and when Sushi felt that my guests were asleep, she sped away towards freedom. Kimchi, on the other hand, took her time and went sniffing around my guests’ bags, sniffed around the bed, peeked at the sleeping people on my bed, then felt her way out quietly.

That was 4 am.

I’m so groggy now, trying to finish an edit.

This is my current speed in Quezon City

This was my speed yesterday at my house.

Now you see why I keep pushing Converge to fix it? Because I know that upload speeds can go beyond 300Mbps. Something is really wrong with their settings in my new location. 🙄

See? The upload speed is even faster than my DL speed 😑

I cannot have slow upload when I conduct a lot of Zoom interviews and I have a several regular weekly calls.

I will be very busy in the next few days leading to my departure for Singapore since I would be moderating two panel discussions during our conference/s. Meeting with the panelists, outlining the flow of the panel discussions…I need to keep my notes on hand.

I have no room to buy new clothes for this event since I’m on a super tipid mode now as I just issued a check for my waterworks and did bank transfers/cash payment for my laundry area construction.

Anyway, I need to brush up on some topics and read so many materials so I would not look stupid and uninformed, especially on the political and regulatory front in Southeast Asia.

I had been moderating conferences in the past so I’m picking up again that duty.

Doing this is not easy since you have to have more than superficial knowledge about the topic to be able to ask intelligent questions and draw out valuable insights. Otherwise, people would have just wasted their time listening to the discussion.

I have my hands full next week.