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Word is slowly getting out, mostly via my mom's Facebook status updates, but I thought I'd wait until I'd told most of my close friends, superiors, and colleagues before making any kind of announcement here.

I'm leaving the country in about a month and a half to attend graduate school in Singapore.

A few years ago, I started to feel that I needed to learn more about my field, but I didn't want to jump from company to company to do that, so I started looking at graduate programs and scholarships. Since Philippine universities didn't offer the kind of thing I was looking for, I figured, why not look outside, check out the programs in other countries, and maybe land somewhere all this Mandarin I've been studying might actually come in handy?

I didn't get a scholarship, but I did get into a good school. I understand that going will mean joining the legions of young adults with student debt, but given my age and the other plans I have for my life, this is a now-or-never thing. I'll just consider it an investment in my future, including the part of the near future that will involve working the debt off.

There is some hope for a scholarship, but it basically requires out-nerding everyone in my program to come out with the top GPA. I've never been the most insightful, original, or hard-working student, and I won't be surprised to meet classmates who know much, much more than I, but I have more motivation to chase grades this year than I ever have in my life.

I have a little over a month left to work things out with banks, get all the necessary paperwork done, and pack my bags. As far as my emotions are concerned, the last is the biggest deal right now.

I've often mentioned that I never fully unpacked in my current apartment; now I can say that it's mostly because I believed in the chance that I was simply going to leave again. All the stuff I never bothered to arrange just stayed in a huge pile on the floor; now, I just have to put everything back in a box.

I recognize, though, that "everything" is basically the past six years of my life, however you'd like to frame it — the first half of my 20s, the post-college wandering, the passage into adulthood, etc. — and all the associated heartache, triumph, and growth. I now have to decide how much of that I get to take with me — how much will be necessary and comforting, and how much will only literally and figuratively weigh me down.

Knickknacks will be wrapped in newspaper and cushioned with clothes I no longer wear. Appliances and furniture will be sold off to add to my small pool of funds. (Does anyone want a ref? A twin bed? A small cabinet? A drop-leaf table with matching chairs? A small rice cooker? A toaster oven? Modular Stack & Rack shelves in white?)

The diaries are going to be sent home, along with a prayer that neither my parents nor my lola will take it into their head to crack any of them open. I recognize that, like the diaries I left behind when I went to college, the diaries of the past six years must now enter my poorly hidden archive at home in Kalsangi. You can only carry your past around for so long.

Most of my books will be sent home, too, with the hope that those, someone will read. But as with my old diaries, seeing my books' spines on my shelf today calls back the version of myself that first read them. I've actually done a bit of rereading in the past few weeks, and it's easy to see that I can't make room for everything, however much I love it, on the shelf I'll be allotted in a month or so.

Off the top of my head, the things that I do plan to bring are a much, much smaller collection of books, a piece of sea glass from Sarangani Bay, the same photos of my family and friends I've had since my days at Eliazo Hall, my small collection of postcards, my ocarinas, some card games, my craft knife, and maybe a small bag of LEGO. I know those things aren't exactly necessities, and I expect I won't have a lot of time to make brick creatures or annoy my roommate with the shrill high D in "Danny Boy". But I know I'll like having those things with me.

I'll like having Cris with me, too. He was awarded a full scholarship to a different program, but at the same university. I know I can't expect to see him all the time, with all the nerdery I intend to take on, but I think living and studying in a different country with him will add new dimensions to the growth of our relationship. The adventure I'm about to go on seems even grander, knowing I get to go with him.

(For those of you clutching your pearls, we applied for slots at the dorm, and only married couples get to cohabit.)

I really can't express the gratitude due to my family for their support. Barring (great-)grandchildren/nephews/nieces, they haven't laid any demands or expectations on me, but I so want to make them proud.

Wish me luck.

"yer heart's desire."

I don't know why, but no matter how sick or sad I feel some days, I can't bring myself to leave work. I don't consider myself a workaholic at all; I'll honestly say that on some days, I just phone it in — figuratively.

There are days when I wake up and don't want to get out of bed, but somehow, I find myself on my feet anyway, making breakfast, getting dressed, and grumbling but, eventually, finding myself on the road and then at my desk. I completely understand the feelings people have when they decide to call in sick when they aren't or drop everything and head on the next bus to the beach. But I just find myself unable to do the same thing, no matter how much I want to.

A few years ago, I saw this interview with Hugh Laurie. Jay Leno asks Mr. Laurie if he had fun hosting Saturday Night Live, and Mr. Laurie says:

Where I was brought up, sort of fairly strict Presbyterian household, fun was viewed with suspicion. Fun was not a good thing. Pleasure was a questionable goal. It stayed with me. I don't see fun as a goal ... I think I may actually be incapable of having fun. So when I went there, and people said, 'Oh, you know, just have fun!', to me, it's like saying, 'Just have a baby!' It's that ridiculous. I'm just sort of not put together that way.

Later in the interview, he goes back to it, when he's asked about people saying he's difficult to work with:

I suppose I have this, somewhere in my head, I have this idea that if a thing is pleasurable, it can't be any good.

The interview is really funny, maybe especially because Mr. Laurie doesn't smile much in it.

In another interview, he says:

I had some pretty bleak times, dark days when it seemed like there was no escape. And having a very Presbyterian work ethic, I was determined never to be late, not to miss a single day's filming. You wouldn't catch me phoning in to say, 'I think I may be coming down with the flu'.

But there were times when I'd think, 'If I were just to have an accident on the way to the studio and win a couple of days off to recover, how brilliant would that be?'


So when I beat myself up about turning down something good because of work, I think of Hugh Laurie, and I wonder about how this kind of thinking got wired into me, too.

And then I think of my dad and those years that he was in that one department where you had to drop everything if the plant needed you. I remember my mom telling me and my brothers that it was Dad's job that let us live in our house and have food on the table, etc. I also remember seeing that other kids' dads got to come home Saturday afternoon, and mine didn't. I remember that one Father's Day I walked out of church and cried in the car because it was time to honor the dads, and he wasn't there for me to honor with the ribbon or the mug or whatever it was the church had come up with for us kids.

But mind you, the whole time I was crying, I was also lecturing myself about being a melodramatic baby. I did used to be a big crybaby, and I think people at school knew this and would make me cry on purpose. So some part of me saw crying not just as an expression of weakness but as an invitation for others to pick on that weakness.

Maybe I deserve to cry, I told myself in the car that day. Maybe crying is for wusses, I also told myself.

My dad showed up, still in his uniform, while I was still in the car. He was smiling when I hugged him. But, I felt extremely embarrassed.

Anyway, enough of the trip down backstory lane; I'm at ~700 words now and still haven't gotten to the good part of this post.

I've been stuck in a no-fun holding pattern for the past eight or nine months, and it's been, well, no fun. I told myself I couldn't have certain things I wanted because it was not a good time. Friends, family, and Cris complained that my job took me away from them. I had to tell myself, it's your job that lets you pay your rent and bills, have food on the table, have something maybe impressive to put on that grad school application, and have bosses who can give you references for said application. I told my loved ones, "Well, it's work."

I tried telling myself not to want things because it would just set me up for the disappointment of having to turn them down. The problem is, I hadn't recognized that telling yourself not to want things doesn't actually stop you from wanting them. You think you're doing the Christian self-denial thing or the Buddhist shunning-desires thing (take your pick). But, it's impossible to drain yourself of your wants. The wants don't go away — you can either act on them or change them; it's denying that they're there that makes them stronger.

You want to know what it gets you, denying your wants because you think you shouldn't have fun right now? Tonight, my family is flying to Europe without me. I could have gone with them, and all I would have spent would have been for personal stuff, like meals and souvenirs. Who turns down a semi-free trip to Europe because of work? This idiot, that's who: the one who didn't ask for leave because she told herself she wasn't allowed to want it.

This great epiphany came at around 1 AM as I cried my eyes out — for the first time in ages, I might add — because my plans with Cris for a consuelo trip to Pinatubo fell through. After months of telling myself I couldn't have what I wanted, I acknowledged that I wanted this little thing, and disappointment had immediately swooped in.

It wasn't just the disappointment, though, it was the disappointment on top of knowing that my family was about to leave, and I would be left behind because of my own quote-unquote work ethic, which nobody in today's world gets a cookie for, really.

I can't live like this (I told myself); I can't not want things. To want is to live, because you act or you change — and, goddammit, you actually have fun sometimes. I'm not having any fun; I'm just becoming sadder and more isolated the more I try to want less.

I'm done. I don't want to wait anymore.

The other day, I got some news that I'd been waiting for. I told my dad, and he offered to loan me the money I'd need, "if this is yer heart's desire."

(Another reason I still value work ethic: it's helped get my dad to where he is, able to fund family trips to Europe and offer to finance heart's desires.)

It's a cheesy phrase, often used at my old church as a euphemism when people pray for someone to make the singles not-single. But, I've taken hold of it. I cup it in my hands like a secret and relish knowing that, yes, I have it, and I'm allowed to have it, a "heart's desire" — something to live for.

Letter No. 13

My age didn't hang over my head till now. Till now, I was "20-something," figuring it out, taking my time, planning only as far as a year in advance. But last year, the year I turned 25, everything seemed to happen all at once. Or rather, the worries that simmered at the back of my mind all started to bubble and whistle louder for attention.

This isn't the first time I've written about my family getting older or the rest of my life being ahead of me, but this is the first time in years that I can remember feeling seriously pressured to do something about it. "When will I have apo?" sounds a lot more urgent now than it did when I was 20. So do, "What are you going to do with your career?", "When are you coming home again?", and "So, are you [two] next?"

I don't want to have ready answers to these questions just because other people are asking them. I keep fending them off with, "It's early," and "There's still time," but they've gotten deeper under my skin somehow.

I think the biggest thing that bothers me is having — or rather, not yet having children. Since the start of the year, it's like the universe has dispatched a pro-use-your-uterus front against me: my mom, my brother, a trend in articles against motherhood after 30, couples mentioning their future children in their wedding vows, people at weddings asking about my own plans, and Metro Manila's bottomless supply of adorable infants and toddlers in public places.

Sometimes, their attacks are combined. At Ba Noi's on Ken's last night in town, he, Cris, and I saw one wide-eyed infant boy getting handed from one person to another at the next table. Ken piped up, "So, do you guys want kids?" And after a long, "Uh — " from me, he backpedalled with, "I ask the couple that's been together nine months," but it was too late; the awkward bomb had dropped. Just last Saturday, one little stinker I nicknamed "Dumpling Baby" entertained me and Cris through the wedding ceremony of his friend.

The other day, I had kind of an emotional response to one blog I've been following. I followed dover/Callai after reading some of her posts on an American freethinkers' blog, at around the time she and her husband Andrew were just thinking of having children. It's been a few years since then, and Callai and Andrew now have Eleanor, a lovely, funny, clever near-two-year-old whose face just brightens up your screen and your day. But it was the moment they took the plunge and decided to have her that really got me hooked on dover's blog.

In the post I responded to, dover related how she felt like an odd one out at a recent meeting with her peers. She was the only 20-something in her book club who'd decided to be a stay-at-home mom, and she expressed discomfort at being seen by the other women as a big "What if...?"

But I'd be lying if I didn't say that her blog hasn't given me that "What if...?" since I started following it. We're around the same age, have similar social backgrounds, and ask ourselves a lot of questions about where our lives are going. And I also wanted to have kids that young. Through dover's blog posts about pregnancy, childbirth, and childrearing, I've gotten to imagine what my life would have been like if I'd had my own dumpling baby, instead of working till I landed backwards into a comfortable job and started entertaining thoughts about further studies.

She occasionally reads my own posts, so dover, if you're reading this, I hope you don't feel bad. You and your growing family are an inspiration to someone here across the Pacific, and I wish you, Andrew, Eleanor, and whoever's next all the best. I am happy for you and, often, jealous.

Anyway, in my own Tumblr post, I ranted a little bit about how sad it is that career and motherhood still seems like an either-or thing. I was thinking of this article about the pending global population decline, and I was mad that it "blamed" educating girls for the fact that fewer women are having fewer kids at the best reproductive age. But after the post, I realized that it had never been an either-or thing for me. I'd said it myself: the opportunity to have kids had never presented itself. And now, I'm 25.

God. You know what 25 for me feels like? It feels early and late all at once. Late because I wanted kids for a long time, and two years ago, I was in a relationship with someone I thought I'd have those kids with. Early because I can't even write my boyfriend's name into this sentence because I'm afraid of scaring him off, because I have no fucking clue if or when it's safe to move past admiring other people's babies to talking, really talking and really thinking (again) about having one.

(I mean, never mind the fact that I want two.)

Letter No. 12

I've drafted several letters in the past few days, but none of them have felt worth posting. It's all been mostly scribbles on ethnic/cultural identity, language, and my own neurosis, with some new thoughts but ultimately the same old dog. Perhaps I can offer you this xkcd comic, or this subnormality comic, so you can get a feel for the best and worst (respectively) of what I've been going through.

I'm not depressed; I've just been anxious about the future. It's one thing when it's New Year's Day, and you make all these plans and resolutions, because the path ahead seems so clear. It's another thing when it's one of the other 364.25 days of the year, when you've climbed down from the trees, the peak, the viewing deck, and you realize how rocky, dusty, muddy, or meandering the path is up close and under your feet, and the undergrowth's so thick you can't really see what you're walking toward, most of the time. Also, you're about to run out of water already and can't remember if the river is east, west, north, or south of you.

So, I'm not really sure I want to write about that, because I've written enough variations here and elsewhere to make it all seem redundant, to make me wonder if there's just something I still can't get over, something holding me back or making me go in these mental (!) circles day after day, week after week. I read some of my old blog posts, as far back as maybe late 2011, and I kept see-sawing between feeling wiser and readier and feeling stuck and doomed. (A few days ago, I resumed plodding through Jorge Luis Borges's "Labyrinths," and "The Immortal," "The Theologians," and "The House of Asterion" felt both disturbing and familiar.)

I probably just need to get out more.

I went to Intramuros on Saturday afternoon (Chinese class, which went surprisingly well, was in the morning). It was Cris's idea, to give his visiting sociologist friend Ken a different look at Manila via a Celdran tour, and I'd never been on a Celdran tour myself. I enjoyed the afternoon out, and I think I have a better appreciation for Manila. But I also felt a little sadness over the lack of similar experiences for Mindanao (frankly, the history of Gensan in particular sounds as ridiculous and watered-down as the American Thanksgiving origin story).

Then, I had to work on Sunday. Sunday afternoon, I went with the guys to the airport to see Ken off, and then Cris and I hung out. I told him what was on my mind, and he gave me some advice — "dapat lagi kang may ibang palaman" — which I guess is best summarized, "expect the worst, but hope for the best."

Making friends with Ken, a Canadian-born Vietnamese guy with Chinese parents, recalled to me a conversation I'd had with Cris much, much earlier, maybe sometime late last year. Cris asked me what the anti-Kat would be like, and I shrugged and said, "I don't know, probably someone super kikay." I actually thought about it some more later, and I decided that there is no anti-Kat; there's only the Kat that would have existed if something, sometime back down the line, had been different — if I'd made a different choice or if different choices had been made for me. It's more difficult to imagine a completely polar opposite Kat than it is to think of the Kat who:

- never moved to the US
- never came back from the US
- went through with the move to Thailand
- made different friends in the US
- made different friends in the PH
- took gymnastics
- didn't stop piano lessons
- wasn't on the spelling team
- stayed on the track team
- cared more about conventional femininity
- prioritized science and math
- was more obnoxious
- didn't laugh when F (not his real initial) told me he liked me
- didn't go home when R (still not his real initial) asked me to stay
- accepted X's (you get the point) invitation to the prom
- didn't dismiss W, and later, G
- took the PHSA exam instead of attending graduation day
- went to UP instead of Ateneo
- went to Silliman instead of Ateneo
- considered foreign schools more seriously
- made different friends in college
- stayed in So. Cot. after college
- didn't live in Merville after graduation
- didn't move out of Merville later
- didn't work for CCF
- didn't resign from CCF
- didn't ask questions about my religion
- didn't go to that Heights reunion in Megamall
- didn't start going to Cris's game nights
- didn't get a job at BusinessWorld
- didn't move to Cubao
- didn't get to take that trip to Singapore

... and so on.

Some of the things on this list are actual regrets, while some just come from a vague, "I wonder if...." Most of them sharpen the picture of who I'd be or what I'd do whatever the branch. Negative experiences stand out specially — I think I'd still have had those kinds of relationships, and I think they still would have ended. I think I'd still make those kinds of friends, and I think we'd still have drifted apart.

It's difficult to imagine positive experiences that may have come about, because they seem more like daydreams than likely results, and because, based on actual experience, I never expect the good things. In the last five years or so, I never expected the good things that have happened to me. Maybe that makes me more of a pessimist than I think, but it somehow also gives me more hope for the future. Just because I don't see good things coming doesn't mean that they won't come at all.

Damn it. I think I've written that before.

Letter No. 10

The other day, I realized that this is the longest I've been home in about two years. For the last two visits, I was here for just three to five days. This time, I'm home for ten.

I thought the fact that I took the briefness so well before meant that I'd adjusted to life away. But it turns out that the longer you stay, the longer you want to stay, and the more painful it is to think about leaving again.

Maybe it's just as well. It's a test of the heart, and it's been a while since I've thought seriously about what I want to do. I thought I'd been doing just that toward the end of the year, but somehow, sitting on top of the monkey bars and listening to the birds and the wind and the bugs sort of stretches out your vision, so you see more paths, and more branches to those paths, than you thought you had.

I can't help rethinking my childhood dreams whenever I'm here. More than ever, I see that I had no clue what getting those dreams entailed.

For some reason, I've been thinking about one of my classmates who seems to have settled here. I imagine her driving her truck to work past the pine trees, working in the same little hospital where we had our school physicals as kids, and maybe having dinner with her boyfriend (who works at the plant? in the next town?) before driving home to her family in the house where she grew up.

I know other classmates who've also stayed home and who also say that this makes them happy. And really, I can see why. It wasn't really that long ago that I wanted the same kind of life for myself, and the jungle gym alone is enough to remind me that some part of me never really stopped wanting.

Last year, one of my friends said something on Twitter about deciding what to leave behind and what to take with them into 2012. I actually thought it was silly; this person had a great life. But here, I can see that even a great life needs re-evaluation. That scares me.

I wrote the above two days ago, and it's now just 45 minutes into the new year. This year's celebrations are even more low-key than the last. At midnight, I kissed my parents and my lola to greet them Happy New Year, and then Cris called to greet me, too. All of my friends are gone for the holidays, so, with no one else to hang out with after the fireworks at the neighborhood party, I decided to go home.

The stars were out, and the wind was a little chilly, but I was warmed by thoughts of my family, friends, and Cris, even if they weren't with me. I walked under the trees and past the playground, and as if on cue, I looked up and saw a shooting star. When I got home, I let the dog in, made myself some hot chocolate, and knew that the feelings of the past several days were what I wanted to take into the new year.

I want to stay conscious of the way I relate to my family. I see them less and less every year, so every moment counts. I want less twinges of regret over something I said, however small, or the tone of my voice, and more certainty that I'm treating them the way they deserve.

I want the mixed rush and relaxation that comes from being outside — from spacing out on the monkey bars, taking a long walk around my tree-filled neighborhood, hiking across the pineapple fields and up and down gullies with my family, watching the clouds drift over the swaying trees as the sun sets, and finding that weird balance between calm and inspired twitchiness under the open sky. This is something that might be really hard to recreate in the city, but I'd really like to try.

I want more openness to doing things for other people, just because.

I'd like Cris to be able to share more of these things. Things have been going at a pretty comfortable pace, and for the most part, it feels like we're still getting to know each other. For the past few days, I've been getting back in touch with parts of myself that he's just begun to see, and I can't wait to bring him back with me later this year.

There's more, but it's now 2 in the morning, and I should get some sleep. For now, here's all hope for a happy new year.

Letter No. 3

The other day, I dreamt about a sort of family court, in the middle of a ruin in the jungle. It was brown and crumbling, sort of Mesoamerican-civilization-meets-Beaux-Arts, with lush trees, grass, and vines growing inside. Families — dads in their tucked-in polos and city shorts, moms in jeans and sundresses, little kids — came to the ruin to just hang out and picnic under the indoor trees.

In one part of the ruin, there was a large pool or pond. Its water was still clear, and though most of the walls were gone, the ceiling of that room was still intact. It was tiled with something like capiz shells, near transparent.

On one side of the pool sat a couple at retirement age. Their family was quite wealthy, with multiple businesses, houses, yachts, and cars. On the other side was my own grama. They all sat in folding canvas and metal chairs, as if in the park or at the beach, but they were definitely authorities about something. The sun was about to set.

The son of the wealthy couple stood at their side with his back to the wall, which had a hole big enough to see the jungle in the next room and a family picnicking there, and a kid swinging from a tree branch. Grama's granddaughter, who was not me or any of my cousins (weird, yes), stood a little apart from Grama, her back to a less damaged wall, with some steps and a dark doorway to some other part of the ruin.

The son and the granddaughter wanted to get married, and I think they'd come to the ruin to declare their intentions to their elders. None of the elders approved, though. It wasn't for the huge disparity in wealth; each family liked and respected the other well enough. But Grama and the couple agreed that their children were "too young" at 28. Grama told my mystery cousin to wait till she was 30, take her master's, and focus on her career. The young man's parents said something similar, and that it was important to wait.

I was watching from Grama's side, because, I guess, it was my family's side. But while the young man fumbled for words and the granddaughter started to stamp her feet and rant about how unfair the decision was, I got into the pool and started swimming.

The water was perfect. I moved easily, even though I was wearing a work shirt and pants. I floated on my back and kicked slowly across the length of the pool. Above me, the sky was rippling across the shell tiles in different shades of blue and gold; reflected in the water, they looked like jewels or stars. I forgot about the families and just looked up at the sky, and I thought, "Oh, how beautiful."

I think I dreamt this because just before I went to sleep, I'd finished some Archie comics, which had an excerpt from the "Married Life" series. Archie is married to Veronica and faces an important business and personal decision: should he satisfy his father-in-law and employer, yet pull the rug out from under his oldest friends?

Yet I've also been thinking about my own career for a while now.

I realized yesterday, I've done a 180. Since I was a teenager, my dream life involved settling down and having kids as soon as possible. While one tita asked me if I wasn't just conforming to society's expectations, I was actually an odd one out; most of my friends have all said that they'd rather pursue their careers and/or see the world before starting a family — if they start families at all. I, on the other hand, not only pre-selected my future children's names according to birth order and number (if my firstborn was a girl, she'd be L; if a boy, Z; if twin girls, P and F; if twin boys, B and L; etc.), but I'd also decided what kind of toys they'd play with, books they'd read, and schools they'd attend.

What's changed in the past year? It wasn't just that I was single again, though maybe that gave me more time to pay attention to what was going on around me. I cared more than ever about the economy, and whether the country could sustain all this optimism. I started to care more about where my money went, and not least because rent on a better apartment sucked up so much of it.

I also became interested in the kind of life people my age and background had in different countries, particularly around Asia. I compared their worries and aspirations with mine, and I started to imagine more clearly the decisions I'd have to make if I wanted a certain quality of life by the time I was raising kids, not just having them.

Perhaps as a result, my own aspirations changed, too. Gone is the Kat who wanted to be a stay-at-home mom in the province; in her place is some other lady who thinks being a busy, if not working mom is the way to go. And in the process, I thought about the things I wanted to keep me busy, besides family: the kind of work I'd like to do, the kind of organization I'd like to work for, and the kind of interests I'd like to be able to pursue on the side.

It occurs to me, of course, that I now sound a lot like the suited, hooked-on-career yuppies that I disdained as a wannabe bohemian. I am not, as I fantasized four years ago, writing novels and travelogues and shacking up with a painter in a charmingly old apartment near art galleries, pan-Asian furniture stores, and hip little restaurants, where the other characters from RENT meet to celebrate starving for their art. I live in a middle-class neighborhood across an upper-middle-class university and edit advertising-occasioned supplements for a business newspaper, and my boyfriend and I like to talk about China, urban planning, and a friend's tips on the stock market.

I'd like to think that the dream of swimming in an in-between pool of pixellated Van Gogh is my subconscious telling me to take a good look at my direction and decisions, before I make any more. I think of a TV spot for Suits (which I don't watch), where a biker sipping coffee sees the suited protagonist go by and tells his fellow biker, "If I ever look like that, shoot me." I think of "La Vie Boheme" from RENT, of course, with Mark celebrating "riding your bike midday past the three-piece suits" — and thinking now, "But Benny's Cyberland idea doesn't sound half bad."

Then, there's the latest Subnormality comic, where a down-on-her-luck Ethel sets up a meeting with her selves from parallel universes to see how different her own life is from theirs.

© 2012 Winston Rowntree

So I'm asking myself, if I had a meeting like that within the next five years, would I have more or less regret than the other me's who decided differently along the way? I'm already living much differently from how I'd wanted — should I be happy, knowing I have things to be happy about, or disappointed that I let go of some of my dreams along the way?

The comic (go on, read it) touched a particularly sensitive, insecure nerve, because writing is a big part of the conversation. Ethel-in-red-sweater, in the ninth-to-last panel ("You think you're never gonna succeed at writing?") says something about where I am as a writer; that is, not even close to where I once dreamed I'd be. Then there's Ethel-in-glasses ("writing: also a muscle"); some part of me still doesn't want to sound like her, but I know I'm on my way to being her, if I'm not already.

And so, the Ethels' meeting has forced me to ask a question I've been avoiding for the past couple of years.

Do I still want to write?

And if I'm honest with myself, in my bones, I know, yes, I still do — and I want to be good at it.

It's scary to say. For one thing, it doesn't seem to fit into the Ethel-in-glasses-plus-kids life I've been seeking. And for another thing, writing's a muscle I've let atrophy, at least where creative writing is concerned. I've been making all these excuses: I don't have enough experience; my voice is too middle-class and navel-gazing; every other 20-something is writing something like that; I don't know enough about Philippine culture, popular or otherwise; and I'm not as good and/or popular as X, so I don't think I should bother, anyway. But really, I've just shuffled into the vicious circle of not practicing and then being intimidated by the amount of practice I need to be "good".

Perhaps the dream ended with me still in the pool so that I could decide, in real life, at which side I'd get out. I don't think the plight of the young couple was of any real concern to me; I imagine that getting out at either family's side would have only distracted and annoyed everyone. But at the ends of the pool, there were other dark doorways leading to other parts of the ruin. I think at some point, I would have gotten out of the water and picked one.

--
Like last week's letter, this one has a couple of theme songs. I picked them in college to remind me of what I didn't want to be like, but now, I have doubts about the messages they send.

I want to say that the people in the boxes might actually be pursuing dreams of their own — mostly because, if I should find myself in one of those boxes, I want to be right.

1. Little Boxes, by Malvina Reynolds
And the people / In the houses / All went to the university / Where they were put in boxes / And they came out all the same / And there's doctors / And lawyers / And business executives / And they're all made out of ticky-tacky / And they all look just the same // ... // And they all have pretty children / And the children go to school / And the children go to summer camp / And then to the university / Where they are put in boxes / And they come out all the same

2. Baobabs, by Regina Spektor
And I wouldn't raise my child inside the city anyway / They grow up too savvy / And they grow up too fast / And they know about buying shit / And they know about sex / And they know about investment banking / And also about brokerage firms / And they know about the numbers / And they know about the words / And they know about bottom lines / And also about stones / And they know about careers / And about the real deals / And they all grow up to become people's people with people skills

--
Ethel is just one of many characters in the world of Subnormality. Her previous appearances:
A
B

Letter No. 1

On her 88th birthday, a few weeks ago, my lola told me, "Being old is fun."

I think I knew this from watching her eat ice cream at a recent family dinner. I could hear it in her voice, too, as she shared her travel plans for that week over the phone. But, actually hearing her say those words was an affirmation — you can live so much and so long and (still) be happy.

Tomorrow morning, I will have completed another trip around the sun. I won't be as old as my lola just yet, but I look forward to this new year as much as I look forward to my 88th. This feels like a kickoff to top off all the kickoffs I've made in the past year:

- got over a grown-up breakup
- biked around Metro Manila and didn't die
- learned Mandarin
- saw my kirigami featured in a magazine
- made new friends
- opened my heart again, with the help of someone wonderful
- made peace with the city
- realized how much I (still) love and miss my family
- moved to an apartment
- gained weight
- survived my first year as supplements editor
- saw my own faith staring me in the face

With blogging and other fun online things recently re-banned at work, the days leading up to my birthday have been as good a time as ever to be more thoughtful about a lot of stuff: what I post here, how I think, how I relate to other people, and what I want to do next.

- finally go to Beijing
- go home for Christmas
- make and write more things for myself, and make them well
- stop worrying about the future
- invest in the stock market
- read more books
- buy that box of plain Lego bricks
- turn the added weight into abs
- be less disconnected
- be less afraid
- be grateful
- get old
- have fun

Here we go.

为什么 / Why

I've had to ask myself lately why I've been studying Mandarin.

While I do hope it'll come in handy when my friends and I hit Beijing in October, there remains the question of what I'm going to do with Mandarin after that, and maybe also the question of whether I should continue studying at all.

I've entertained daydreams of returning to Singapore for more than just a visit, and that daydream now includes other Mandarin-speaking countries like Taiwan and, well, China. It seems to be the country to follow, the superpower to understand.

But yesterday, Cris (@crisgee) sent me "You'll Never Be Chinese", an essay by an expat who has decided, after nearly 20 years, to leave the great country he loved. It's not merely a laundry list of grievances experienced by a foreigner but a thoughtful look at how China will likely change, given current political and economic conditions.

I recommend reading the article, but if you're just going to stay here, I'll tell you that the writer decided that China wasn't the best place for him or his young family to live anymore. And if things play out the way he predicts, it doesn't seem like the right place for me, either.

What about Singapore, then? Well, today, Dom Cimafranca (@dcimafranca) shared this article about former PM Lee Kuan Yew urging Singaporeans to reproduce, and this one quote from Mr. Lee was especially intriguing:

"Do we want to replace ourselves or do we want to shrink and get older and be replaced by migrants and work permit holders?"

The comment thread below the article was also interesting. Amid complaints about high cost of living, suppression of free speech, and brain drain, commentators commonly ranted about the influx of so-called FT (foreign talent). So, it seems "You'll Never Be Singaporean", either.

Am I actually planning to leave the country? There's another big, important question.

Judging by the headlines in the paper I work for, people (government, private sector, and investors) are generally optimistic about the country's future. I share a bit of this optimism. I'm actually giddy at the thought of the good some practical urban planning and public-transport-related PPPs will do within the next decade or so.

But, I have this fear that after the next election, everything will be for naught.

Potentially horrible government notwithstanding, though, the Philippines actually looks like a good place to stay for now. I guess it depends on where I'll want to be in the next few years.

Yesterday, I also read "Thirty Is Not the New Twenty: Why your 20s Matter", shared by my cousin Didang (@manangdidang). Psychologist Meg Jay's points aren't actually anything I haven't read before, but they were a great reminder to check if I'm on track toward what I want in life. I particularly liked these quotes:

"Too many 20somethings have been led to believe that their 20s are for thinking about what they want to do and their 30s are for getting going on real life. But there is a big difference between having a life in your 30s and starting a life in your 30s. Even Erik Erikson, the father of the identity crisis, warned that young adults who spent too much time in 'disengaged confusion' were 'in danger of becoming irrelevant.'"

"One way to keep yourself honest about the future is by making a timeline. ... It may not be cool to have a timeline, or to admit to having a timeline, but you don't have to etch it in stone. It's just a way of thinking about how your life might, or might not, be adding up."

"Most 20somethings are terrified of being pinned down. They're afraid that if they choose a career or a job, they are closing off their other options and somehow their freedom will be gone and their lives will be over. In fact, getting a good job is the beginning."

"What you do everyday is wiring you to be the adult you will be."

I will acknowledge* here and now that I have a timeline. It isn't etched in stone, but it's there, keeping me in a holding pattern for the next couple of years while I accumulate necessary experience both professional and personal. After that, I don't know what comes next, but it will depend on what I achieve by then.

Maybe that sounds like the same kind of excuse Dr. Jay hears from late bloomers**. But I'm confident that I'm saying, "This is what I'm doing with my life," not, "I don't know what to do with my life."

I'm trying to be smarter as well as wiser for when I get older and, I hope, happier. I'm trying to be more open with my own loved ones and be more emotionally healthy. I'm trying to break bad habits, build life skills, regain the nerdy do-your-homework-as-soon-as-you-get-home attitude I had in high school, and learn to cook and clean properly.

That way, whatever happens in the next few years, I'll be in good shape to deal with it.

I suppose I can only hope that Mandarin will somehow still be useful at that point.

--
* One favorite lesson from my Intro to Journ teacher was that "admit" should be used for things that are actually wrong or bad, like errors or crimes.
** I do worry about the message Dr. Jay's interview might send to the people who do "start a life" in their 30s or even later. While some things, like viable egg cells, have an expiration date, I don't want to write over-20s off. Despite lot of setbacks could happen to me in the next five years, I want to believe that it will never be too late for me to have a decent life.

Wake / Sprawl House

My great-aunt Luz Reyes died last week. I wasn't very close to her, so I didn't expect her wake to raise all these questions.

One of her former colleagues from Maryknoll/Miriam was there at the wake last night, asked how old Auntie Lutz was when she died (89), and proclaimed, "She lived a very long time."

Immediately, I saw the ratio of my own age to hers, saw my childhood flash before my eyes, and wondered if I was up to enduring about three more turns of my life so far. Then, I looked at my lola, Auntie Lutz's sister, sitting next to me, and thought of all the things she'd experienced in her own life: childhood, adolescence, war, heartbreak, the academe, marriage, children, more teaching, grandchildren, more teaching, the death of her spouse, and now, a quiet life of reading, solving crossword puzzles and sudoku, and occasionally travelling.

Could I live that long, and that much?

I imagined her at my age, then tried to figure out how old she'd been — how long she'd already lived — the day I was born (63; on the brink of retirement), wondered what she thought of her own life, wondered what she was thinking as she sat before the coffin of a sister who'd been just a year older than she, wondered — I'm just going to say it — when will my lola die?, and tried to remember what she'd once said to me — or was it to Mikko? — about death.

I wish I could remember, did she say that she was ready?

I don't fear death, but I want to know, how can one honestly say that they are ready to die?

And I looked at her white hair and her face and her tiny frame in that silvery gray sweater, and I wondered what it was like to be old.

--

This is a study of a building layout that's sort of possessed me lately. When I first posted the photo on Tumblr, I captioned it, "Small house on the water," but something like "Sprawl House" might be more appropriate.

I don't actually see a house or other structure that itself sprawls. I suppose it could, but really, I'm thinking of the house in great, sprawling environments:

• Stilt house, with a winding wooden dock, over the water of a vast river or the sea;
• Remains of an ancient temple, or Atlantis, or Pompeii;
• Small chapel or shrine set into the rocky red cliffs of a desert, like Sedona or Joshua Tree;
• Lonely shack in the middle of endless woods;
• Little cabin on the green prairies or purple moors that stretch on to forever; or
• Tiny scientific research outpost in the Arctic Circle, during the quarter of the year that the sun doesn't set.

Perhaps my isolated village wasn't isolated enough for me; growing up, I enjoyed stories of people surviving alone in the woods, or of fairy tale heroes finding healing or wisdom in some wizened crone's secret cave / magic hut. I was also a fan of the "Boxcar Children" series, which started out with four orphans making a home for themselves in an abandoned boxcar (also in the woods), as well as "The Little Prince," "The Island of the Blue Dolphins," and the perhaps less grand but no less entertaining "Baby Island." Also, many of the stories and games I made up, whenever I played by myself, involved living on a raft or in a one-room house.

Lately, those tingly, make-believe hermit feelings have come back, and instead of stories, I have this layout, as well as the tantalizing idea of much, much bigger paper.

Mid-Year Check

Four days into 2012, I wrote this to-do list for the year. We're at the halfway point now, so I think it's time for a self-check.

1. Sign up for the next cycle of Mandarin classes.
I'm actually in my third cycle for the year and pretty happy with how I'm doing. :)

2. Re-read the Bible two or three times.
Ha. Yeah, this isn't happening.

By three times, I meant once each in three different languages: Tagalog, Cebuano, and English. Things were going well until I hit a speed bump at Genesis 5. Yes, yes, call me lazy.

In the end, I decided that with all the things I wanted to do — apart from all the things I had (have) to take care of every day — I had to accept that I didn't have the time and commitment that such an ambitious project deserved.

I did, however, learn some interesting things about myself and language. Though I never spoke Cebuano/Bisaya growing up and mostly use Taglish in everyday conversation, I found the Cebuano Bible much easier for me to grasp than the Tagalog. Osmosis, I guess; the sounds of Cebuano in my head were just warmer and more familiar.

I guess that's how I came to the only conclusion I got out of this interrupted project: If I ever study a Filipino language seriously (again), it should be Cebuano/Bisaya. While Tagalog seems more practical considering that I live in a Tagalog region, I can't help thinking of this quote I first posted after I finished Basic Chinese 1:

"Learning a language, even a natural language, is more of an emotional decision than a practical one. It’s about belonging to a group."
— Arika Okrent, author of “In the Land of Invented Languages” (source)

There's something special in the conscious choice of a language to study. I didn't choose for English to be my first language, nor did I want to study Tagalog Filipino* all those years in school. Chinese is only the second language I chose to learn because it felt important; Bisaya, now that I think about it, now that I remember how alien I felt coming home from the States, was the first.

*I'm using "Tagalog Filipino" here the same way people use "Mandarin Chinese."

3. Move out of Cubao within the next six months.
It took five months, but it finally, finally happened. :)

4. Finish at least two economics reference books.
Hay, another reading project abandoned, for now.

I am, however, reading more business and economics news these days, and when I remember, I put in a half hour or so at Khan Academy.

5. Use my induction cooker.
Cris gifted me with a proper saucepan, and since then, I've used the stove to boil pasta, fry an egg, and watch Cris make noodle soup, hahaha. Baby steps. Half point?

6. Travel out of the country at least once.
Not yet, but soon, soon. I have a ticket to Beijing in October. :) If stuff goes really sour with China before then, I'd like to rebook for Malaysia or Singapore.

7. Email my parents more often.
I have upped my emails in the past six months, but they're still not as frequent as I'd like. Half point.

8. Get rid of old/unneeded belongings.
I did a lot of throwing away during the last stages of the move. I still have a big bag of clothes and bags to donate, but they can wait under my bed till the next charity thing at Mikko's church.

9. Get my college stuff out of storage and sort that, too.
Hmm, I forgot all about this. :|

10. Invest.
I've actually lost a lot of money recently, if we're talking about the amount in my savings account. But, I suppose new things for the apartment and the massive deposit are a different kind of investment.

Still hoping to get my balance up to a certain amount and then plunge into a financial instrument, though.

11. Read at least 50 books.
So far, I've read 13 new ones this year and am in the middle of a 14th. That's less than I'd like to have read by now, but at least I'm reading.

12. Make more complicated popup buildings.
Only three so far: The Great Wall (1, 2), a kind of landscape of Santorini (1, 2), and an imaginary Aztec temple that I decided wasn't worth photographing.

I hope to have more time for buildings once I've finished settling into the new apartment. I also have to buy a table for working and eating on. :/ Half point for the six-month mark, then.

13. Visit Luneta on a Sunday morning
I've actually been to Luneta twice in the past six months, though both times on Saturday afternoons. It was still nice, though.

15. Use my Ayala Museum membership at least once a month.
Hey, looks like I skipped 14.

This makes me feel so bad, but I haven't been to the museum once since the year began. I wanted the membership for what I'd imagined would be a year of being single and bored.

16. See Picasso's "Suite Vollard."
Yup.

17. Visit Manila Ocean Park.
I'm thinking of striking this from my list. Friends have told me it isn't worth it. :/

18. See my childhood friends more often.
I've seen them only a couple of times, so I'm not removing this item. Maybe just a half point for this one.

19. Hang out with Internet friends IRL sometime.
I ran into Lance (@bottledbrain) at the museum on the last day to see "Suite Vollard," but I was about to leave already. :s

This kind of thing takes planning and courage — and more planning than courage. I can't even see offline friends without planning a month or so in advance, and something usually happens to cancel the plan. My offline friends are increasingly online friends, too. :|

20. Spend a weekend in Baguio.
Not yet.

21. Spend a weekend in Corregidor.
Not yet.

22. Find out if that thing they keep saying about my great-grandfather is true.
*sigh* Not yet.

23. Be a better editor.
Hmm. I'd rather not go into details, but suffice it to say that I can still do better. Half point?

24. Redesign certain company websites for fun with MAMP and a local Wordpress installation.
I actually did this and then showed the results to someone at the company who had a little more power to suggest Wordpress. But, the group handling the site in question decided they'd rather keep the current CMS. Oh, well.

25. Watch at least two Filipino plays.
Forgot about this one, too.

26. Finish at least one abandoned story/essay and submit it somewhere.
My interest in creative writing beyond this blog seems to fade more every year. There are just so many other things I want to do also.

27. Get a pet.
I'm definitely looking forward to this, but this might have to wait a while. I've got a lot of big expenses coming up in the next six months (a table, a bedroll, people's birthdays, my birthday, Beijing, Christmas, maybe one more cycle of Mandarin), so I don't know if I'll be to squeeze a pet in until next year.

28. Be open to whatever's around the corner.
I definitely think I deserve a full point for this, but I'm not taking it off the list. :)

That makes 10 points, if I've counted right. I guess it's not bad.

Would it be cheating if I made a new list of priorities and things to do for the rest of 2012?

Packing Up

I'm moving out of Cubao this weekend.

I'm happy about the change; I wanted it for the longest time but was never really able to pack up and go until now. And while I no longer detest my current neighborhood as much as I did when I first moved in, I know it's the right time to move out.

Cubao, or at least, the part of Cubao where I live (and will have lived), is an in-between place. Physically, it's between Araneta Center and Anonas and thus between any decent place to eat or get transportation; it takes a little extra effort to get to or from anywhere.

But when I think of the dingy bars, abandoned buildings, motels, and dusty hardware stores I saw every day, as well as my own street's sari-sari stores, low-rise offices, suburban houses, roosters, and sidewalks decorated with animal poop, I think of myself when I first moved in, still between being a clueless kid and getting my shit together.

I was between working for my parents' friends at a job I'd accepted mostly out of quarter-lifer desperation — no one else seemed to want to hire me — and believing I could find and be offered a new job by myself. Once at that new job, I was between existential, "do I really want to do this for the rest of my life?" crises and learning to just do the work, enjoy what there was (is) to enjoy, and make life outside the office rewarding enough to compensate for having to write (and now assign) yet another article about _____.

I was between being angry and disappointed with myself, for not having attained/achieved everything I'd expected to have achieved by the grand old age of 22, and being proud of what I'd accomplished instead, kahit papaano.

Faith-wise, I was between the loss of a sense of belonging and frustration with the community I just no longer belong to; and a quiet contentment with the few prayers I still say, as well as acceptance of the good that conservative religion can still do for other people.

I was also between using fight-or-flight in an increasingly serious yet still kinda new relationship, and learning to just do things because I loved someone who deserved an awesome girlfriend. And when we broke up, I was between bitterness, disappointment, and rage; and celebrating how I had, in the process, still become the kind of person I'd wanted to be at the start.

More recently, I was also between a crippling fear that I couldn't open myself up to another person again, and allowing myself to just step out and be happy with someone amazing.

So, this upcoming move to a nicer apartment (and tighter budget, haha) feels like a natural next step. And when I say I won't miss Cubao, I say it not out of dislike for the neighborhood (it's actually improved in the past couple of years) but out of recognition that you can't and shouldn't miss something you've outgrown.

Sure, I know that the years to come will involve a lot more moving on and, I hope, moving up. I hope I'm as ready as I feel. But for now, I just want to dwell.

Actually, I know I have to relearn dwelling; for so long, the mantra was, "Just hang in there till things get better." I'm slowly rewiring myself to accept a new one — "Things are now awesome! You can now slow down, stop worrying, and enjoy them."

--

It's easier for me to throw or give things away now. I no longer feel the need to save every last bus ticket and piece of ribbon. I'm looking forward to getting home tonight, sorting my belongings, and putting some of them in bags that will end up on the curb or at a church.

I am actually thinking of throwing out or shredding* my old diaries, every last one, even the first one I wrote when I was just ten. Little things — the lack of clutter in my family's new house, the clandestine visit to the now-empty old house, an article I read about the imperfection of human memory, the way the silver paint has flaked off the shoes I wore to my senior prom, my own general lack of concern over my inability to find certain photos in my hard drive — are telling me, the present is just as important as, if not more important than the past.

I'll still try not to forget things, and I know I can't ignore how much the past has shaped me. But, the more old things I hang on to, literally and figuratively, the less room I have for other good things that may come.

* Burning would be more dramatic, but that would be bad for the environment.

--

First, I have to find the truck guy's number.

Opening

1

I've learned different words for "happy" in Mandarin, but the one that gets me right now is 开心 (kāixīn). It's made of the words 开 (kāi), which means "open," and 心 (xīn), which means "heart."

我真开心 (Wǒ zhēn kāixīn)。I am truly happy.

2

When he moves, it's as if he simply reaches into his pockets and finds whatever it is waiting there, to be extended on an open palm. All these things he says or does, like little treasures — a pebble, a coin, a sweet — are offered to me like it's the easiest, most natural thing to do.

When I move, I reach into my pocket and pull out rings of keys, which open a building, which houses a vault, which houses other vaults and safes, which house little boxes, which contain things I didn't know I still had. And it takes all my courage to get through all these heavy doors and walls I don't remember building, just to give him the tiniest peek at the thing I want him most to see.

The thing is, I knew from the beginning that I had nothing to fear. I knew — I know I can believe him. I know I can believe in him. I know I shouldn't be afraid.

So, I'm not, or I won't be from now on. I'm leaving that house and taking my treasure with me in my pockets. Life has never felt so light.

3

And now,

Image © Frederator Studios

It really is Adventure Time. :)

Letter to My Unborn Firstborn

Dear L.,


According to the timeline of my high school daydreams, you would have been born about two years ago. Of course, that depended on marrying the high school sweetheart I didn't have then (someday, you can ask me about the one I had instead), and the man I'd hoped would be your father left the picture last year.

So I guess it's safe to say that I haven't found your dad yet. In the meantime, I'm trying to be a good example for you, for when you get to my age. I'm trying to show you as well as myself that your happiness mustn't depend on having another person around, because people leave. And even if they don't, they sometimes fail. We all do, little love.

I'm trying to prove that spending too much time pining for a great love and a faceless man can be a waste of energy. You should be working to be at peace with the only person you'll be with at the end, yourself, and you should stay productive. Do a good job at your job; volunteer; find a hobby, craft, or art you enjoy; travel; and make friends.

I am not going to be one of those people who will tell you that if you do all these things, the right man will arrive in good time and find you attractive. Nor will I tell you that God will reward you for your efforts, as God is no respecter of persons. You must learn to be happy regardless.

I am sorry to report, however, that I seem to be failing us both, mostly because of the above paragraph and the possibility that this letter may never get sent. I get through a week pumped/psyched enough for work, I read, I work on my crafts, I go out in search of adventures, and I enjoy time with family and friends. But when I go back to my one-room walkup at the end of a weekend, I still find myself wishing I had someone there waiting for me, to make dinner with, chat with, watch Sunday night HBO with, and fall asleep holding.

I don't know, baby. Maybe your mom got too used to having someone like that around, or maybe she's seen too many bad movies. But mostly, your mom is scared of being always alone and never learning to deal with that empty Sunday night feeling. She wants to be a strong, independent young woman, so she's scared that admitting she's lonely will make her seem weak or desperate. Your mom feels stuck right now, my darling.

In my daydreams, when you get to my age, you are terrific and self-sufficient. You handle life and the world much better than I ever did, your outlook is both pragmatic and positive, and your heart is practically indestructible. You take difficulty in good stride. I won't take too much credit for raising you so well, because I believe you'll take yourself in hand, too.

So I hope that when you get to my age, you'll find this letter absurd. "Poor, less enlightened Mom," you'll say. "If only she knew, life is _____________."

But if not, if you feel just as restless and clueless as I right now, I hope you'll give me a call. I'll tell you, I don't know how things are going to be, but I believe in you. Even if you don't find the answers, I believe you'll get closer than I ever did. And if you still don't, tomorrow is another day, and I'm still going to cheer you on.

See you.


Love,

--
Mom


P.S. - Give your grandmother a call, too. She's been my own personal cheerleader for a while.
P.P.S. - I'm assuming you're a girl or a gay boy. If you're my straight son, give me a minute; I have other things to write you.

Dead Rabbit

I take horoscopes and other attempts at prediction with a grain of salt, but out of general curiosity and growing interest in Chinese culture, I decided to check out what Chinese astrology had to say about my prospects for the year of the Water Dragon. Somehow, I stumbled upon this website and received a troubling forecast.

The site first gave me my birth chart (click on the image below), which made as much sense to me as hieroglyphics until it was supplemented with this other website. I have strong fire and weak water (whatever that means), which both make for good times with the Dragon.

Top geomancer Joseph Chau, who works with the Mandarin Oriental Hotel as well as with certain local real estate companies and other businesses, also supplied our women's website with these more detailed predictions. According to him, for a good year, I must:

• Work hard
• Maintain stability
• Try not to aim too high
• Be more humble
• Try not to be greedy
• Strengthen my immune system
• Relax more

Now, this sounds like good advice for anyone regardless of their animal sign; that's the main reason I take this stuff with a grain of salt.

The first website, however, gave me a less benign outlook for the long term. Behold, "the rise and fall of your (my) entire life:"

According to this, I have some pretty good years ahead of me, and if I want to have a happy marriage, I ought to get hitched before I turn 30. (My mother would probably agree.) After that, I'd have about 20 years of happy relationships and financial bliss.

Once I turn 50, however, my luck flat-lines. I wonder which of these horrible disasters should befall me then:

• I get cancer.
• I go to prison with a life sentence.
• I get a death sentence.
• I get hit by a car and become a wheelchair-bound vegetable for the rest of my days.
• I lose my mind.
• All my kids die, my husband deserts me, and my assets disappear.
• All my life becomes a sisyphean striving in what should be my golden years.

(In contrast, my friends here at the office are all going to be rich cougars. Maybe one of them will take pity on me and hand me some leftover smoked salmon from the window of her diamond-encrusted BMW.)

My immediate response to this graph was to tell myself, "Just spend life making it good and happy, and maybe you'll avoid most of that bad juju."

Then again, my efforts to make life good might only land me in some Greek tragedy by way of self-fulfilling prophecy.

Either way, it seems useless for me to worry about it now. I'll just enjoy the next 25 years and then see how long I can keep going after that—my approach to life before this stupid graph, anyway.

Gong xi fa cai!

To-Do in 2012

This is an expanded version of the list I made last month. I thought I'd have just 12 or 13 items on my list, but I kept thinking of things to do as I went along.

I'm looking forward to striking at least half of these by next December.

1. Sign up for the next cycle of Mandarin classes.
I still don't know what I'm going to use this for, but something tells me I should keep going.

2. Re-read the Bible two or three times.
I used a New International Version the first time I read the whole Bible. This year, I'm going with the King James Version.

I think it's time I reexamined some of the things I decided to stop believing, and who knows? Maybe the text that inspired authors and religious scholars for centuries might show me what's really missing in my own faith.

How am I going to read the whole book two or three times in just one year? I'm going to read the Tagalog and, if I can find it, Cebuano translations and read them at the same time, like in "The Other Side of Heaven." It sounds like an ambitious if not really ridiculous project, but it should still be interesting.

3. Move out of Cubao within the next six months.
I'm currently eyeing the Kamuning-Tomas-Morato-Timog-Scouts area because they're within biking distance of my office, and I really want to use my bike more.

But, I'm also considering Makati; I'm already there every weekend, and it would be nice to bike to all my now-usual stops (church, restaurants, grocery, etc.) there. There's also the chance my brother might change his mind and decide to move out of our grandmother's house, and anywhere other than Makati would be too inconvenient for him.

It will be a challenge to find an affordable studio in both these areas, though; they're kind of expensive.

4. Finish at least two economics reference books.
That includes the book I bought last year but never finished. It's at the office now, making me feel guilty whenever I open my desk drawer.

The second book would probably be a standard college textbook; maybe my brother Mikko can lend me something.

5. Use my induction cooker.
I won one at the company raffle last month, and I haven't been able to use it because the communal kitchen doesn't have any electrical outlets. :| It's just one more reason to get a new place, really.

6. Travel out of the country at least once.
Mikko and his girlfriend Camille are going to Bangkok this summer, and my pushing-90 grandmother wants to fly somewhere, too, so I'll probably get this done before my next birthday.

If not, I think I can plan going to Hong Kong or Singapore by myself.

7. Email my parents more often.
I used to do this once or twice a week. Now it's only when I remember, every couple of months. :s

8. Get rid of old/unneeded belongings.
Anyone know what to do with handbags that aren't in great condition, but still seem too useable to throw away?

Also, why do people keep giving me bags?

9. Get my college stuff out of storage and sort that, too.

10. Invest.
I have some money in a mutual fund; I think I might give my bank's asset management thingy a try. Savings take forever to grow, and I'm thinking of getting a computer to play games with. :p

11. Read at least 50 books.
This includes the Bible(s) and the economics books but also:

• "Arkitekturang Filipino"
• "Almanac for Manilenos," if I can find it
• the eight books I got for Christmas
• that one book I got for my birthday

—just to start with.

12. Make more complicated popup buildings.

13. Visit Luneta on a Sunday morning
—and maybe do Intramuros at night.

15. Use my Ayala Museum membership at least once a month.
Thanks, Mikko.

16. See Picasso's "Suite Vollard."
The last day is this Saturday already. I have to get a move on.

17. Visit Manila Ocean Park.

18. See my childhood friends more often.
The ones who're here in Manila, anyway.

19. Hang out with Internet friends IRL sometime.
The list currently includes @dearpilar, @pitradactyl, @presidents, @bottledbrain, my own cousin manangdidang, and—who knows given #6?—@zoelionesque.

(Guys, you're welcome to join me for any of the items on this list.)

20. Spend a weekend in Baguio.

21. Spend a weekend in Corregidor.

22. Find out if that thing they keep saying about my great-grandfather is true.
My great-grandfather Crispin Nones was something of a self-made Da Vinci; he didn't get any higher education, but he was a class A mechanic, tailor, wood-carver, artist, and metal-worker. My grandmother claims he was the man who made the giant eagle on the Blue Eagle Gym. My dad asked me to verify this when I was an incoming Ateneo freshman, but nearly eight years later, I've yet to come close.

23. Be a better editor.

24. Redesign certain company websites for fun with MAMP and a local Wordpress installation.
I say "for fun" because even if I do show anyone these designs, it's unlikely they'll bite. :s Anyway, I miss web work and could use the practice as well as something to do on slow days at the office.

25. Watch at least two Filipino plays.

26. Finish at least one abandoned story/essay and submit it somewhere.

27. Get a pet.
I already know what to name any future turtles or hedgehogs.

28. Be open to whatever's around the corner.
I thought about making this item the cheesier, "Fall in love [again]," but who can really say who or what is coming? So instead, I'm only promising to to jump when it's time to jump, grin and bear the crap, and just be happy as much as possible.

Here's to a great 2012 for everyone. Thanks for reading. :)

Do What Pray Tell

A well-meaning friend suggested that, now that I'm single again, I should spend more time with God and ask myself if I was going to be with him in heaven after I died.

The thing is, she and I have different ideas of God. I don't think she'd really dig mine, much less how I spend time with who I believe is God. There's also no paper trail--no Bible study group signup forms, no outreach ministry membership brochures--to prove to her that I spend any time with God at all.

Ever since I left my church job, talking about God to the people--especially the professing Christian people--who have known me since childhood runs the risk of opening a can of worms that never seems safe to open. So, all I could do was sidestep my friend's suggestion and address some of the other points she'd raised during our conversation about whether I'm ready to date anyone.

I do wish, though, that there was someone I could talk to about my faith. The next-closest person to me who has any clue about its state is my younger brother, but out of pride, I avoid talking to him about it. I say next-closest, because Martin knew a little more than my brother does, but his viewpoint is Catholic, so he didn't quite get everything.

I once dropped in on a Filipino Freethinkers meeting and would have liked to talk to the Episcopalian guy, but I don't feel like going back.

I guess I would just like to talk to someone who understands Protestant, particularly evangelical church culture, is familiar with evangelical teachings, would listen to what I had to say, wouldn't judge me, and would maybe even walk away without worrying unnecessarily over the fate of my immortal soul. Basically, I would like to talk to someone who would listen, not preach or fret, and just leave me in the hands of whatever God they believed in, just as I place myself in the hands of mine.

Preferably not someone I work with, because just knowing they follow me on Twitter makes things soooo awkward already.

Is it too early for New Year's resolutions? I'm looking forward to the new year. These are more plans than resolutions:

1. Reread the Bible, this time a KJV.
2. Continue studying Mandarin.
3. Bike more.
4. Move out of Cubao.
5. Keep a planner.
6. Make more complicated popup buildings.
7. Invest some more.
8. Study more economics.
9. Get a pet. If where I live doesn't allow pets, get a small pet that doesn't make noise. A turtle, maybe.
10. Be happy.

And as for whether I'm ready to date anyone, I don't think I want to just yet. So far, no one who's expressed interest has really grabbed my attention, either. I guess we'll see how the new year goes.

The Save Point

Many video games have what's called a save point. It can be an object, like a hoop to jump through or a glowing star or crystal to touch; a place, like the plaza of each village you visit or a sparkly bit of grass along your way; or even a person, like a healer, guide, or good fairy waiting at just the right point in the game.

Whatever form the save point takes, it's a typically a point where you save not only your progress but also your character's current state. If it's the last save point before the next big battle, it's a good place to assess your character's skills and equipment and prepare as best you can for what's coming next. And if your character is injured or killed, you simply reload the game at the save point to try again.

So it wasn't such a stretch for a high school crush to once write that life has its save points also. For him, the save points were moments when life was good, he was in a good mental and physical state, he was aware of these things, and he felt ready for anything. If he went through trouble in the future, he had only to recall his last save point to remind himself that things were once better and could be again.

I've never called it a save point, but that's what my childhood home has always been for me. Because it's a place, though, my save point is a little less like my schoolmate's and a little more like a video game's. I go home, see how my family has grown older while my bedroom still looks like a 15-year-old's, see how some trees have been chopped down while others have grown taller, think of what I've left in Manila and what I'll return to, ask myself how I plan to handle it, and steel myself accordingly.

This time, though, I realized that my capacity for acceptance had increased before I'd even arrived. While I was eager to be home again, I knew in the back of my mind that it would only be for a short time and that because my family was older—my parents' and lola's age showing more than ever, my youngest brother a high schooler in a big man's body—things would not be as I remembered. I just had to be glad for the time I did have and go with the flow.

So, I spent my first day shopping with my mom, partly to wait for my dad's flight to come in after mine and partly to reacquaint myself with the idea that getting new clothes isn't always a waste of money.

On the second day, we went to church, then to sing hymns by my lolo's grave, then to our favorite roadside grilled chicken place, then home for an afternoon indoors because of the rain.

On Monday, we went to a secret beach—no fences, no signs; you just drive right off the road and pay some lady P10 per head—to snorkel against the current over a patch reef.

On Tuesday, I finally got to take a walk. I took Buster, because he'd been cooped up recovering from a sprain, and my brother Mon, to hold Buster's leash. When it started to rain, though, they both went home (but not before I had to chase the dog chasing the neighbor's pet rabbit—fun for both me and the dog, though his limp returned afterward). I stayed outside, took a dizzying turn on the tire swing, then walked.

This was the walk I knew I had to take before I left again. I went down my street, up the main street, across the back grass to the quadrangle of my school, down to the pavilion and then back up to the high school, then down again the back way, on the route I'd take with my friends in our uniforms. And while I walked, all the sights I knew, every house and tree and shrub I'd passed hundreds of times on hundreds of walks, runs, and rides seemed to wink and wave at me. My homecoming was complete, even as I was to leave the next day.

I felt happy. I think I was happy that though my life, short as it's been, was behind me, I had lived it. I looked forward to getting as old as my lola, and not all my memories were nor had to be sad. My home and my family would always be there, even after my parents retired and moved away.

And near the end of my walk, under a tree between the houses of my oldest friends, I found blooming some yellow wood flowers I thought had died out, and their seed blossoms littered the ground.

--

When I got on the plane again the next day, I cried a little, not for the home I was leaving behind—I wasn't leaving it behind—but for a person I'd left before leaving Manila. I hadn't thought about Martin much over the weekend, except to note that he wouldn't have been able to enjoy something my family and I were doing at that moment, but he came to mind then as the crew readied for takeoff.

I cried because I was witnessing the dying gasp of what we were together, because I knew in that moment that I didn't want him back at all, not if it meant more of the hurt and more of the past. A lot would have to change first.

Time now for the present and the future, for takeoff and flight.

This changes things.

Of course a promotion changes things. It changes my plan, that big plan I wrote about earlier in the year: if nothing "big" happened to me career-wise or other-part-of-life-wise in Manila, this blob city, I would go home to Mindanao and see what would happen if I lived there for a while, possibly indefinitely.

Now, I find myself staring at a blank slate, erased by the two intra-office memos that got me this desk. I'm a little afraid because, while I know more or less how to keep things running smoothly here at the office, I'm no longer sure what to do once I step out of it.

If you've been reading this blog, you'll know that I went through a really long mopey phase—it had highs and lows, but even the highs were still on the mopey side of the emotional graph. I wanted permanence, and I somehow thought that it could take the form of a decent apartment (in Singapore, if possible) and an everyday life with Martin, and because I wasn't at the point where I could have either of these things, I stewed and stewed and stewed.

Then something Martin said made me ask if there wasn't something permanent, some rock I couldn't hold onto, already inside myself. It sounds really cheesy, but that's what got me out of my rut after more than a year. Since then, I've been able to enjoy work more, enjoy the present more, and generally stop worrying about whether I would get the future I wanted. Any answers to questions about the near future, at least, seemed to just magically click into place.

So once I was told I'd soon be promoted, they went on—click, click, click: I should be able to afford an apartment—a real one, not a boarder's room where I have to keep the microwave on the floor—once they adjust my salary. In another year, I'll start applying to grad school and working on a master's in development comm. or research. And once that's done—and Martin's done—I can start thinking about what happens next. But even if none of that happens, I'm fine with the way things are and will just take things as they come.

I could have gone on with this plan, and gone on not worrying, were it not for a couple of idle chats with officemates, benignly comparing stories of what led us to where we are now. And now, I find myself returning to these questions: Who did I want to be then? Am I that person now? Do I still want to be that person? If not, who do I want to be? Will things really be better with an apartment? Do I really want a master's in those fields? I feel happy; happier than I've been in months, maybe a year—What if that's an illusion? What if my books, my crafts, the Internet, and my boyfriend are just a distraction? What if "enjoying the present" is just pretending that there's no reason for me to strive?

If Martin were here now, he'd probably tell me that I'm overthinking things and being too hard on myself again (it seems to be a sickness with me), and he'd probably be right. Maybe I'm just shocked that I haven't asked questions like these in a while.

I feel like kicking myself, really. Why did I have to ask? Now that it's done, I know I'll lose sleep and happiness points looking for answers. Why couldn't I have just let myself be happy, however deluded that might have been?

I'm terrified now, though not so much by not finding answers as by finding myself back in the doldrums. I never want to go back there. Maybe I'm not sure who I want to be, but it sure as hell isn't that sad person.

Ha. Maybe that's something for me to hang onto, while I'm trying to reestablish my bearings; maybe just knowing what made things so bad for me will help me avoid that awful state again.

I guess we'll see.

A Reintroduction

This is more for myself than anyone else.

I was born in General Santos City, South Cotabato in 1987. My father was (and still is, really) an engineer at Dole Phils., Inc., and my mother, a homemaker overqualified for the local job market at the time.

I went to Dole Philippines School, which some people remember as an international school (it isn't anymore) and others think is in Bukidnon (which I will always rebut, and often vehemently).

After I finished first grade, my dad got a transfer to the Dole Fruit & Nut Co. in Fresno, California. We lived there for three years.

I often wonder if that time period is too brief for me to still have an accent, but there were other factors:
- English was my first language.
- Even before we left for the States, most of my playmates were Americans and/or English-speaking Filipinos.
- No one else my age spoke Filipino when we went to the States, not even the kids at the Filipino church we attended (where the service was in English).
- The three years abroad were what child development folks consider part of a person's formative years.
- When we returned, it was to a place where few people spoke Filipino/Tagalog; the local vernacular was either Bisaya or Ilonggo.
- When we returned, Americans and/or English-speaking Filipinos were the ones who were most friendly to me. I quickly associated the vernacular with bullies and so wasn't keen to be like them.
- All of the young adult books in our school library were in English.
- The only teacher who gave me one-on-one help in learning the national language was my Grade Five teacher, the first Filipino teacher I had upon returning to Kalsangi--which is probably why my grasp of the language is still Fourth-Grade-level.
- I wasn't an attentive student. Sometimes, I would look away from the board for a moment and then look back, only to find that it had completely changed--plus 20 minutes had gone by. I was really more interested in library books, computers, and imagining pulpy stories than in studying for any subject, much less Filipino.
- I was consistently in the top three of my class (I usually was and eventually graduated #3), so I didn't really feel pressured to work any harder.

We came home. When I wasn't out with friends or holed up somewhere reading, I was outside--biking, hiking, climbing trees, and swimming.

In my senior year of high school, I read a spare copy of "The Purpose-Driven Life" lying around the house and gave my life to Jesus.

I went to the Ateneo de Manila University for college. The greater brains, talent, and/or initiative shown by many of my batchmates there made me feel worthless. Church, prayer, journalling, blogging, books, philosophy and theology classes, shifting out of the School of Management, and joining the school's literary publication put me back on my feet.

In senior year, I became disenchanted with the church I was attending and frustrated that it didn't have adequate answers to my questions.

I read an essay by a guy I hadn't met yet and, under some compulsion, had an imaginary conversation with him while alone in my dorm room that night.

I graduated from college and got my first job at a different church, for two reasons: I was getting desperate, as there weren't many job openings that weren't outsourcing- , broadcasting- , or sales/marketing-related, and I wanted to see if this church might have the answers I sought.

After one year, I left, also for two reasons: I wanted to write more, but more importantly, my beliefs had become increasingly liberal. It was clear to me that my beliefs (and questions) didn't fit in with the teachings and culture of that church--or any other I had attended thus far--and that my employers deserved someone who truly shared their vision. I left as quietly as I could, without telling anyone there of my second reason, because I was afraid of being judged.

Between graduation and early this year, my self-esteem went up and down in what's fashionably known as a quarterlife crisis but could generally be described as me feeling wasted and rootless. I missed home with my family, fresh air, grass you didn't have to keep off, trees, insects, nearby sea, and big sky. I also fidgeted for something to keep me busy outside of books and writing (I've been too drained by work), until I found a craft I could really enjoy.

Also between graduation and early this year, I was reintroduced to the guy who wrote the essay I'd read and, over the course of the next few weeks, heard the other half of that imaginary conversation. We've been together two years, four months, and six days. Among many good things, he's helped me to believe in myself again.

A few months ago, I went to Singapore for a week with my family, and for some reason, I'm still not over it.

I have been working at this company for nearly two years (full come September). Last month, I was promoted to assistant editor.

Today, I'm bracing myself now for more changes at work. I'm looking forward to catching up with my brother and moving to a bigger apartment. I'm taking things with Martin as they come. I hope to get better at my new craft. I'm still unchurched, but secure in my faith. I still miss home or long for places like Singapore, but it doesn't get to me as it used to. I try not to regret my "wasted" youth, because it isn't over yet.

All things considered, I am happy, and thankful.