misery

welcome to the misery of genius...where everything feels so right, but the circumstances have always been wrong.  i'm here.  he's there.  we knew that all along, but sometimes, like now, it just really sucks BIG TIME.  

as we have both been saying to those who ask: "you think this was what we wanted? you think we didn't fight this?  we're both not dumb & stupid." (or something that essentially sounds like that, just less bitchy.)  

and to those who know our real history, i will not even venture to answer the "why just/only now" question.

i'm lonely as hell.  and now, at this exact moment, i'm lonely AND alone. 

but he's alone too. 

quits quits lang :)

old-age-ing

i've always been one of the "cool" young-30-somethings.  ask anyone who has spent time with me the past 5 years, and i'm sure no one will object to that claim.  i'm cool.  i rock.  yeah \m/

lately, i have been wondering how it would be like to be old and 50.  or 60. (i'm not yet sure if i like the idea of still being alive at 70.  though fine, getting wrinkly sounds better than being dead. or does it?)  but frankly, i have never felt my real age until this week. 33 shouldn't be too bad, right? this week proved that it's not good either.

before i went to law school, i vowed to myself that no matter how heavy the class work would be, i wouldn't kill my social life just to become a lawyer, despite working full time.  when i was reviewing for the bar, i made sure i went out & had fun twice or thrice a week to stay sane.  when i had rauf, hanging out with friends at least once a week (it didn't matter how many. one would do.) was a must.  when i was busy with this year's elections, we would still drink at the hq while working on our contact lists.  and after the boss won before-the-SONA, oh boy, the late night outs were so much fun.  my friends really didn't care if i'd get to join the gimiks late, as long as i made it.

so i went away for just two weeks for a reprieve from work (among other more important reasons), and when i came back, i found and have been finding it more and more difficult to rally the friends for our usual late-nighters in hub/morato.  i wonder what went wrong when i left.  or did things just become right in my friends' worlds? i wonder... (no, i will never admit to being the bad influence in their lives. never. hahaha.)

last week, after a week of being a full-time mommy to my sick toddler, it took me two tries before i found my friends/usual drinking buddies.  this week, which turned out to be a manageable week at work, i tried thrice. THREE TIMES, and i never got anyone to join me.  and poor, lonely me had no choice but to go home and watch tv, since i never drink alone.

it's not their fault.  i think it's me.  maybe i should be happy with being able to rest/relax/"recreate" just once a week, like most people.  it's not their fault that they're old. (hahaha)  it's my fault that i'm cool this way.

or maybe i should find younger friends.  

ha.

- - -

this post is dedicated to the friends who never had the heart to say no to me before. haha. you know who you are, you uncool flakers.  RAGE, RAGE AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT!!! hahaha!

having a yaya*: a necessity or a privilege?

*yaya. Filipino noun for nanny.

- - - - -

 

as much as i want to say this deserves a serious academic treatise, which i think it does on a social anthropology approach, i'd rather go straight to saying that, under my circumstances, yes, having a yaya is a necessity.

 

in a third world country where day care is expensive and schools require the presence of parents during classes, having day care centers and preschools left and right totally defeats the purpose of providing quality alternative child care.  while our office has its own day care center as mandated by law, they don't even take in kids less than 3 years old.  and woe to the single mom (that's me) who will even think of leaving her child in the care of an institution sans a, you guessed it, yaya, raising eyebrows and eliciting hushed remarks about having misplaced priorities and for being selfish.

 

sometimes i wonder if i'm really being selfish... by making sure that my career goes well, that i still have "a life", while leaving the son at home with the yayas.  i will not kill myself over this thought, because i know i am doing my best.  but i am only human.  there are a lot of times when i have doubts about my style of parenthood, but frankly, i don't know how else to handle my situation.  it's the best i can do, all things (and responsibilities) considered.

 

when rauf was 0-2 months, i took care of him 24/7 while i was on maternity leave.  when i had to go back to work, mommy made sure she was the hands-on mom, because she didn't want the yaya to handle her precious apo, up until he was 6 months old.  here i was, the biological mother, making sure that my career growth would not suffer, while my mommy kept on and on about rauf deserving a full-time mom.  well, ma, i try. i really really try. you knew that, you know that. (i miss you oh so baaaad.)  at the end of the day you knew why: i was technically working alone in making sure that rauf was provided for, and provided for well.  what would have happened to us had i not worked?  i rest my case.

 

which brings me to the meat of my, uh, rant. (you noticed?. hehe.)  when you're a solo parent without a parent to rely on to watch over your little one while you're at work, and you really don't want to impose on your loving, supportive siblings to provide alternative parenting, who else can you rely on but... the yaya.  there's no one else but her. (well, them, in my case.)

 

while i have 2 yayas, one full-time, the other an alternate part-timer, sometimes it just happens that they disappear at the same time and i get stuck, not knowing how to handle things without their help.  i feel for them.  yaya d's son has dengue fever, while yaya p's grandchild also caught the same.  (according to the latest updates, their platelets are going up. thank God.)  rauf and i are okay; we can handle it together.  but definitely, when the yayas are away, i cannot go to work. like today.

 

life as a solo parent is full of its ups and downs.  add to that the demands in my line of work, when i'm on call 24/7.  (even my alternative supposedly "secret" phone was ringing off the hook even while i was on vacation.  i had to switch it off. tee-hee.)  last week, a few hours after the pacquiao fight, the boss called me for a rush job.  while he was talking to me, rauf was shouting "mommy! mommyyyyyyy! mommyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!". the boss just said, "oh. you're with your son..." i was like, "yes, sir. but i'll get on it ASAP and will call you back in a while."

 

i need the yayas back. now. asap. one is enough :)

 

sigh. the things we gotta do.

 

c'est la vie :)

time and tide*

*with apologies to basia.

- - -

i was talking to my best friend early this week, and she pointed out to me one thing: that i, in all likelihood, belong to the 0.5% of the strongest women in the world.  i blinked at that. no, i can't be strong. i just go with the flow, realizing that my existence in this world has a purpose. and for now, that purpose can be summed up in one word: provider.

at the back of my mind, i know that to an average, ordinary, normal person, what i do is big... gargantuan, enormous, even ginormous.  oh yes, it's not easy.  but i have never dwelled on the problems i face day to day. if i would, i'd go insane. so i just let the tides wash me away... day in, day out.  i am blessed that i enjoy the work that i do.  without that, my life would be just one big pretentious show, and my misery would be palpable.

two weeks ago i took the first real semi-long, way overdue vacation i've had since 2007.  it was a trip of self-discovery, of old realizations that otherwise i would have kept at the back burner, to be renewed when yet another opportunity for a respite would show up.  and in the romantic sense, yes, it was a trip of affirmation.

i will not mince words nor pretend.  since the time i was reviewing for my philippine bar, i've been planning to take the new york bar just for the heck of it.  i've always wanted to try working elsewhere, just to prove to myself that if the probinsyana-that-is-i made it here, "i can make it anywhere."  and deep in my heart, i know i just want to be somewhere else with someone right now, just to know that i really, really tried.

life is never easy.  the constant challenge to live that purposeful life and pursue genuine happiness gnaws at me...  

does the buck stop here?  after the boss finishes his term, will i be content going back down to where i really belong?  will i be happy doing something i've been doing really well for the past 11 years, i didn't even blink when i got back after my break?  no one can ever really answer these questions for me. even the Universe cannot, or even if it could, it won't.  such is the beauty and madness of discovery.  everything gets settled in time.  it is up to me to decide.

at the end of the day, and i don't even want to start counting how many more days are left, i just don't want to be lonely.

there. that's the crux of it.  i may love what i do now; i may bask in the smell of power and influence and the excitement that living and breathing politics does to me; i may be able to provide my household with what they need (and sometimes just want) and i have some left for my own... but really, the emptiness of semi-success is something that shouldn't be bothering me at 33, right?

it gets tiring, too.  i am exhausted.  i have been fighting battles left and right, and i almost always win.  they seemed like real victories before, but now they appear to me to just be pyrrhic victories which may, might, lead to my eventual downfall or breakdown. God forbid.

for once in my life, i am genuinely lost and i don't mind.  i am not in a hurry... because things like these have repercussions when pursued with haste.  i will take my time, but not too much.  i think i'm good with deadlines, and if someone holds that deadline with me, maybe, just maybe, i might take this chance and leap.  

so yet again i am at a crossroads.  i hope this time, i do things right. 

Universe, conspire with me.  

i am done with just waiting for time to pass me by, and for the tides to carry me away.