Category Archives: Family

Connections

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Sometimes, ideas come easily. Other times, you’re trying to shake your brain to come up with something… anything. This unfortunately, is one of the latter ones. Yet as hard as I may try, I still end up typing on the keyboard what naturally–or maybe desperately–comes to mind. One would think that after two straight weekends of finally having new material written, I’d be back in the groove. But I guess, I’m more rusty than I thought.

I did have one topic in mind, but I feel that the timing isn’t appropriate (yet) to pen it down. Maybe in a couple of weeks. To think that after seeing Yasuke on Netflix, WW84 on HBO Go, and continuing my Friends marathon (also on Netflix), my mind would have fresh material to play around with. Still, I can’t quite get the creative gears going (even after having two beers and three shots of whisky–going on a fourth).

So I tried looking back at what happened the past week. It was actually quite a work week, with two early and long days, a bunch of interviews and meetings, and a couple of presentations. Well, not necessarily presentations per se, but I would probably say speaking engagements I had to be part of. In any case, it was a long, drawn out week. But what stood out during that week was a group call I received late Friday shift (early Saturday morning).

My shift was winding down, and it was about an hour after I finished the last of my meetings for the week. I was in the middle of finishing whatever emails I had to send out when my Messenger app rang. I saw that it’s a group call and was quite surprised that they’d call at that hour, but there wasn’t any hesitation on my part as I answered. They opened with the usual inside jokes they used to crack from time to time, and I responded with some of my own; and in no time, it was like we just physically saw each other yesterday.

Before we knew it, we’ve already been talking for more than an hour. We talked about what’s currently going on in our lives, shared stories, asked and answered questions about whatever came to mind, ranted about this damned virus and how we can’t go out like we used to, and one of them even tried to play matchmaker (seriously). But the common thing we did in the midst of all those things, was to laugh. It’s one thing to laugh when you’re watching a classic comedy TV series or even a funny movie; but to have that laughter shared among people you’ve grown to admire and respect, it’s somehow become more meaningful. And with a lot less things to laugh about these days, it was something that we all badly needed.

After the call ended, I was still smiling as I resumed to finish the remaining work tasks I had. Suddenly, instead of feeling absolutely relieved and thankful that the difficult work week was about to end, I somehow felt different. That work week was no longer defined by all the things I had to do and complete, or how my body clock was messed up, or even the number of mugs of coffee and gummi bears I consumed just to keep my sanity. It will forever be known as having that group call that made everything that week worth it.

And it also made me realize the value of checking in with people, whether they are your friends, colleagues, or even family. We constantly get reminders of looking after our own well-being, or taking personal time off, that we sometimes forget the one important thing that this virus and pandemic has taken away aside from health: our personal interactions and physical connections with people. More so, with those who we care about. Granted, there are those who will slowly or suddenly turn cold on you despite your best efforts (some, without any reason at all); but as long as you did your part, you can most likely sleep well at night. Take it from someone who’s no stranger from being left high and dry often (and used to it).

So to the group who made that surprise call, I can’t personally thank you enough. You drastically lifted my spirits up when all I was already thinking about that time was to probably hibernate all weekend. You’re all aces in my book, and I’m really looking forward to seeing–and laughing–with you personally again when it’s safe to do so. I wish you and your families safety and protection from this virus. Until we meet again.

Have a good week and month, everyone.

Final Sunday night thoughts

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It’s been a long time since I last wrote something here.  Before social media exploded in the last decade, this blog was my avenue for everything I wanted to say what I felt inside.  Be it personal experiences, ideas, opinions, or just shouting my frustration and emotions to the world, this was the most personal of my personal spaces.  Call it a shout to the void, a drop in the ocean, or a micro-blip on the radar, I felt comfortable knowing that everything I say here will forever be a part of history where only a tiny fraction of an audience among billions around the world will be able to pick up.

And yet, after posting this, I don’t know when my presence will be felt here again.  A lot of things happened during the last couple of months.  I became the happiest, most successful version of myself I have ever been in my life; and also became the lowest, most downtrodden shell of a person I have been.

During the early part of the year, my career was as its highest, and I was able to finally have a girlfriend.  Everything was going my way, and I couldn’t have asked for anything more.

Yet, in a span of five months, I lost everything.  And more.

Without going into too much specifics, first, I lost my job because the company I worked for decided to close down.  It wasn’t the closing itself, but how it happened.  I tried whatever I can to minimize the impact it had on the rest of us, but the decisions I made when things were winding down were probably wrong, to put it bluntly.  Secondly, while I was going through that tumultuous point in my career, my girlfriend left me (after initially asking for space).  She knew what was going on with my career, and she felt that how I handled life-changing situations–among other things–such as what happened at work is not how I should’ve done it; hence, she doesn’t feel safe and broke up with me…  via Messenger.  And third, the closing of the company hit me hard financially because we were not given any severance pay; so my savings also took a hit.  I had “friends” who borrowed money from me the last couple of months and years.  I had to ask them to pay me back since I needed the money for my expenses and payments.  Some with meager amounts owed me did pay up.  Others, just ignored and left me high and dry.

For me, it was a compounded version of Murphy’s Law.  For about eight weeks, I struggled with the backlash of what happened with work, while at the same time trying to save a relationship and figuring out how to make ends meet.  I averaged only two to three hours of sleep which affected my health.  Some of my real friends who saw me were surprised at the amount of weight I lost.  Suicidal tendencies were not uncommon in my thoughts, wherein I was wishing that I wouldn’t wake up anymore or I would get into an accident, or someone who threatened to kill me will actually do it; just to “end it all.”  But, I’m still able to write this, so I am still alive.

What hurt me the most are the people who said that they care, or even love me, but just decided to not want to be a part of what I was going through.  Yes, I made mistakes; but I never blamed anyone except myself.  I may have fucked up in the worst possible way, and maybe I am reaping the fruits from it.  But I never, ever pointed a finger on anyone for the cause of whatever demise that came my way.

On the other hand, the age-old adage has been proven true:  “hard times reveal true friends.”  There were a count-by-one-hand number of people who still put friendship above everything else.  Of course, a tongue-lashing of what I should’ve or shouldn’t have done, or making me see the mistakes I’ve done are a given; but despite all of that, they still showed and gave support and encouragement in what I was going through.  Whether it be by simply asking how I am, or telling me to hang in there, or inviting me over for coffee just to talk about something entirely different to make me forget things temporarily, or offering whatever kind of help I need, those people became for me the embodiment of true friendship.

By them doing that, it made me also realize that there is some truth to another saying that goes, “treat others how you want to be treated.”  Some, because I almost always never get treated the way I treat others, especially those who I really care about.  As a friend, I’m someone who doesn’t interfere with my friends’ decisions or choices.  Like I’ve always said time and again to friends who are at a crossroads, “I can always tell you what you want to hear, or what you need to hear; in the end, the decision is yours to make and yours alone.  But whatever that decision is, right or wrong, I will support you as a friend.”  It’s rather unfortunate that these days, practicality takes precedence–even over friendship.  Or in some cases, believing what others say instead of what the friend says.

Yet in spite of some friends and loved ones leaving me, I try to understand them.  It’s painful, but as just mentioned, it’s their decision to make.  All I can do in the end is show them respect and make the effort to understand even though in doesn’t make sense trying to do so.  In the case of my ex leaving me, I’ll just put the blame on myself.  She did what she had to do which is look out what’s best for herself and for her kid.  The manner and timing may have not been ideal, but using her own words, “it is what it is.”  Despite trying hard to make her understand that what happened at work would definitely make me learn something aside from trying to improve in other aspects, she felt otherwise.  That being said, let me take this space and opportunity to apologize for me not being enough for you; for making the wrong decisions, and for letting you down.  I am terribly sorry.  Yet nothing changes in how I feel for you.  I understand what you did–or at least I am still trying to.

One thing that will probably never change in me though, is how I am.  I trust or put value in what others tell me–sometimes to a fault–especially in terms of agreements.  I don’t believe in the principle of “things can always change,” despite it being true, especially in this day and age.  I was raised to keep my word; so unless it’s a matter of life or death, when something is agreed upon, I will do anything and everything to uphold my end.  I almost always see the good in the people I meet; I never see the negative things outright even though we are always reminded to always be on guard.  Again, it goes back to treating others the way we want to be treated.  Another thing about me is that whenever I make a decision, especially personal ones, I stick to it no matter what.  If it kills me, so be it.  I sometimes take a long time in making those, but once I set my mind and heart to it, changing my mind will be an impossibility.  I know what I deserve, but I don’t have a sense of entitlement to be accorded that.  I’d rather go for what I want and love because we don’t always get what we know we deserve.  And even if what makes me happy makes me sad, then so be it.  I’d still go for it.

Slowly and painfully, I am getting back up.  I start a new chapter tomorrow.  It’s a long, long road back, and the backlash of everything that has happened isn’t over yet; but having a starting point is exactly just that:  a start.  With this new beginning, I have made some personal decisions.  One of them is logging off from all forms of social media.  I have stopped using Twitter for a couple of years now.  As for Facebook, well, since everything that has happened, I have been silent.  I already uninstalled the app from both my phones a couple of weeks ago and I haven’t checked on anything there, even from my laptop.  For me, nothing is worth posting or sharing anymore.  I’ve felt the happiest and most complete I’ve ever been in my life; and posting something that doesn’t come from the exact same feeling just doesn’t make sense.  And I’m not looking to replicate that happiness with anyone else.  Again, for me it doesn’t make sense anymore.  Why try to look for someone else when you’ve already found your happiness?  Moving forward, all I can do is what I do best:  survive.  Whether I become successful or not in my journey out of the absolute lowest point in my life, it doesn’t matter.  What’s important is I undertook the journey.

Let me end with two things.  First, no amount of preparation, foresight, planning, negotiations, contingency measures, or how you think you live your life, or have it all figured out will make your life–or anyone else’s–full-proof.  Life will find a way to absolutely fuck you up in ways you couldn’t imagine, things will go south on you, and everything may be swept from under your feet before you even know what happened or hit your head on the ground.  That’s how it is.  You’ll just have to deal with it as it happens.  You learn.  You get back up.  Whether you fully make it back up or not is irrelevant.  You tried.  And absolutely no one can take that away from you.

Secondly, here’s an excerpt from something I read a few weeks ago.  It’s about falling in love.  This describes how I am, or was, since I already made my choice.  At least I tried to make it work.  All I ask from everyone is to respect my decision about it.  Here it goes:

 

“Love is saying I see you, all of you, exactly how you are–the good, the bad, the things you don’t want anybody else to see.  I see what you’re ashamed of, what you wish you could hide.  I see these things, and I still love you.  I still choose you.

And you hope and pray and plead for the other person to do the same.

To take your set of shortcomings and love them in the same way.

To stick around when shit gets unimaginably hard and tough and complicated.

To choose you back.”

 

It’s now back to dinners and movies for one.

I don’t know when will I be back online again.  In any case, I already assigned a legacy contact to handle my Facebook account should something happen to me.

Until then, this is me, signing off.

addressing the end (part four)

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She could hear the faint ring on her mobile phone get louder as she regained consciousness amidst a throbbing headache.  The past 48 hours have all been a blur to her:  his revelation at the office and his confession to her.  She remembered an argument, then all of a sudden, him collapsing and her trying to get help.  Between then and now, she tried to piece together everything in between while getting up from her bed.  Her phone stopped ringing as she took it and saw five missed calls.  It was the hospital that was trying to get in touch with her.  Upon realizing this, she hurriedly changed and went out.

Upon arriving, she proceeded to the Intensive Care Unit where he was confined.  The staff in that department recognized her and readily showed her in.  She was now outside his room, separated by a glass wall.  She looked at him as he was sleeping, with various instruments hooked up to him.

“He was asking for you all night,” a female voice said.  She turned around and saw an elderly woman standing just behind her.  She remained silent as she initially didn’t recognize who that person was.  Then she suddenly realized:  it’s his mother.  She finally got the courage to ask her, “how is he?”  “Stable,” was all the mother can reply as a start.  “But the doctors still don’t know for sure.”

She turned around and continued to look at him as his mother went to her side.  “You’re more beautiful in person.  No wonder he talked about you a lot,” the mother said, breaking the unusual silence.  “I wish we could have met under better circumstances,” she replied back.  “He talked a lot of things about you too.”  She then hesitatingly asked, “how long has he been…  sick?”  “Close to eight months now,” his mother said.  “He didn’t want anyone to know except us, the family.  He didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for him.  He wanted to continue living life as if nothing’s wrong.  The doctors initially gave him three months, but I noticed a change in him since he started talking about you from the time he first met you.  It’s as if he became more alive than ever.  He would tell how things went at work between you two and all the things he’s done for you which made him smile a lot.  But he told me also about your situation, but knowing my son, once he falls for someone, it’s for real.  And as a mother, I knew that he was deeply in love with you.  He even stopped taking his medication since he said that the pain wasn’t there anymore.  But still, we were careful.  Then about six weeks ago, he became very ill and that’s when the doctors said that the he needed aggressive treatment immediately.  That’s when his condition started to worsen.  I had to arrange to talk to your boss about him leaving the company and making sure that even he doesn’t know the real reason why.  I didn’t realize that things would escalate this quickly, and now he’s here.”

Tears started to fall from both their eyes as her phone rang again.  It was her boyfriend.  She tried to regain her composure as she excused herself to answer it.  His mother then proceeded inside the room and sat next to him.  The beeping sounds of the instruments was routinely interrupted by what can she only make out as her having an argument with someone on the phone outside the room.  She looked at him as he lay there, held his head, brushed his hair back and sobbingly whispered, “she’s here.  She’s finally here.  Wake up.  You have to get ready.  This is it.”

to be concluded…

birthday appreciation

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I was supposed to do this yesterday, but I was feeling a bit emotional from all that transpired during my birthday weekend (yes, me emotional during my own birthday).  Plus, I wanted to go through all of those birthday greetings and well-wishes in order for me to do this “thank you entry” properly.

They say that good things sometimes come unexpectedly, and this held true for me this year.  As far as I can remember, I haven’t experienced what I did this past Friday in close to 10 years.  From simple gestures such as three hand-made birthday open cards littered with personal greetings, to a very surprising birthday cake, I don’t remember having smiled a lot in one day and even being speechless from everything that came my way.

I have mentioned time and again that I don’t really care about my own birthday, and that it doesn’t matter to me anymore.  What does matter are the people who do really remember and took time to greet me last Friday and over the weekend.  For them to do such, makes me want to repay them ten times over, but we all know that wouldn’t be possible unless I win the lottery, so I will or send them good karma and hope for good fortune coming their way.  And to really show my appreciation, allow me to list here everyone who did what for me is a humbling gesture and sent their birthday greetings for someone like me.  Here goes:

First and foremost, my family:  my awesome Mom and great Dad, my lil’ big brother Patrick and his lovey-dovey Ivy, and my lil’ big sister Lei and her husband Jared; my aunts:  Tita Letty, Tita Linda, Tita Ofie, and uncles:  Tito Nards and Tito Fermin; my cousins:  Aileen, Malen, Ian, Ryan, Lynette, Debbe, Treck, Lyn, Faye, Matt, Martin, Chey, Gab, my goddaughter Dani, Zaren, and Jerome.  Family is indeed love and they have never stopped giving love and support to me all these years.  Thank you.

My friends:  both close, regular and once-in-a-blue-moon friends, whether your greetings were made via Facebook, Twitter or SMS, you have all shown me how much you value my friendship with you (or maybe you either really remembered that it’s my birthday, or saw others post on my Facebook timeline, but they’re appreciated nonetheless).  In no particular order:  Liezl, Princess, Roel, Edgar, Khai, Chappy, Lisa, Cher, Wally, Jaymee, Trina, Reggie, Shandar, Raschelle, Jabi, Mela (thank you for the black forest cake), Weng, and Diana.  I admit, there are names who I wish were on that list, but I guess there’s always next year.  Thank you for your continued friendship with me.

Finally, my Helicon colleagues:  from our CEO, Mr. Konstantinos Boukis (who conveyed his greeting the Greek way which took me by surprise), to everyone else, I have never experienced the kind of outpouring of support and greeting compared to my previous jobs, which is really, really special.  To the Operations team:  Ems, Bryan, Kat, Isah, Myrell, Heizel, George, Mark, FF, Korie, Kaye, JG, Cherryl, Angel, Ashley, Dan, Rona, Krizia, Francis, Bel, Marie, Eunice, Rhoda, Rachel, Jermarie, Mike, Maita, Leo, Marge, Ronna, Anton, Nino, and Ariel; to the TQA team who also gave me a very delicious birthday cake:  Lara, Meanne, Julie, Tonie, Dada, and April; and the IT & HR personnel:  Kenn, Pat, Rolly, Joy and Atty. Juvy.  I am so humbled and blessed to have colleagues and colleagues-turned-friends such as you.  That videoke party was really one for the books!  Thank you so, so very much.

All of you, again, your well-wishes and greetings are very much appreciated.  Thank you.  You have made my birthday this 2013 one to really, really remember.  One common greeting I received was “may your wish(es) come true.”  In this stage of my life, there is only one wish that I want to come true.  Some of you may have an idea what it is, while most of you are in the same area.  Only time (again) will tell whether that wish will come true or not.  Nonetheless, whatever happens, that wish will be the very last one I’ll ever be making.  No more in the following years.

I couldn’t say “thank you” enough to all of you.  May you be blessed more by the big guy upstairs, and may more happiness and success in whatever you do come your way.  You’re all warmly remembered in my heart (or what’s left of it).  Until my next entry.

Thank you.

age plus one

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I’m not really a big birthday fan.  At least, when it comes to my own.  It only reminds me of a phrase I heard a long time ago which goes, “when we were young, we wished we were old; and now that we’re old, we’re wishing we are young again.”  Or something like that.  I guess part of my attitudinal paradox is that I am very happy when a friend or family member has a birthday, but I don’t look forward to my own.

But when those greetings start coming in from family and friends alike, it makes me feel a lot better.  Probably because they truly remember, or in these days, see one friend write a greeting on my Facebook wall and follow suit.  Nonetheless, however it’s conveyed, it truly warms my heart.  I actually am still getting greetings via Facebook as I write this.

I guess part of why I don’t look forward to my own birthday is that I cannot do whatever I want despite having all the right to do so (and I do mean whatever I want).  Or maybe because I haven’t received a real birthday gift in almost a decade or more (yes, gift-wrapped with all the trimmings).  Or maybe have that one kick-ass, all-out, swingin’ birthday party; or being thrown a surprise party of that nature for that matter.  Not that I don’t enjoy the simple parties I’ve had at home throughout the years, but one could wish for something different once in a while, right?

But who am I kidding?  Those kind of parties won’t be happening to me.  Not unless I either have super rich friends who could throw that surprise bash, or I win the lottery.  Still, it ain’t a crime to dream, right?  Those two are up there on wishful thinking lane together with me wanting to be a radio DJ.

But nonetheless, a birthday’s a birthday.  And I go back to family and friends who are true to me and sincerely remember when to greet me.  I’m a lessened-expectations kind of guy, so to receive those greetings is truly enough for me to get through that day with a smile on my face and a thankful feeling in my heart.  So to all of you (you know who you are), I say a heartfelt thank you for your birthday greetings.  You have no idea how I appreciate it so much.  May good karma come your way and be blessed a thousand-fold.  You are included in my prayer of thanks as I end the day.  Thank you.  Thank you.

Oh, did I hear asking for my age?  It’s for me to know and you to find out.  Hahaha!