Just had a session with my doctor this evening and i feel like my brain was drilled open and the things that I had been burying were hauled out. The things I keep suppressing burst out like a geyser.
It’s not your fault, she said. Stop whipping yourself. Give your self some credit. Be kind to yourself. He was just the wrong person. It’s not your fault; it’s just you had a lot of love to give–that’s all. You have to love yourself more, she said.
“Did he apologize to you?”
“No, not really. It’s a ‘sorry’ that went along the lines of ‘Sorry, it’s just that.’ But not really apology for hurting me. For using me. For his treatment of me towards the end that sent me over the edge,” I told my doctor. “But I have to reconcile with myself that I will never get that so I deal with it. I have to accept that I won’t get answers. You don’t get closure from someone else; you get your closure from within yourself.”
“What are you doing to get out of your episodes?”
“During lockdowns I couldn’t do anything much. Not even go biking to clear my head. Then I got Covid that further trapped me indoors and in my brain. Now that I can drive, I can see friends from way back. Those who knew me before shit had hit the fan. That’s why I’m going back to my roots; to what I was–to who I really am. To the things that made me like myself. It’s my way of loving myself,” I said.
“Good that you are able to pick yourself up now,” she said.
She then lowered my dosage of the anti-anxiety med, which may have been causing me to get sleepy more than necessary. She asked me if I could already sleep on nights I’m off it (because I now take it once every two nights). I said yes, I think so I can now.
I no longer wake up every hour, I said. Covid was bad; I was asleep 75% of the time but it was good that I made up for the months I haven’t been sleeping. It felt good,” I remarked.
Nap time. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Just like today, I was joined by my cats during my after lunch sleep. I always get sleepy by midday. Because of this I will just take my anti-anxiety med once every three days.
But my anti-depressant will still be there during my entire 12-month therapy. Hopefully I won’t have triggers by then. I wish the things that hurt me and had killed me over and over will just be a bad dream.
This was our livestream set-up last night. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
So we had our livestream last night that lasted 2.5 hrs. People were telling us this was our most enjoyable episode to date, with jamming sessions in between questions during our in-person and Zoom interviews. One of the interviewees was live from Texas. I had an amazing guitarist, while one of the co-hosts played the keyboard and I was singing and manning the Zoom meeting that was livestreamed as well. Other co-hosts also provided backing vocals or main vocals as needed. I played the tambourine-like percussion instrument in one song. Everything was spontaneous–and that was the most fun part.
The “studio”, which was a porch/wood workshop of one of our high school classmates/co-hosts, was messy but it didn’t show much in the livestream, but we gotta do something about it soon.
We had so much fun that I left the studio at 12:30 am and got home in Qc at around 1:45 am. I had black brewed coffee to keep me alert on the road and maintained my speed at 80kmph, except when overtaking.
Before the livestream, I visited my mom and brought her purple flowers, drilled some stuff in the upstairs bathroom of the main house and added a new shower head. Then visited one of high school friends who was back in the country and gave her more of my hand-made masks and some for her kids.
One of things that I needed to do during this visit was to get my old watercolors/pencil/charcoal drawings to hang in my room.
I resisted the urge to fill this gallery wall because I need some white space to let the room breathe. Photo by CallMeCreation.com“Mommy, your drawing is nice but King Charles II is ugly,” Twin A said. Photo by CallMeCreation.comMy hand-sewn curtains provided a nice contrast to the modern black framesof the pictures. Photo by CallMeCreation.comThis watercolor painting is a reminder. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
As I wrote on an Instagram post:
I used to paint and draw in high school. I found these in my room in xxx (hometown) and framed them to grace my room here in QC to remind me of who I was before I lost myself in ugliness and sadness. I have found that girl again, even though she’s xx heavier now, she’s still the same old creative person, richer in experiences. (By the pond, watercolor, CallMeCreation 1994).
I was 18 years old here against the ruins of the Old Chemistry building that was gutted by fire when I was in elementary school. I always lugged my film SLR camera around campus during this time after I took photography for one semester. I processed and printed this b&w photo in our college’s darkroom. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I found this girl. The girl who balanced football, theater, school, her Greek-letter organization, and social life. She is her own person. Her heart was yet to be broken and become jaded in this photo.
I never knew that roses could be labor-intensive. Pruning leaves and deadheading flowers help in producing more bulbs and flowers. I need to check and make sure that there are no diseased leaves in any of my flowering plants. I also started pruning my vegetables as well.
Mum. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
So far so good, my flowers are still surviving weeks after I bought them. Pruning and deadheading is a daily task if I want my plants to continually produce flowers. That’s the error I committed in my previous attempts at growing plants. I just couldn’t commit time before since I was busy with a million and one things. I had too many things on my plate. Now I can devote 30 mins a day every morning watering/fertilizing, pruning, and deadheading my plants.
I see more bulbs! Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I also started making my own fertilizer. First off, I am composting my kitchen scraps. I will take a photo of my simple compost bin that I treated with my mom’s activator for rapid composting. I am doing this rapid composting in an urban setting for her since she hasn’t tried this in a household setting (she’s too busy to bother). She had been doing this on a large scale system i.e. plantation and smallholding for decades (including integrated pest management) but never in an urban/apartment setup. She told me to record my experience and get some data.
My mom is an environmental scientist and organic farming is her life’s work. She just won another award this month but the announcement will be in January next year.
Second–this has an eww factor–but I am using diluted urine to water my flowers. This has been the practice of many gardeners and farmers for centuries if not thousands of years. This only stopped with urbanization and the development of the sewage system. Good thing I no longer have a partner because my ex-partner will surely frown upon this practice.
Fresh human urine is sterile and so free from bacteria. In fact it is so sterile that it can be drunk when fresh; it’s only when it is older than 24 hours that the urea turns into ammonia, which is what causes the ‘wee’ smell. At this stage it will be too strong for use on plants, but poured neat on to the compost heap it makes a fabulous compost accelerator/activator, with the extra benefit of adding more nutrients...
During a pee, a healthy adult will release 11g nitrogen/urea, 1g phosphorus/super-phosphate and 2.5g potassium.
Basically, the inorganic fertilizer that our farmers buy is NPK–which they call the complete fertilizer. Why NPK? Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), and Potassium (K). We had agriculture courses in elementary and high school that’s why I know. We were also taught how to calculate fertilizer (NPK) weight (yes, you just do not apply inorganic NPK haphazardly or else you would end up with an imbalanced soil). But if you use organic fertilizer, you don’t have to bother with that.
I’m not bothering with the soil pH because I don’t have any pH meter to measure it. Even a Litmus paper.
So I just use powdered egg shells for added calcium, probably once every two weeks, and I haven’t used white vinegar to adjust the soil pH. So far so good. What I do is whenever we cook with eggs, we clean the inside of eggs shells (just to make sure there is no salmonella or other bacteria lurking there) and we dry it out in the sun. Then after a few days I crush them into powder using my food processor/blender.
There you go. Healthy plants. We cannot just water plants and leave them to dry out in the sun. They need fertilizers because growing in pots is a sad way to live.
Among the other things we learned in our high school agriculture courses is animal science. We were taught how to raise farm animals (except for cows) so we had goats, ducks, chickens, and rabbits in our high school compound. We also tilled the soil. I remember growing watermelons, pechay, and onions on my plot. We spent afternoons tilling our plots and weeding them. We raised chickens, slaughtered, and dressed them (yes, I can dress a chicken and even cleaned some gizzards). These are practical knowledge not taught in Singaporean primary and secondary schools (I checked some schools’ curriculum), which are important for survival. As we experienced systems breaking down during this pandemic, I think we need to go back to these important survival skills. One magnitude 8.0 earthquake here in Metro Manila will surely result to Armageddon. It’s not an “IF” situation; it’s a matter of “when” as we are in the middle of the Marikina Valley Fault that begins from Central Luzon down to Calamba, Laguna.
Computer science courses are default now and I can enroll my kids in basic and advanced programming, as Twin I wanted to so I had her take some online courses and she’s now tinkering with Linux. But the skills I mentioned above cannot just be taught off-hand. I came from a long line of farmers and trial and error is just a costly way to learn.
The silk squash grown by my mom in her backyard. Photo by ArtCaves.
The silk squash (patola) grown by mom in her backyard are huge! They’re 100% organically grown. One day that 150m plot (excluding the 100m front yard) will be mine to grow a food forest.
The other skills lost nowadays are practical home arts. I learned to sew and cook in school. My mom was too busy to teach us those (plus she wasn’t good in those–she tried though–but she’s really an academic). I learned how to repair things from my father and in school. These things are important to know. When we had shortages of masks, I made my own. I sew when we need to repair clothes; we just don’t throw them out. Or we repurpose them. I just don’t throw out things and pollute the environment–we repurpose or upcycle them.
Had a call with my APAC boss this afternoon. She told me she would lobby before our global boss to allow me to stay here in not be transferred to Singapore. She agrees with me that there is little reason for me to uproot myself and be there since–there’s nothing there really. I just have to travel in every city that we cover and that’s fine with me. And it’s a wonderful way of cultivating relationships with my contacts across Southeast Asia.
I hope things will go well before the year ends so by January I can plan my life well.
Yey! I was able to write a long-ish feature article today and right now it is being uploaded. I didn’t go to any coffee shop because I woke up late and it was hot. It was such a struggle to be able to get into the writing zone today. I needed a big push to start writing, like a looming deadline (last workday of the month).
So that’s it. I’m no longer motivated by whatever is happening at work. Writing is like pulling my guts out and it seems like I have no reason to do that anymore.
I really need to address this problem. My livelihood rests on my ability to write and if I keep on getting this writer’s block, I’m screwed.
This lethargy may be brought about by my need to implement the drastic changes I want to do, like moving houses, to signal a change in the direction of my life. I needed a serotonin boost to get me through the day so I bought several shares of ETF while prices yo-yoed this morning. I did two tranches to catch the drop in prices.
After that, the guilty feeling of not being able to adult for the entire week has been erased so I clicked “buy” on that retro-looking red Midea microwave oven on Lazada. Do we really need a microwave? Yes, our househelp said. We use the defrost function in the microwave when we’re running out of time and lunch just came out of the freezer. We heat leftover food with it. And if I do batch-cooking again especially when we move to my hometown in 2023, I would need a microwave oven for dinners and lunchboxes. So yes, my purchase was justified.
I also bought new chairs for the girls again because the black ones that I bought from SM were of bad quality. The place where metal screws go underneath the shell of the seat are made of soft plastic and they broke. I bought the new adjustable rolling chairs from Ofix instead of Ikea because they have quicker delivery time.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Hopefully these will last longer.
Meanwhile, I was able to fix the backrest of this one, which was pushed all the way to the the back since this is a recliner gaming chair. The hydraulic seat no longer lifts but it’s usable. One of the legs is wonky because J kept on leaning on one side when he used this so it was a little bent. But this is still serviceable so I will throw this at the back of my car tomorrow to give to my sister or nephew.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I’m just rambling on. It’s like having verbal diarrhea in front of a shrink to let this all out but in truth I’m masking the real problem. My birthday leave didn’t help at all.
Friends and family had been sending messages, greeting me and asking me what my plans for today were. I said I just want to lay down in bed, savor my airconditioned room while the girls are downstairs doing their crafts. Which I did.
However, I had to attend first to my new babies, my plants, and had to water/spritz on water, and make sure there were no caterpillars. Then attend to the cat litter. Other than those chores, I did zero. Ever since our other househelp left, the dishwashing duties, dusting and vacuuming are now assigned to the girls. I really have no reason to get up from my bed because they can take care of themselves now. My ideal day.
Tonkatsu ramen. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
If it weren’t for the kids, I wouldn’t bother with the food. But of course I had to feed them so I ordered ramen from Botejyu via Grab. Yesterday I already ordered 3 tubs of ice cream for the girls and my househelp and a blueberry cheesecake from Conti’s and have them delivered at home while I was having my car checked. Twin I has been singing praises about the cake sent to me last week by a friend so she pestered me about ordering cheesecakes.
So it seems like her prayers had been answered again after I received two cheesecakes today from a good friend from the industry and another from a PR person.
I honestly haven’t had any of the cakes yet. I’m controlling myself. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I have the girls off my hair today since they were busy eating and painting or doing some crafts. Which was lovely as I get to have peace and quiet.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
For dinner, we just had leftovers from yesterday and ham & egg sandwiches. And oh, I was able to revitalize leftover rice from the fridge into fluffy white rice using claypot.
Claypot rice, Ottogi yellow curry with mostly potato, bell pepper and carrots and few meat. My bowl is above the claypot. I limit my rice intake.
Tomorrow I should keep myself wide awake because I will drive the girls to my mom to spend their semestral break there for a week. Then I drive back here tomorrow evening because I have back-to-back calls on Monday.
I’m a year older.
What have I learned from the past 12 months? Last year I was miserable and I took an antidepressant so I can balance all the things I had been juggling without having to dwell on the fact that I felt rotten and spent and that pill kept me from breaking down. I knew I was being treated shabbily but I pushed on, thinking that things might get better if I did more.
But no, you cannot win the love you already lost. Or never had.
Last year on this same day I was so lost and alone. I was the loneliest with J. I was confused why I felt that way. I couldn’t fathom why I was wretchedly unhappy. I felt like I was sinking into an abyss. Like it was my fault that it had come to that.
But I was always gaslighted.
I felt helpless.
I was always dragged around because it was always about him, him, him. What about me? I needed comfort and support too but I didn’t get it because it felt wrong if I asked for kindness and love. I felt neglected and tired. But isn’t it enough that he was there with me?
But no. He wasn’t there with me for quite some time. He was already so far away.
It was unfair. He was unfair. He should have left in June, the time when I felt I lost him. He shouldn’t have used me like that.
I’m in a better place on my birthday this year. I have showered myself with love today by being kind to myself. That for once I am not mommy or a woman who must attend to every whim and caprices of her partner. Friends have sent their support and love to me today. I didn’t have to ask for it.
It hurts just thinking about it now. How could have I been unkind to myself for letting me think that I do not have to feel special and loved? That I should just accept what I had then?
I think my return to my hometown to raise my children is my way of sheltering myself from being hurt again like that. You don’t know how much J killed me everyday for several months, especially after that thing with that kid in my circle. What’s worse is everyone knows that by now. And my friends explained to me, in my drunken stupor, that J was chasing her so he can tap into her network, which she doesn’t have. As if she can summon conglomerate owners and C-level people to talk to him like I was able to do for him. As my friends said, why would he go for someone like her when clearly she didn’t have anything on you except youth? “Sex maybe?” I answered in my alcohol-fueled raspy voice. Being infront of the camera doesn’t mean you are the best there. It just so happened a lot of them in that network left (the network is not doing that great) and they had to promote people from within. After one year or less as a researcher, she became an on-cam reporter because she was there. Of course J doesn’t know that; he just probably thought that being on cam she would have more clout, my friends said.
It’s only during my Covid isolation that I firmed up my decision that I should make some drastic changes so I can never let anybody kill me like that again. Now I am beginning to realize that I am retreating from the world by returning to my hometown and will be embracing spinsterhood. My hometown is a small world and there is less chance for me to get involved with someone else because I know everyone there.
Once I uproot ourselves here, that signals that I have finally closed the door. I will start building a fort around me on top of that duplex that I just have drawn plans for. Yes I would still have a queen-sized bed but that is all to myself. Yes, I will be traveling more frequently by next year because of my job and meet a lot of people but I will never ever let anyone near me again like I had let J. It will all be distancia, amigo.
That is how I will love myself–self preservation. At 42 years old, I don’t think I can waste more years and energy again for somebody who never thought I was precious and never put me on a pedestal like the way I did with him.
I cannot afford to be that unhappy anymore. Life is too short.
Late afternoon, Twin I and I went to UP to buy vegetables and then went to buy flowering plants and more gardening supplies. Because we like growing stuff. I love flowers but my allergies don’t love them. What the heck, I will have my flowers and there are always antihistamines.
I don’t know what this is called. Photo by CallMeCreation.comWhite rose. Photo by CallMeCreation.comDark red daisies. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
From Wednesday I’ll be having my break and will come back to work on the following Monday (25 October). I have plenty of time to repot my flowers and plant more vegetables.
Soon, I will have a 100 sqm garden, if all goes well.
You see, my mom offered to me a part of her property so I can build my tiny home. It will be 2-bedroom affair (around 60-65 sqm or 646 sq ft, which is around the same size of some condo units in Metro Manila) and it will be a duplex. I will take the upper floor. The construction can begin once the pandemic is over and I told my mom I have a friend (who went to another high school) who is now a contractor who can do this. We also talked about installing solar roof panels that will be hybrid, which means it can be tied to the grid but can run off batteries during power failures. I will also extend the water catchment system to water the garden, which will be at least 100 sqm (1076 ft). I can also have chickens for manure and eggs.
And finally, I can have a small dog again.
My dream of a small homestead is slowly within reach, if all goes well.
With the savings (because I don’t have to buy land anymore), I can finally let go of my old car and buy a new one (not a sedan!) so my daily drive to Makati, once the pandemic is over, will be easier. The hours I spend on the road from Makati to Quezon City pre-pandemic are more than the time I spend driving from Makati to my hometown on a good day. The parking in my future home will also not be a problem–there’s a huge parking lot in front of the property.
I can also rent a small studio in Makati as a crash pad or just rent an airBnB if I need to stay a night or two in Makati when there are late events or during bad weather.
My girls will now also have a chance to grow in a safer and healthier environment. They can take the public transportation without me having to worry about them. They can also ride their bikes to move around. The girls can also play a lot of sports of their choice given that it is within the university campus.
I will be able to join my high school friends in their bike rides around Laguna and Batangas during weekends. I can have a proper mountain bike or road bike since space to store that would no longer be a problem. Driving to Anilao will also be easier because I no longer have to go through South Luzon Expressway.
Because I’m saving all that rent money, I can also save up for a bigger plot of land or farm. Or a piece of land in Anilao.
