Out of a job

It's now been four years since I've stopped doing the 9-6 routine, work-wise. Now, with my two-month old baby, the consultancy has arrived at a standstill and I'm mostly at home with my little girl latched on to me while re-watching my favorite series, reading stuff online, stalking people in Facebook or baby-talking, dressed in my husband's oversized shirts.

It's been a while but a part of me keeps hoping one of my former bosses would give me a call for an upcoming project they think would be perfect for me. I need to talk to an adult about communications, marketing campaigns... a deadline. Whatever. Just something that's not about exclusively breastfeeding, cloth nappies or the two-month old's development.

I need to do something soon. I need to resurrect my business and look for some new projects. But at the same time, I can't imagine spending time away from my little girl. It's such a polarising feeling.

Hello again!

Opening this blog is like opening a window into the past. My God, has it been that long? 2005 was the first time I wrote on this blog (well, no, not this blog but the original one where some entries here were copied from). I was 25 then. Single, having the time of my life working in PR. I had no money, no car, and I could afford to get drunk on a weeknight!

And now, I'm 34. Married. With a little girl. I wake up at 5AM and sleep at 10. I drink one to two glasses of wine a week because I breastfeed. I make a living as a consultant and occasionally write for fashion sites. I'm a neurotic, health conscious hypochondriac who eats healthy and has weekend diet breaks. Talk about Change.

I'm thinking about whether I should continue this blog. I already have my Tumblr. Not that my checking in there hasn't been sporadic at best. That's one thing that hasn't changed about me - my propensity to start at full speed, only to dwindle to a stop halfway without ever finishing. Or maybe that will end here. We will see!

Anyhow, it's nice to see you again, Younger Me. Wasn't it awesome, those past nine years?!

Almost Thirty.

It’s a time of now’s and no tomorrow’s. It’s that moment in your life when you find yourself assessing where you are, what you’ve done. It’s a time of not looking back, of forging ahead with everything you’ve made out of yourself, because you have a feeling the next few years will find you realizing that you’ve either found your purpose, or it’s been a total waste.

I’m not sure if you’d agree, but that’s the way I see this age and time in my life. I’ve come to the point where it’s not anymore ok to not know much, yet unrealistic to assume that you know everything there is to possibly know.

It’s a time that gives you a long, hard look at the reality that you and your friends are, after all, not immortal. It’s when the people you know make their own turns at that point of no return, which often mean separations and drifting apart.

It’s that time you think that no, you’re not ready to let go of the fun, the naïveté of the twenty-somethings. It’s that time you suddenly realize that, hey, you’ve got to get serious NOW. You have kids? You think about all that you’ve missed. You don’t? You wonder if you’re missing anything. You realize, if you don’t have children yet, that there’s no way you’ll ever enjoy that kind of parent-child relationship others say is great when the parents are barely more than kids themselves.

It’s that point where you realize you will never be a lawyer or a young genius doctor. You’ll never fly a rocket ship or sing your own songs that others will sing along to. Rather, you are where you are at your career here and now. You’re lucky if you like it. If you don’t, you find other things in your life that you feel can compensate, and say, “Ah well. Life is not all about work.”

It’s that time when, if you don’t have a way of achieving what you initially wanted to do, you stop killing yourself trying to find out how to do it, and start bargaining with Reality. Your parents didn’t love you; your 3^rd year teacher said things that left you scarred forever; some guy broke your heart about 10 years ago and nothing was ever the same again – and so you are who you are, and such.

It’s realizing there are some things you will have to do, lest you die not getting to do any of them, because you’ve been hiding behind excuses for not doing them all these years. You realize, it’s either you act or you don’t. You either write, or you don’t. You either quit smoking or you don’t. You either start eating vegetables, or you’re a carnivore for life.

You can’t teach an almost-thirty dog new tricks. There are just some things that you can’t change – in yourself as well as others. The past cannot be erased. Your father left when you were young, so you will never have one that you grew up with.

People around you start doing grown up things like working for their families, leaving forever, getting sick, getting married, separating. You stop sleeping late. You realize you need to go to the gym. You’re not as strong as you used to be.

But you’re not as confused. You still do not know the answers to Life’s questions, but you realize that for the most part, it’s ok.

You are not as pretentious as you used to be.

You can say things more freely than before, because yours is the age where the future is now.

You are more forgiving, because you have forgiven yourself so many times, you feel you owe the world some level of understanding and acceptance.

You are less angry.

You have, at this point, realized that love does not come often in Life, so you know better than to let it go once you have it.

You know who your real friends are.

You are not afraid to eat alone.

Admit it – you like yourself just a little better nowadays.

Does it get better the next 10 years?

Achingly Relaxed (from Aug. 31, 2006)

As I've mentioned, my writing is in its Dark Ages. It has to do with repeatedly being forced to organize my thoughts. I guess concentrating on structure does have its downside. In any case, I’m still recovering from that beating I took from my previous job, which has caused my lingering inability to write something sensible and noteworthy without due demand from a superior or a client.

It is midweek and I still have yet to accomplish anything groundbreaking. My boss seems content to let me sit pretty, at the moment. What makes it short of unbearable is not the work – or lack of it thereof – but the general situation of employees in the company, save for me and a couple of other middle management people.

A researcher recently resigned from office after having worked for four years in the monitoring firm of the group of companies I’m now a part of. The reason for her resignation was, predictably, monetary in nature. After her first increase during her regularization in 2003, she has received no further raises, despite having developed a reputation of being one of the most hardworking people in the company. She’s in her mid-30’s, has three kids, and has been having a hard time making ends meet. The decision to resign came after her son recently enrolled for school. With three mouths to feed and school matriculation to pay for, her salary, even combined with that of her husband’s, just can’t accommodate their expenses. Thus, she sought other opportunities and received an offer from a Call Center. The odd hours of work would be a major challenge, but what the heck. The job offered better compensation than what she’s been receiving.

Needless to say, the managing director of the company, who’s also a good friend of mine, was devastated. This has been the second resignation in a month, among people who’ve been working in the firm for more or less four years. I watched it from the sidelines, and halfheartedly offered some subdued comments as my friend whined her complaints to me after receiving the news. In the process of beefing up manpower to augment the services of her company, she now faces the need to fill in gaps made by those who left.

A lot of companies nowadays still do not place adequate priority on Manpower. The Big Boss usually hires top people for middle management – assets, he calls them, but he usually doesn’t give a damn about entry-level positions, the ones who implement the tasks to render the company able to effectively deliver its services.

I’ve always believed that happy workers are productive workers. So it wouldn’t hurt to invest on them a little, would it?

And in the midst of it all, here I am with my ho-hum job, doing almost nothing at the moment and getting paid three times what the other employees are getting! If you ask me, my boss is doing a really bad job maximizing the generous salary he has afforded to give me, in exchange for my prompt services.

My personal issue on this matter is, I’d like to feel that whatever I’m getting out of this job is hard-earned money. I guess this opinion is not something many would share. I’m willing to bet that a lot of people reading this would scoff and tell me I should recognize a good thing when it's there and learn when to keep my mouth shut.

But more than the money I’m earning, It has been my firm belief that work is supposed to be an opportunity to become part of something bigger than yourself. It’s a duty you render to make a difference, no matter how small the scope. I’ve had the honor to lead in advocacy communications, but I have yet to accomplish anything to render me a full-fledged advocate, in anything.

Sure, I can watch movies, pay my credit card and phone bills, buy DVDs, designer make-up and fragrances, go to bars and enjoy fine dining. I can take my family out during weekends, get full body massages and enjoy wine/beer/vodka and oysters, go out of town with friends, etc… But I miss buying stuff and doing things and going places and feeling that it’s worth it to have a little fun out of life, after a busy, accomplished week. I’m hoping that it will only be a matter of time before this finally gets underway. I’m beginning to be a trifle impatient.

Two years worth of writer’s block (from July 28, 2006)

Bring back the cells burnt
By alcohol and cigarettes
Let me be free again
To put words to my feelings.
Bring me back my freedom
I unknowingly curtailed
Loving life too much.
Satisfied my cravings
Hurt my soul
Lost my voice.
Lack of words
Is all I have left.
I’ve lost my friends
My solace
My secret haven of thoughts on paper
And uneasy fingers on the keyboard.
Bring it back!
I have quenched my thirst
I have assuaged my gluttony.
All I wanna be
Is be whole again.

Can my thoughts run across cyberspace, towards the next life? (from July 3, 2006)

You have, through life, become a person who has always been either at the foreground or periphery of my every single day. But being human and unaware of how fleeting a lifetime with you is, I have been too tired and too busy with life to even take a peek in your room as you slept peacefully at night. Oftentimes, I found your peculiar ways such a nuisance. Radios that played too loud. Bathrooms that stayed occupied for too long. Days after I lost you, I remember.

I remember when you used to take me places, all over Manila, to your churches and in Avenida, where the avenues were lit with various colors of light and the streets were all dusty and cacophonous and alive. You used to carry my things, because they were too heavy and I was all of 4 feet and 5 inches and scrawny. You must’ve thought I was glass. I remember we once chased after a bus where you accidentally left my school bag; we miraculously retrieved it. You used to always smell of rum and paper, and the house was filled with your pens and countless writings, which you hid jealously from us, curious grandchildren. I remember how I used to steal into your room and rummage into your stuff while you were out somewhere, envying your handwriting and not understanding a single word of the dialect you used in your texts.

I remember how your voice thundered at my mistakes when I was nine or ten. How you were the only father I ever lived with. Your prayers at the dining table that always seemed too long when I was way past hungry. How you always insisted on what you believed was right, when all I wanted to do was be young and make mistakes.

I remember how you became your wife’s life’s meaning, more and more as years passed. I remember how friends, relatives, your children, your children’s wives, and your children’s children looked to you with fear, respect, and sometimes, love. I remember how hard you stood by your principles, even if it meant ending relationships, or sowing bitterness in others. Good, for you, was absolute, like your God. I remember how I wanted to hate you longer, but couldn’t, because I have become you, in a way. I have aspired to emulate your courage unwittingly. I have become your child more than ever.

I remember a photo taken during my high school graduation, with your flowing script at the back, telling of your dreams of who you want me to someday be, which for you had already come true. In your secret world.

I remember how you loved life. You loved it! Down to your last years. You walked down the street each passing day, waiting, always waiting for something. Talking to an invisible companion. I’d rush off to work and give you a wave, and you’d always smile back. You had started being forgetful by then; but you never forgot me.

I remember how you never wanted to be weak, never wanted to show it, even in your pain and need. I remember how I carried you the way you carried me those years ago on your lap while I slept on the way from school. I remember how the tears stood in your eyes during your last minutes, but never fell. I remembered how, in your painful slumber, I whispered “I love you”, and knew it was true. Do you?

I feel like a part of me has died when you passed away. I miss you now that you’re gone, and it’s all futile. I am lost, somehow, and I didn’t even notice how much when you were with us. I am bereft, needing to be strong for the other’s you’ve left behind. I may seem stronger and more astute sometimes, but I am just as lost as all your children. I, like all the others, wish for things that might’ve been but weren’t, things I could’ve said but didn’t.

But a part of me, deep down, is glad. Like your secret dreams. Glad that I won’t only have to think about the damp dark and how the dead are orphans, when my time comes. When my time comes, at least I would have you to come home to. That, to me, is a blessing.

Rexona (First Day High) (from June 23, 2006)

The first day of my new job. Everyone seems either too young or too old to hang out with. No visible sign of fast food joint or the ever-dependable Jolijeep. No PC yet. And I have 9 days to go before my very first deadline. Talk about bummer.

Thank God for my 9-day break. The normal me would be gnashing teeth by now.

I guess I gave this firm the ultimate lip power. Because I hardly thought I’d be assigned to a position as great sounding as director. However, I’ve been around enough to know those titles amount to about as much as a wad of (used) toilet paper in this industry. I’d still be expected to do chores that virtually everyone in the company performs, except I will be blamed on more things more often, so I have to cover my ass twice as much, as there are actually more opportunities to fuck up.

Sounds totally depressing: so totally me. I can’t imagine that anyone would want to hang out with me at this rate. Ha-ha. I just miss the way everything seemed familiar at my old workplace. I guess you can’t have it all.

But come to think of it, I can’t think of any other place I’d rather be in at the moment, than here.