[update] will manage a longer post when i finish gathering my wits.
Exhausted doesn't cover much, but it'll have to do. Tonight will be my third night staying over at the new house and I just received a text from Mom that they're in the process of putting up the large picture frames, the masks my parents bought from Baguio a long time ago, as well as whatever else can be set in their proper places.
My ankles still hurt from all the lifting and I think that I still need to catch up a little more on sleep. Roughly ten hours in 4 days is no joking matter, and honestly, I'm just glad to know that everything is progressing smoothly. In no real rush, seeing something newly fixed or unpacked everyday is good enough for me.
Filed for an emergency leave yesterday. This last weekend was the most stressful I've had in a long, long while. Our last move was about ten years ago and at the time there was no real reason to stress over everything. While the whole incident with the Economic crash of 1997 hit our source of income, both my parents still had jobs and since we've never lived excessively, the tightening of belts was something we all easily adjusted to. I mean, one doesn't really need to go out of town much. As long as we had the essentials -- school, a home, food on the table and sturdy clothes and footwear -- we were fine. We did without househelp, that was okay too, Nate and I were all old enough to take care of ourselves anyway.
I remember crying sometime in that first year. My father had proposed moving to Bacolod, and I supposed I've said this enough times: I am a creature of habit and routine and sometimes, when the change is too drastic, I can't bring myself to function properly. I panic, have been known to hyperventilate and need a few minutes before my anxiety attack passes, ending usually with me drinking a couple glasses of water, among other things.
I cried in the backseat on Sunday night, on the final trip back to Pasig. Fell asleep a couple of times and woke up seconds to a minute after to the dark outside and the red of tailights. It rained a little as we drove out of Quezon City and I remember texting Kam. I don't know if it was just that I was so tired, that Mom and I had finally fixed and packed up all that needed to be brought, had thrown all that was meant to be thrown away, but it felt something like relief and this ache as if something had been torn out of me. Eitherway, I clamped my mouth shut and just let the tears come until it registered that we were heading down the second bridge.
Me: Is this the second bridge?
Dad: Yup.
Mom: We're home.
This is really it.
I wish life barrelling into me didn't scare me shitless.
When asked what poem speaks to me the most, I think about the one where the poet told the story of the bird that died in the hands of the young boy he once was, long ago. I cannot remember the verse, except that it went something like: When I asked my mother why it died / she said it was because I had held it too tightly. He ended it by saying: With you, I am that child again / and I am afraid; and I thought to myself, this is how I feel, every minute of every day. This is how life makes me feel.
So afraid to hold on, even if I can't bring myself to just let go.
Do not worry; I have asked them to cut
a branch from the bamboo that still sits
outside of our old home. We do not need it
to be much, a small one will be enough
and we will watch it grow, tracing a path
up from the clay pot that will be a little bit
bigger every year. You and I, we will go and sit
to see the stems strain; these little hands that
grasp for touch. The elongated neck of a snail
that inches itself towards where it wants to be.
Also, my prayers go out to everyone in Victoria, Australia. I didn't know about the fires until I came to work this morning and saw the email in my company inbox.
My ankles still hurt from all the lifting and I think that I still need to catch up a little more on sleep. Roughly ten hours in 4 days is no joking matter, and honestly, I'm just glad to know that everything is progressing smoothly. In no real rush, seeing something newly fixed or unpacked everyday is good enough for me.
Filed for an emergency leave yesterday. This last weekend was the most stressful I've had in a long, long while. Our last move was about ten years ago and at the time there was no real reason to stress over everything. While the whole incident with the Economic crash of 1997 hit our source of income, both my parents still had jobs and since we've never lived excessively, the tightening of belts was something we all easily adjusted to. I mean, one doesn't really need to go out of town much. As long as we had the essentials -- school, a home, food on the table and sturdy clothes and footwear -- we were fine. We did without househelp, that was okay too, Nate and I were all old enough to take care of ourselves anyway.
I remember crying sometime in that first year. My father had proposed moving to Bacolod, and I supposed I've said this enough times: I am a creature of habit and routine and sometimes, when the change is too drastic, I can't bring myself to function properly. I panic, have been known to hyperventilate and need a few minutes before my anxiety attack passes, ending usually with me drinking a couple glasses of water, among other things.
I cried in the backseat on Sunday night, on the final trip back to Pasig. Fell asleep a couple of times and woke up seconds to a minute after to the dark outside and the red of tailights. It rained a little as we drove out of Quezon City and I remember texting Kam. I don't know if it was just that I was so tired, that Mom and I had finally fixed and packed up all that needed to be brought, had thrown all that was meant to be thrown away, but it felt something like relief and this ache as if something had been torn out of me. Eitherway, I clamped my mouth shut and just let the tears come until it registered that we were heading down the second bridge.
Me: Is this the second bridge?
Dad: Yup.
Mom: We're home.
This is really it.
I wish life barrelling into me didn't scare me shitless.
When asked what poem speaks to me the most, I think about the one where the poet told the story of the bird that died in the hands of the young boy he once was, long ago. I cannot remember the verse, except that it went something like: When I asked my mother why it died / she said it was because I had held it too tightly. He ended it by saying: With you, I am that child again / and I am afraid; and I thought to myself, this is how I feel, every minute of every day. This is how life makes me feel.
So afraid to hold on, even if I can't bring myself to just let go.
Do not worry; I have asked them to cut
a branch from the bamboo that still sits
outside of our old home. We do not need it
to be much, a small one will be enough
and we will watch it grow, tracing a path
up from the clay pot that will be a little bit
bigger every year. You and I, we will go and sit
to see the stems strain; these little hands that
grasp for touch. The elongated neck of a snail
that inches itself towards where it wants to be.
Also, my prayers go out to everyone in Victoria, Australia. I didn't know about the fires until I came to work this morning and saw the email in my company inbox.