I got a little bit triggered today because of some short video I watched. Then I got to view this video, which is like an affirmation that my life just sucked in the past because I didn’t know any better. I met the wrong people, chasing their approval when I shouldn’t be.
Come to think of it, they’re not that special. They were special for me because I made them special in my eyes and I made myself believe that. Otherwise they’re just like any other guy/s out there.
I want to write about so many things about this subject, especially this last partner I had. But it is what it is. It is exactly a year ago this week or last week when I realized I was a big mess and decided to seek professional help.
What progress I had made! Thanks to my therapist, I sorted myself out. But it was a long and difficult process. 1 year and 8 months ago, I couldn’t imagine how it is to be where I am right now. I wondered if ever I could even reach this stage. I should love myself more for getting past that horrible stage.
Now I just need affirmative words/reminders like the one I posted above from Instagram to remind me that it’s not me—they’re just the wrong people. No matter how much bending backwards I do, it will never make a dent. They just don’t and won’t ever love me.
And if someone is the RIGHT person, he will seek me out. He will find me, even if I will soon hide myself at the foot of the mountain in my hometown, he will find me.
If not, it’s fine. At least I’m going to be happy with the life I am building for myself and the girls.
Folded gimbap. Photo by CallMeCreation.com Korean breakfast for the girls. I wasn’t able to include the miso soup with seaweed and mushrooms in the photo. Photo by CallMeCreation.com British breakfast of eggs and beans on toast for me. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I had more energy today so I decided to cook brunch. Didn’t attempt go out today because I have no idea if I could.
Will do another antigen test in a few hours.
Tomorrow is the girls’ mock entrance exam. Must sleep now to prepare them tomorrow.
My Greek-letter organization brother, who just got back to Chicago where he has been living for two decades or more, contracted Covid. He said he never had Covid or got sick the entire time he was here in the Philippines when he was taking care of his parents for three months. He said people in the US treat the pandemic as something that is already over and he’s pissed that people refused to wear masks. People are dying again because they simply refused to have boosters/vaccination and wear masks. It’s simple.
It’s inconvenient but my goodness I will have all the inconveniences that come with mask-wearing than suffer another bout of Covid. The variant that hit me last year was nasty and it took months before I could fully recover. I’m glad that Asia hasn’t dropped masks yet. Ever since we got hit by SARS, mask-wearing has become second nature to us. It’s courtesy to other people so they may not get sick from whatever virus or bacteria we’re harboring, especially if we’re taking the public transport.
Manic Monday. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I started working at around 8 this morning and I had non-stop calls from 11 am until 4 pm. A lot of talking and graph display had taken place. I haven’t had any chance to write my own stories—all admin work today. Arrrghhh.
And here I am, still sifting through hundred of cards that I got in Singapore and I have to make sense of all of them. It will take me days to sift through and email all these people and seek re-connection.
And yes, I have two keyboards. I use both, depending on my mood. My new key caps for my Royal Kludge will arrive tomorrow. I’m looking at this GammaKay 65% and Rakk 65% keyboards. Just because.
I think I had been feeling ill the past few days because my body is withdrawing from escitalopram that I had stopped taking on 24 July…about 2 weeks ago. And I feel really bad: I feel like I’m floating and have this nagging dull headache somewhere. It was a bad idea to skip it. I took a half pill today and I don’t know if it was psychosomatic that I felt a bit better. Having less triggers doesn’t mean I’m fully cured; it just means I can manage myself with less synthetic chemicals in my brain.
It has been exactly a year this week when I learned about J and that silly young journo, plunged into darkness, and had alcohol for my companion. I had sunk so low, as low as when I dug myself a hole in December 2020 – January 2021. When I started barfing on my toilet after downing a whole bottle of wine by myself, that’s when I decided I needed professional help to sort me out. That’s when I learned that what I had been experiencing was post-traumatic stress. I wasn’t properly healing and I just kept on putting on a brave front but deep inside I was crumbling. Seeing my therapist was the best thing I did for myself. Putting a name on what I was going through helped me sort out the tangles inside me.
Trauma. That’s what my therapist told me. The word trauma helped me heal; it was a validation that I was not being melodramatic about the whole thing. Whatever devastation I felt was legit. I was dealing with a lot of trauma, for being betrayed despite giving my all. For losing myself into something or someone who gave so little. For the abuse that I received: I let a Dementor/Nazgul suck the life out of me and I received no love in return. I was just a human appliance.
Mental health is very important and taking care of it is as equally important as taking care of the rest of your body. Just like when your body received huge blows, it has to adjust to the trauma and heal before it can fully function again.
I can’t say I’m fully healed—I don’t think you can ever recover from such trauma—but I was already able to get back on the saddle to fight for survival for another day. I have gotten better compared to last year when I couldn’t even write. I was back again in that deep, dark pit, trying to claw my way up. I couldn’t sleep since my mind couldn’t stop thinking about what happened. What’s sad is that Covid was the only respite I had. Because of Covid, I was able to sleep and recover all the lost sleep since the breakup.
I’m much, much better now. I’m now in that place where I can say I’m content with life—at this point. Of course this can change tomorrow. But so far, I don’t feel the need to have a partner because even just the thought of having one exhausts my brain. I am in control of whatever I have in my life right now. No one is leading me by the nose anymore. No one is being unkind to me anymore. I don’t have to bend backwards just to earn crumbs of affection.
The only thing I did was to clean the exhaust fan in the bathroom and cook dinner. Otherwise I was horizontal the whole day because I needed to enter the zen mode after last night’s trigger episode. I don’t want to take my anti-anxiety/tranquilizer as my shrink told me to do when such event arises because I want to completely be off it. I want to be better soon. I want meds off me. I only have been taking escitalopram (antidepressant) since April and my goal is to stop it by August, according to my shrink’s timetable.
It’s enough that he destroyed me and my mental health. I don’t intend to prolong it. I had given him too much power over me. He doesn’t deserve me and this power. Sending me that painting was an attempt to regain that power but I didn’t let him. Even my shrink was flabbergasted with that action but she didn’t offer any explanation. She was probably waiting for how I would act on it. Being a person with full mental faculties still intact despite nearly going insane, I had the will power to shut him out by ending it with “thanks, got it” as I still had my self-respect with me. If I didn’t, I would have started a conversation and that would open Pandora’s box. But I didn’t because I loved myself more at that moment. It was a painful fall, though, but I bounced back with the help of friends. But it was hard.
He must be messing up other people now.
Not me. No longer me.
But I have to admit I’m still struggling with anger and a whole gamut of other inexplicable emotions.
I was able to overcome yesterday’s anxiety attack without the tranquilizer though, which is already a feat. I just need more will power to continue fighting this. I need to be stronger to be healthier.
As my colleague-friend said, I need a distraction. She asked, do you have Bumble? I said no and people there are worse scammers. I would rather hang myself. She conceded and said, yeah, I guess you’re right.
So I guess I need to have my house built soon so I can be distracted. I don’t need to date to distract me. That’s suicide.
Brunch. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
My brunch is comprised of side dishes. 🤣 Well, it’s better this way.
Meanwhile, I found that consumer companies have started adjusting their packaging in response to the current high prices. Cream is not necessarily a staple in Pinoy pantries; a smaller package would make it affordable so buyers won’t have to skip it when doing their food shopping. During times like this, consumers stick to basics.
Photo by CallMeCreation.com
This has been my question to companies in the past few weeks: how are you adjusting your services and your products as people continue to tighten their belts? They have done this in 2008. Some companies survived but some didn’t. As for Monde Nissin, they told me they’re not reducing their packaging/weight but they’re adding “pairs” so that consumers would feel more value for money compared to competition, which have shrunk the sizes or weight. I remember in 2008, I had to ask Jollibee, the bellwether for Filipino consumption, how they would twist and turn as prices of rice and oil skyrocketed. If I remember it correctly, the CEO’s response was they would have smaller rice portion (Jollibee is the largest private sector rice importer in the country). I remember showing in my article the gross and profit margins of that company and computing the differences for several quarters to illustrate how inflation compresses them.
It’s tricky. If your products and services are discretionary, you would have to do gymnastics to be able to ride this crisis. As I have learned during several economic cycles, when you’re not part of the “basics” basket, you should increase marketing spend while sticking to producing your core products and innovations have to take the backseat. This is something that Microsoft and Apple did during the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009. This is what I learned, too, in my classes at the Asian Institute of Management.
Let’s see how other sectors would respond. I have yet to receive their email responses to my questions.
We don’t know how long the elevated prices and supply squeeze will last. The oil prices at gas stations keep rising and jeepney drivers are throwing in their towels and are now looking for alternative sources of livelihood. They simply can’t make ends meet. Not with this daily price hikes and horrible traffic.
And yet this stupid government is still saying the PHP 20-per-kilo-rice is doable, at the expense of poor Filipino farmers
But Federation of Free Farmers Cooperatives national manager Raul Montemayor said the DAR’s plan would only make farmers end up losing more, especially if the farm-gate price — or the selling price between a trader and a farmer — is further reduced.
Montemayor said if a kilo of rice would be sold at P20, the farm-gate price would have to be about P10 a kilo.
As a rule of thumb, the retail price of rice is at least double the farm-gate price of palay (unhusked rice), which is currently P19 a kilo.
Meanwhile, the outgoing cabinet secretaries of Duterte admin say it simply cannot be done.
These idiots are not even coordinating their press releases 🙄
If these asshats have any iota of intelligence, then the first thing they should fix is the supply chain problems/inefficiencies/bottlenecks, which eat up 40-50% of the cost of goods, especially food, in this country. That alone has an immediate effect on the prices of food, which comprise bulk of the CPI.
I spent the day talking to this investment company that primarily provides mezzanine financing to SMEs. It slightly lifted me out of the doldrums but I’m still having a tough battle with the promotion of my people. Like what the heck?! Why is it even hard to have my good reporters promoted and have their pay raised? What the fuck is this company??? It was like defending my thesis all over again.
I was so angry this afternoon that I refused to work overtime.
I had put my ass on the line by saying that if they don’t give these people their due, they will leave the company—and one of them was already being pirated in front of me by a rival company (which was 100% true). If that happens, my work will be unbearable because I will be plugging the gap by myself and that would force me to look for opportunities elsewhere because I simply cannot overwork myself for little pay, I said.
Now I have to look for Plan B.
Being under this new parent company is much worse than being owned by a PE that squeezes the life out of a business. 🤬
Today just sucked the life out of me. I was feeling sorry for myself since last night until today and this HR issue added to the pain I’m having today.
Oppo Band. To motivate me to move. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
I’m sooooo looking forward to my break next week. I will shake off the bad jujus and tune out. I will love myself and make myself believe that I am not as horrible and unlovable as my ex-partner thinks I am.
I hit bumps like this from time to time because I’m still working through my trauma. It’s part of the process.
Anyway, I took advantage of the sale last Saturday in Glorietta and bought this smart watch that I will test this coming Saturday in Pico de Loro when I dive/swim laps.
Meanwhile, the cats managed to bring a smile to my face last night despite feeling like shit.
Sushi inside the paper bagKimchi’s turn to destroy the paper bagHave paperbag, have cat. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
After that pep talk from that sketchbook guy on Youtube, I finally decided to finish this thing that has been festering in my pile of to-do.
Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com
I decided not to line the baby blue eyes with dark liner and left the pencil outline and then I painted the filament silver.
Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com
Then I decided not to draw individual leaves and use the urban sketching technique of doing color washes (three types of greens) and do a collective outline of leaves and some individual leaves since the baby blue eyes in Hitachi were actually in a bed of grass.
Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com
Et voila! I now have a version of my favorite flowers on my wall. My favorite flowers in one of my favorite places on earth.
I think I will make another version of this baby blue eyes for my cousin.
“Mommy,” Twin A said, “KKR si promoting liquid botox.”
“Huh? Who?” I asked, bewildered.
“You know, KKR, that girl. She is promoting liquid botox on Facebook.”
“Ahh, Tito J’s gf,” I said.
“Yes. Twin I and I were watching her videos on Facebook. She’s always doing all these beauty videos and she keeps showing off her boobs in revealing clothes. She still looks like a transvestite though,” Twin A said.
“Ah I don’t care. Let her be. As long as I don’t need that botox I’m fine,” I said.
I really don’t need it and will never need it. In the first place, botox is injected and not applied topically, as my girls said this woman is demonstrating on her video—whatever. Besides, I’m already beautiful as is and I don’t need to inject myself with botulinum toxin. Hello! Anybody with a half-brain knows it is a neurotoxin that can cause your face to be frozen and be without facial expression 🙄 Exhibit A: Nicole Kidman. Exhibit B: Renee Zellweger.
My self-worth need NOT be measured by how many wrinkles I have, by being a daughter of a restaurant owner (a very poor way to be identified, by the way), or by any other external identifier. As my gay friend K said, do not measure yourself against these people—it’s not you who is the problem, remember that.
Yes, K, I am believing you now. I measure myself against how I was a year ago, how I was five years ago. I am older but much wiser now (I hope). I have only myself to compare with.
Someday, someone will appreciate my 42-year-old clear skin that doesn’t need botox, for my intellect, my talents, my generosity, my capacity to love, sense of adventure, my wide range of interests, my resilience, my practicality, my strength—the overall me. I will be appreciated by someone who will not take me for granted and not use me for his selfish gains.
Someday. Not today.
I’ve got some more healing to do.
In the meantime, my cats sleep with me on the bed and provide me with love and comfort. We woke up like this today ❤️. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Today’s news isn’t reassuring and on top of that I was busy dealing with errant reporters again. So Twin I asked, “Mommy, do you want hot choco?” “Ok,” I said.
Ahh! Hot choco with whipped cream and marshmallows. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
This made me feel a lot better. My daughter made me a calorie-laden drink to ease the tension on my forehead and back. ❤️
Twin A asked me yesterday, “Mommy, did you regret having children?”
I said, “No. I will always choose you over everything else.”
And this question and answer between me and my daughter echoed in my head while I was reading this article and the FB comments on the WSJ post.
To Get Into the Ivy League, ‘Extraordinary’ Isn’t Always Enough These Days. The Wall Street Journal.
While I was not really aiming to get into an Ivy League school for my master’s degree, the opportunities presented to me before I got married and before I got pregnant with the girls were there. I was encouraged by one of my teachers at UP Masscom to apply for a scholarship at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism where she is an alumna. I was preparing to apply when my father died. Then it all went downhill from there. My priorities have shifted; I got married, just as what my father had wanted. Then other opportunities came along (although not Ivy): scholarship at NYU and Germany but I couldn’t push through because then-husband didn’t want to come and I got pregnant, respectively.
I’m still thinking, would it have been better/made a big impact in my life if any of my plans to study abroad pushed through? For sure I wouldn’t have my girls if I did. Maybe I would have been somewhere else, living in Germany or making a bigger mess of myself in NY—but life would be lonelier without my girls.
I am meant to be their mother because I always knew—at the back of my mind at sixteen years old—I knew I will have daughters.
But I knew also that I am not meant to be with someone. I am meant to meet all these people, not because we were meant to last, but to teach me hard lessons in life.
Would I be earning a lot more if I had a degree from Columbia or NYU? I don’t know. Will I be more fulfilled if I obtained my MA and PhD there? I don’t know either. Probably I will just end up in the academe. It’s not like I will be pursuing a Master in Finance or MBA or law and end up as a hedge fund manager or work for Big Law.
All I know is I am glad I have my girls with me. They give me direction, strength, and reason for being. I believe that we always end up where we are meant to be. Where we need to be. The universe conspires and throws all these obstacles so I would not go in another direction. Kinda like that one blog entry I wrote about James Hetfield and Slash ending up where they were supposed to be and not turn into a football player or a mediocre bass player. Metallica and Guns N’ Roses may not have happened.
So for those kids who had been complaining about not getting into Yale and Harvard (in the WSJ article), they may not need to be there in the first place to be happier and successful later in life.
Life is short. I have a high school classmate, a gynecologist who has gone through chemotherapy because she is battling breast cancer. She just had a mastectomy last week. I know she would give anything to be healthy and spend more time with her son.
No amount of Columbia U PhD can compare to moments with my kids and their laughter when we swim in the sea, when we bike, when we hug on my bed.
As I said, I am where I am supposed to be. I am healing with my children beside me.
I can think of all the times You told me not to touch the light I never thought that you would be the one I couldn’t really justify How you even thought it could be right Cause everything we cherished is gone And in the end, can you tell me if It was worth the try, so I can decide
Leaves will soon grow from the bareness of trees And all will be alright in time From waves overgrown come the calmest of seas And all will be alright in time Oh you never really love someone until you learn to forgive
Try as hard as I might To flee the shadows of the night It haunts me and it makes me feel blue But how can I try to hide When every breath and every hour I still end up thinking of you? And in the end, everything we have makes it worth the fight So I will hold on for as long
As leaves will soon grow from the bareness of trees And all will be alright in time From waves overgrown come the calmest of seas And all will be alright in time Oh you never really love someone until you learn to forgive
I never thought that I would see the day That I’d decide if I should leave or stay But in the end what makes it worth the fights That no matter what happens we try to make it right
Leaves will soon grow from the bareness of trees And all will be alright in time From waves overgrown come the calmest of seas And all will be alright in time Wounds of the past will eventually heal And all will be alright in time ‘Cause all of this comes with a love that is real I said all will be alright in time I said all will be alright in time I said all will be alright in time All will be alright in time Oh, you never really love someone until You learn to forgive You learn to forgive Learn to forgive
