Emptiness, Exhaustion, and Loneliness

Ever find yourself in the midst of a sea of people, nursing a goblet of Coke spiked with Chivas Regal, while traditional Khmer music blasts through the speakers? Everybody around you is boisterous and alive. Speaking in a mixture of languages, laughing, talking, taking selfies.

It is easy to smile and laugh. Feign enthusiasm at posing for pictures, at the same time making your way down the whisky bottle.

Hours of work put in to look pretty, yet all the makeup in the world cannot quite hide the exhaustion and emptiness your eyes show. The weariness of nights spent crying, tossing and turning, and the restlessness cannot be hidden by tons of foundation. Although sometimes smiles help. It takes a keen eye to spot the forced smile, especially on one who is so adept at smiling through the pain.

Neither music nor dance can help take the emptiness away. Although the presence of friends who care about your puffy eyes every morning helps a lot. Then again, they still cannot quite erase the pain or fill the emptiness fully. A little does help anyway. Thank you, friends.

At the end of the day, you crawl back to bed first before attempting to remove the makeup. Exhaustion is overpowering. Loneliness ensues. And somehow, you begin to feel so lonely that you actually hear crickets in your head.

*Sigh* what a life. What an existence.

First of Feb

Does the first of February smell like flowers and chocolates to you? Does it smell like love or a rush of pheromones?

This is the month of hearts and as expected, it should be nothing short than the abundance of rainbows, sunshine, and rolling fields of green. Where people picnic and feed each other food as they sit on blankets, sip on wine, and proceed to read poetry.

But really, it is not quite like that, is it?

Sometimes February gives you grief that feels like a million cannons fired at your heart. It feels like an endless pit of despair where all you hear are wails of people agonizing over their day to day lives. Sometimes it feels like you are walking on a desert with no chance of finding an oasis. All you see is one mirage after another.

The promise of salvation and unburden. But it never comes.

Happy Hearts Month.

Conversations with Life: Strategy for Life

Here’s a tough one.

The Post a Day question of the day is something that has baffled me and I presume most of the world as well. It goes:

Explain your strategy for life: Explain your strategy for life. Why are you here? What do you hope to achieve? What matters most to you, at work, at play, or at home? How did you come to develop your approach to living? Which parents, friends, aliens or spirits influenced your choices about how to live?

The questions here remind me of the book “Sophie’s World” by Jostein Gaarder, which happens to be one of my favorites. The book has this main question “Who are you?” which Sophie tries to answer.

Who are you?

Why are you here?

What do you hope to achieve?

Explain your strategy for life.

???

Doesn’t that make your head hurt? More questions!! If I was interviewed and I had to answer these questions and more, I believe the conversation would go like this:

Who are you?

Well, I am a mother by day, superhero by night, lover by midnight, bookworm, movie addict, crackberry addict, technophile, watchamacallit-phile.

Are you sure?

Uhhh… yes?

Is that an answer or a question?

Uhhh… no?

So you’re not sure?

Uhhh… can we skip this question?

Okay, why are you here?

I… I… I was not supposed to be here, but my mother and father got carried away, and *poof!* I was conceived!

No, why are YOU here?

Uhhh… I am here to be a mother to my kids?

Is that another question?

Uhhh… no?

Are you still unsure?

I am here because I was created by God and I have a purpose in life!

Really? So, what do you hope to achieve?

World domination!

Are you sure?

Dude, that was just a joke. I just want to create a virus that would wipe out the whole World Wide Web. And help kitties and kids.

Really?

Why so many questions?

What do you hope to achieve?

Right now, I simply want to provide for my family, have a little nest egg or something, and eventually go to the mountains, be a hermit, raise goats, pigs, and chupacabras.

Are you sure?

Uhhh… not again! Next question please!

Explain your strategy for life.

Live.

What?

My strategy in life is to live.

Explain.

Uhhh… if I had a concrete strategy in life, I believe I would be focusing so much on the strategy and not in the act of living. So my strategy in life is simply living. Ride the tide, dude, make the most of my life as it is short. I wish to do all I can for my children and my family. Love my friends till their eyes pop. Laugh until I snort or until I faint from lack of oxygen. Love like I have never loved before. Read books. Watch movies. EAT. Travel when possible. Give back to the community. Make more friends. Touch lives. Help those in need. Be messy but organized. Write everything down. Accept mistakes past decisions and choices without regret.

Sounds like a tall order.

Well… I think that is just the half of it. I think.

So you haven’t written your strategy down?

Do I really need to write one word down? L.I.V.E.

All right! Thank you for your time. Please send in the next person to be tortured. Perhaps a Miss Feyoh, Jae or a Pebbles might be sitting outside. Thank you!

…

And that is all.

Now I go back to work. Cheers!!

EvilCon 2011

I had a great day today. It started off well with a refreshing bath, productive with work, did laundry, cooked lunch, and helped the kids with their homework. I even managed to head over to BDO to see if I could already get my new BDO Savings card thingie. Alas, due to the Bonifacio Holiday, I found the bank closed. I should have thought about that before I went there though. Then again, I guess staying at home means that I get all my holidays muddled up – save for the MAJOR ones.

So the first half of my day was very productive. I spent the earlier part of the second half bawling my eyes out because I am a sentimental fool. I do not know what is wrong with me but I am just so quick to cry these days. I hope I am not pregnant. I don’t think I am!

At around 3:30 p.m., I went out to meet with Miss Feyoh and Peanut (Jae) for our yearly EvilCon. It’s not really a gathering of evil people… we just like to call it as such. Anyway, this time we got together and dined at Mooon Cafe near Silliman University, and feasted on Beef Burritos, Beef Tacos, pizza, quesadillas, and drank something called a SunCooler.

This would be us, the three Caballeros:

Moi, Mic, and Jae (plus the table)

Mooon Cafe's SunCooler (alcoholic version)

The SunCooler was a mixture of vodka, grenadine, watermelon bits, orange slices, etc etc. I have no idea what else went in there, but it was a bit haphazardly done that I no sooner finished my first glass that I felt a wee bit buzzed. Of course, since somebody had more than 3 glasses, I had to have my share and added more to my initial glass.

The gathering was fantastic! I had so much fun my head started to hurt!

We then headed over to the mall where I purchased some goods that my kiddos and husband needed.

After giggling all over the mall, we finally set our sights home and went on our way.

Though I still feel a bit buzzed, the chat with Pebbles has splashed water on my face and now I am off to work.

Yes, sometimes a day in the life of yours truly can consist of more than just one achievement!!

Cheers!

FAIL!

Today is going to be a very long day. Aside from a deadline, I also have activities at the kids’ school to attend to. The thing is that apparently the activity will take up a whole day, which means the rest of the world can kill me now. I just learned about it, and …. $#!@$!^!@$#$@

My friend says I am overly dramatic, fatalistic and all those other –ics, but that is okay. I guess we all need some color in our lives.

Like what I said in my previous post, I decided to join the NaNoWriMo and attempted to write my own novel. The sad thing is that I have been so busy lately that I was able to write for the first day, and then stopped completely! November 1 had a flourish of ideas, thoughts, and fire enough to light up a whole room…. a little exaggerated, but you get my drift. I felt like I could really DO IT! And then the whole shebang started to go up in flames and I am left with no more additions to the story, and it is now November 19. Still, I think I can make that story come alive later on.

Maybe I will post the story here, like a running update. But I am quite shy and I fear that it would be butchered to death. Truth be told, it was in gradeschool that I started writing stories, and it was there that I left my *cough* talent *cough*.

Maybe just for fun, I will post the story here. Unedited.

Whooohooo!!

Good morning, everybody! I wish you all a productive and happy day ahead of you. I wish your hands move like the wind and churn out work like you are SuperProductive!

Cheers!

Stretching my legs, and NaNoWriMo

I have a lot of writing to do. I do. That is why I am stretching my fingers and legs to somewhat get ready for the writing that I need to do. Good thing I was able to get some new opps, so I can still put food on the table after I say farewell to the place where I worked for over 2 years. It is okay, I will survive.

I also joined this November event called NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writers Month. Although I’ve never written any novels or done really story writing, I always wondered what it would be like to actually finish a story – or novel. Unfortunately, I still do not have a storyline, or a list of characters or even an outline of what’s going to happen. But maybe I will get around to come up with a rough sketch of what I am going to do.

Tomorrow is the first of November, by the way, and that is the official start of NaNoWriMo. Wish me luck!

Sometimes I wish I had the writing prowess of my friend, Mic at the Broken Coffee Cafe. She has a talent for weaving stories and an imagination to boot. I, on the other hand, am challenged. I do think I have an imagination, but I have yet to let things fly free.

We will see where this goes.

Anyway, I have words to weave, letters to string, and work to be done.

Catch you later folks!

At a cafe, and I am okay

I should be bored, bored, bored. Well, I am bored to a certain extent… but I don’t feel that much alone anymore.

This blog post came after another one that was peppered with loneliness during my previous trip to Cagayan de Oro. I am still here, however, but I am no longer as sad, bored, or lonely. I am tired. That’s just about it.

My brother graduated yesterday. Oh, what joy! That makes it two children down, and two more to go for my mother. Next year, hopefully, my sister is next.

I am pretty much just counting the days before I leave my current place of employment. Pardon me if I say this with glee, but I am soooo “FUDGING HAPPY!” It feels so liberating, and I haven’t even left the company yet. Despite not knowing what comes afterwards, I think I have just had enough. Enough is enough. And that is all there is to it. The people at work seem to think that I will not push through with it. But believe me, its just two more weeks and I am free!!! This is just a courtesy stay. I am not waiting for anything anymore. So tired.

This sucks because even when I am literally on another island, my thought still drift to work… meh.

In other news, I just had to purchase a book because I was bored. You see, my siblings’ apartment does not have a TV or a computer, and it is kind of far from any Internet cafe especially at night. So I just had to find something to help me ease my pain.

The book is entitled, “The Cuckoo’s Egg: Tracking a Spy Through a Maze of Computer Espionage” by Clifford Stoll. Actually, I had borrowed a copy of this book around 3 years ago, but I had to return it to the owner without being able to read it because I was a bit too busy. The book was published in 1989, and what I find interesting is that the hacking and the languages that were mentioned are quite old. It’s really nice. I look forward to finishing it before I go back to work.

 

Anyway, this is just a quick update from my end of the world. I think I shall write another post. Because lately I have been feeling the writing bug, and I want to write write write write write write. Weird huh? 🙂

Cheers!

Alone.

You can be practically anywhere in the world and be connected via the Internet as long as your gadgets – whatever they are – are capable of going online.

You can talk, chat, and be socially active online, watch your loved ones from afar, and be as virtually connected as you can possibly be. Sometimes even sexually – – – 😉

But for some reason, no matter where you are in the world, even when you are surrounded by people, sometimes you do feel alone. And although I have no plans of publicly breaking into Heart’s “Alone,” that is exactly what I feel right at this very moment.

I could go about the place, sure. But I could just stay here in front of the computer where I feel safe talking to my husband and mother. Yet there is a whole city out there with people I do not recognize, streets I do not know, and well… funds that are running low. But then again, I could be adventurous. I could be. But I would still be alone.

Where I am at is not a place that is so hard to adapt. That is for sure, and by tomorrow, I embark on another journey. Home. That is what gives me strength at least, because the prospect of actually holding my loved ones is something that money cannot buy. Still, we do have to sacrifice distance in order for us to survive, or at the very least keep our heads afloat. Not just mine, but others as well.

Cryptic. I know.

Anyway, this is just me winding down after the long day of running about. Good news is that my siblings are safe, and by tomorrow, I can actually start preparing for home.

And yes, I still feel alone.

To be, or NOT to be

I believe that the road to healthiness is sometimes marked by bipolar tendencies. But that’s just me.

Today I went for an early jog because I pledged to myself that I will live a healthy life. Just as I finished warming up, drops of rain started to fall and since our fantastic oval is not domed, I got to enjoy fresh air and rain.

Then I thought, Ah damn it! If I get drenched in the rain, there is a chance I would get sick! … I should go home… nah, it cost me gasoline to get here and I already warmed up! I should just jog.

And jog, I did… more like walk, really.

A quarter of an oval away, the downpour came a little strong so I started jogging… please note that I am NOT in excellent shape.

*huff* *huff* I must get to the starting line! I must.. I must… I must.. *wheezing*

*walking* *wheezing* I can’t do this anymore!!! *wheezing*

Nooooo…! I will jog because this is for my own good!

*jogging* *huff* *huff* Lord, kill me now..!! Pleaaaaaase… *huff* *huff* *wheezing*

*walking* *wheezing* screw this! I’m going home! My legs hurt! *wheezing*

No! No! No! Think positive! You can do this!!!

*jogging* *huff* *huff* Mommy!! This hurts…! $@#$!@# No more! No more! No more! *huff* *huff*

*walking* *wheezing* WHAT ARE YOU? A MAN OR A MOUSE? JOG! NOW! *huff* *huff*

*jogging* *huff* *huff* *huff* This will be the death of meeee… *huff* *huff* *wheezing*

… (you get the idea) a few rounds later ….

*gasping for air* Now that was not so bad.. even with the drizzle… Now the sun is up. And you are alive! Yay me! *gasping for air*

See? Now this back and forth mood makes me believe that when you are trying to be healthy, this attempt to make yourself think POSITIVE is marked by possible bipolar tendencies. I’m not saying you will be bipolar in the end, but don’t you agree?

As for myself, I do believe that it is part of working out because if you do not have a Jillian Michaels to motivate you, you pretty much have to do it yourself. Overall, I think it was good that I did not back down or go home when the rain started, or when I felt like dying. At the end of the day, I guess it is a question of “to be motivated or not to be motivated?” Or something like that.

Anyway, it is a good start. Don’t you agree?

Good job, self!

Think Positive

Warning: entry dictated by train of thought… no editing of course.

I think, by some miracle, these numerous blogs that I have squirreled away have a purpose. These blogs are like nooks and crannies that some how offer solace whenever I want to rant out loud without the world knowing about it. Still, it pays to have some sense of belongingness, that way you can safely say, these are my thoughts.

Censorship is a pain in the ass. At least for me, anonymity holds a certain appeal… but for some reason it also shows a bit of cowardice. But can you actually say a person is a coward because he or she prefers to keep her thoughts to herself?

At any rate, dwelling on the bad things that are happening in your life are just roadblocks you are setting up for yourself. Now isn’t that rather pathetic?

Well now. Let’s not go down that road.

A recent blog post by preacher Bo Sanchez discusses how people can either have a BREAKDOWN or a BREAKTHROUGH. He states that a people feel pain in various stages of their lives, but it is not the pain that matters, but how people react to that pain. More like stress with Fight or Flight responses. In a way, I guess it IS that.

Now I’ve been having numerous conversations with myself over the past few days that have more or less pushed me to the edge. The question now is whether or not I will fall or fly? Breakdown or Breakthrough. I simply refuse to breakdown. I’ve brokendown a zillion times in the past, and I’ve come to a conclusion today that breaking down is not an option. Breaking through is the only way.

I guess I just ran out of people to talk to lately that all this thinking has gotten me crazy. Sure, I have a lot of problems right now, but there is only one way and that is up. So here we go.

I’ve also missed blogging. Blogging lets me get out all these feelings that I have kept inside. Journalling usually works, but you know how typing gets these thoughts out faster than you can say FAST FOOD!

I started writing this post as a rant. I had complaints in mind.

Somehow, mid-rant, I noticed that I was about to launch this tirade or blast of “oh, woe is meee…” but I stopped myself. *very good self!*

The only way to counter negativity is to think positive and be thankful / grateful always.

So thank you, blog, for being there for me. And thank you, reader, for reading up to this part.

Cheers!