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‘It’s not fair, you know? I think I’m just now starting to figure out how to live my life.’

Jerry Vogel, A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

I have cancer.

Specifically, colon cancer.

Similar to what my father had.

I found out officially on the evening of May 28th when the biopsy results became available but I knew, in my heart of hearts what it was, at least a week before.

I knew because I witnessed everything that happened to my pops when he battled cancer a second time when the cancer reoccurred some 20 odd years later in the same spot.

I could tell from how the doctors were acting. To the words they used. The images they got from the colonoscopy. How I felt – everything. I simply knew.

The night before I finally went to the hospital, I’d written the beginnings of a poem. It’s called, ‘If I Die Tonight’.

I’d written it cos I didn’t want anything to be left ‘unsaid’. I tried, to the best of my abilities, to be as succinct as possible and capture what I wanted to capture at what felt like a near end. Cos… It felt like I was at another near end.

The feeling of near end was brought about by my severe anemia. I knew my hemoglobin levels where at a low again but… You know… Stubborn me. Wouldn’t accept defeat.

My stomach pains, which had gotten worse weeks prior, didn’t help at all. I felt stinging, tearing pains in parts of my stomach. Pain that was something else. Pain that would knock the wind out of me.

Not exactly nice when you’re already low on oxygen as a human being.

And so on May 18th, The Love brought me to the hospital. To his great relief cos I’d finally stopped being all stubborn about getting checked and, also, to his great frustration cos it always takes near-death to get me to agree about going to the hospital.

[See, I’m the one who doesn’t want to be checked. I grew up a sickly kid who frequented hospitals. This is where the stubbornness and aversion towards hospitals and doctors came from: I’d seen / experienced enough of them as a kid to last me a lifetime.]

We got there. Went for the ER. Covid-19 precautions and all. I started to relax when they gave me oxygen, my official new favourite thing in the world. Then the doctors started checking me and the tests started happening.

The first few days meant putting in as much blood as they could in me cos my anemia had gotten to an all time low. Those days also meant me having to go through rigorous tests to try and figure out what was happening to my stomach.

It wasn’t until the 4th day when I got to have my colonoscopy. I was asleep the whole time but when I’d woken up, I saw the food the doctors had requested for me had changed to soft food. Curious. But I wasn’t too bothered. More annoyed that I couldn’t have what my niece would categorise as ‘happy food’ (food that makes you feel… Well… Happy to be alive and all that).

Doctors came and tried to skate around what they saw in my colon during the colonoscopy but… They weren’t fooling me.

That evening I noticed my stomach had bloated out. When I’d gotten admitted, my stomach had been flat except for that part that had pain.

That night it all clicked.

That night I knew.

A week before the biopsy results came out.

I knew.

I’ve been around this. I knew.

That night, I told The Love what I knew it to be. We had a moment. What’s weird is… I wasn’t emotional over it.

I was stuck on the term one of the residents used when trying to soften the blow. He’d started by asking if we had cancer in the family. This is always tricky cos… Where do we even start? My pops? My sister? My cousins? My uncles? My aunt? Then he said that there’s a thing called, ‘Genetic mirroring’. And I went, ‘Yeah… My father had it the first time when he was around my age’.

I was then informed I’d need to undergo surgery and then, ‘if’ malignant, chemotherapy.

The day after all this, billing had called to inform us we’d already maxed out my insurance coverage. My insurance won’t renew until October.

Mad, isn’t it?

I was hit with the ridiculous realisation of how much mortality lies on what one can afford. I know money doesn’t solve all things but at least you get a good shot at everything.

The Love kept telling me not to get broken down by the finances. That it shouldn’t be my focus. My focus should be mentally preparing myself for the surgery and chemotherapy when we’ve put up the money.

The Love and my sister had asked if I was ready to go through surgery. My genuine answer was always, ‘I think I am… But my adult brain understands the whole financial parts of it’.

The thing is, my father survived his first run in with colon cancer because he had incredible insurance where he was working. They covered everything. All he had to focus on was his reason for living: his family.

Since we’d maxed out the insurance coverage, I got scheduled for discharge. However, we’d gotten over the coverage so much we didn’t have the cash to cover the rest… It was mad.

I cried more over the financial stuff than I did over the cancer – is that weird? Cos… That’s what happened.

I ended up spending an extra week in the hospital. Not needed there anymore but, everyday, incurring charges cos we couldn’t leave due to the overage. Again, it was mad.

This meant I was still in the hospital the day the biopsy results came out.

On that evening of May 28th, the resident who’d brought up ‘genetic mirroring’ confirmed it: I have colon cancer.

I’m not going to lie. I cried a lot after the resident left. It hits different when it gets confirmed.

That night, I didn’t tell anyone about it except The Love. I cried some more. He encouraged me to focus on the things we can do. Not to dwell on the problem but to find a solution.

He told me to not give up. That I was and am loved.

We finally got to put up enough to get me out of the hospital and left on May 31st.

I want to highlight that we got to put up the money with A LOT of help from our friends and family.

This comes on the heels of me feeling as if I didn’t have anyone except The Love and family. Not that I was ever made to feel that way but I guess you could say this is the downside of being such an introvert like I am. You’re involved but not really. You have friends but also still feel like you don’t want to bother or burden them.

And yet, there they were. People who care about me. Offering what they could. Not only financial help but, more importantly, comfort.

I will never be able to thank them enough for what they’ve done.

Am I ready to die?

Honestly? I don’t mind. To quote my father after he was told he’d only have 4-6months to live when his cancer reoccurred, he said, ‘That’s life’.

That’s life.

Death is part of life.

But goddammit – I still want to live.

There’s still so much more to do. So much more to live for. So many places to explore. So many different delicacies to taste. So many more memories to make.

I still have so many songs, stories, poems to write. They may not be good but dammit, they’re mine.

I can’t and I won’t go with all of these weird, beautiful ideas still living inside me.

For now, I have to chill. Behave. Eat only soft food. While we put up the money for the surgery and chemotherapy and / or wait for my insurance to renew. Whichever comes around first.

I have cancer.

Specifically, colon cancer.

Like my father did. I will fight this. I will survive this.

Windowsill is the horizontal structure or surface at the bottom of a window. Windowsills serve to structurally support and hold the window in place. The exterior portion of a windowsill provides a mechanism for shedding rainwater away from the wall at the window opening.

Passion Over Everything

The Love reminded me, yet again, to write. Write every day. Write always.

We’d had one of our existential-into-the-wee-hours conversations over a cup of hot choco and he went, ‘You know what? You should keep writing. You should always write’. This was in reference to a discussion about life and where it’s heading and all that drama you’d usually get into when it’s existential-into-the-wee-hours conversation over a hot cup of something with someone you’re close to.

This global pandemic has forced the world to stop – okay, fine – pause. Given its inhabitants a chance to sit and be still with their thoughts and all of that (along with everything else that’s happened in the world since 2020 started) has provided a brand new perspective.

(If it hasn’t given you a new one then I recommend – nay – prescribe a more intense isolation so you can rethink things. You can do it! Let your damning thoughts get loud and take over. Lose yourself a bit. It’s so fun!… May you be reminded of your humanity.)

I walked into the third decade of my life last year with a renewed sense of self, thinking, ‘You know what, self? No more backing down from dreams and letting our demons win’. That entire mantra has carried into 2020 (and hopefully onwards).

The Love and I had had a conversation about, ‘Musugal ta para satong mga damgo’ (Ehem2x… Translation: ‘We’ll gamble it all for our dreams’). Had it written on a notebook and on a post-it and had it up on our wall and all.

The thing is, having invested over a decade into an industry that isn’t exactly what you’re placed on earth for is never good for your soul. For your sanity. If I sound ungrateful in anyway, I apologise – I don’t intend to – if anything, I’m ever grateful for what my work has offered and provided me over the years. The beautiful, colourful bits of it. Yet, we go back to the fact that it doesn’t feed one’s soul.

No matter what you do, no matter how hard you paddle up to get some sense of sanity and of yourself, the god-awful truth is that work is work and it will consume your energy that you will get to a point where you’ll lose sight of who you are, what you’re about and what your true purpose is. No matter how hard you try and find some semblance of passion in the work that provides it will never compensate for having a go at what you are truly passionate about. You end up having to fool yourself. Talking yourself into thinking that, ‘This is what you want’ and ‘Find the good in this – there’s good in this.’

There is good in it – it provides. But in all honesty? That’s… it.

Take it from someone who’s been there.

You try and try and you find yourself looking at things you’ve created – the real parts of you – and feel cynical about them. You find your own art laughable. You find performing, presenting and the very pursuit of them to be trivial and nonsensical.

I got there.

I got that far into what society said I was supposed to do.

I felt hallow.

My art was all I had of and for myself but there I was somehow appalled to have ever made them then felt empty and rotten cos of how I felt about them. I thought, ‘These are all I have and all I am and these are nonsense. I am nonsense’.

I sat alone in my room with my guitar, unable to sing a melody I’d strung together or strum a chord, feeling squeamish about having to play a song that I wrote.  A song that, at some point, saved parts of me.

I read the things I wrote and found myself to be overly dramatic, emotional and irrational. I felt somewhat disgusted over what I’d written when, at some point, those things were my truth that needed to be written down for my own sanity.

I remembered how I used to dance and felt ridiculous over how invested I always was. How I always gave my all – never taking breaks, never skipping run throughs, only pausing to drink water. I felt embarrassed for younger me throwing those shapes on stage in front of people and felt as if I probably looked like I was flailing. I thought this about dancing when dancing has always been, ever since I was a child, one of those things that’s made me feel alive.

I got there.

Not a good place to find yourself in.

Not worth the trade.

Sure, you’re provided for. Well-fed but… be there long enough and that’s the trade off.

Not worth the trade.

Multiple times I found myself spiraling and disassociating myself from my everything and everyone around me. Work stress has led me to some of my more severe anxiety attacks and darkest episodes of depression.

Like I said, not worth the trade.

Guess what saved me from myself during those moments.

Art. Music. Literature. Dance. The very things I lost sight of.

I knew it wasn’t me to think that these things were trivial and laughable. These things were life and an expression of it and there’s nothing trivial about that.

I clawed my way back into writing, making songs and dancing whenever I could. I struggled but I clawed my way back until I found my way back into feeling human and alive again.

All this plus all the maddening events of 2020 has made me realise that a life lived without pursuing your passion is no life at all. Sure, you’d struggle but don’t we all struggle anyways? Isn’t that what life is anyways? Isn’t being well provided for yet losing yourself simply a different version of a struggle yet a struggle nonetheless?

So, why not struggle doing the thing you love most instead? Why not lose yourself in the pursuit of the thing you’re most passionate about? Struggle yet feel alive while you’re at it.

And so that’s where I’m at right now.

I understand I’m rather late in that realisation. I got roped into what society said I was supposed to do and go full on ‘adulting’ (also known as: Suck it up! Don’t complain! This is fucking life! Whut? You don’t feel good? You don’t feel alive? Well, I haven’t felt shit in decades – so, suck it up!) about things. I’ve tried their bit. Gave it over a decade of my life. A decade worth my life that I could have spent learning my craft. Gave it all I could give. They can’t say I didn’t. I tried and tried and tried and, in the end, I found that the thing they were selling me still isn’t worth it.

Not worth the trade.

This pause left me still attached to an employer but on leave without pay. It’s given me all the time in the world to reconnect with who I really am and be alone with my thoughts (sometimes a good thing, sometimes a bad thing but that’s why we’re here talking art, yeah?). I found myself going back to doing the things I’ve always done as a child: write songs, sing, dance, write poetry, keep a journal, read books, watch films, knit, colour, make things. (Needless to say, this introvert has been thriving through this series of multiple lockdowns. Thank you, Philippines!)

Consume and create art for entertainment and for sanity. For the soul.

A recent recurring line on my journal has been, ‘Oh! The countless times music has saved me from myself!’ after spending hours doing nothing but listening to music and getting lost in it. I found myself feeling better than I’d felt in days. I felt revived.

It is in art that we are reminded we are not alone no matter how alone and terrible we might feel and whatever darkness we might be battling. It is in art that we are reminded that we are human and all these things we feel are normal human things and we will surely surpass them as we have surpassed previous challenges. It is in art that we find ourselves and our mundane human-ness as extraordinary, magical and, at times, even powerful.

A life lived with passion, amid struggle, it is a life fulfilled. The very pursuit of it is everything.

There will be no regrets. No lost, broken fragments of your soul. No dire need to get away from everything and everyone and, most importantly, you will never lose sight of who you are when you choose passion over everything.

11.25.2020 02.06pm

04L Chronicles | Wrath of this Gor

Gor (adj.), a Bisaya slang derived from ‘gorang’, which means very old or old person.

(As in, this old person.)

Used in a sentence:

I’m too gor for this shit.

07.30.2019

At around 03:30pm, I made my way to my usual 04L stop to get a ride to the office and was glad to have found one waiting to be filled with passengers. This meant I didn’t have to wait or walk up and down the street looking for one that was available.

A tiny note: my Bluetooth headphones have been acting up and we’ve been in the middle of a love-hate / cold war thing because Bluetooth headphones have been a diva, so I haven’t felt the need to pop my headphones on during moments I normally would. I would much prefer hearing the daily hustle, bustle and grind of my own city… than be stressed out and frustrated over malfunctioning headphones.

As I got in a blue 04L multicab, squeezing through all the limbs of all the passengers – trying to make my big ass self as tiny as possible (… those who ride 04Ls know how that is) – without my headphones in my ears – my auditory senses were assaulted by loud, and might I add, crappy, speaker music and even louder conversations. This noise pollution was brought to us by five kids. I say kids but, really, they’re five college girls – early college, I’d say first year, by the looks of it – acting like kids in their uniforms. (I would loooooooove to put in what school they’re from but I understand schools have no control over how their students carry their name and behave in public).

I had to resign to the fact that I needed to pop my dramatic Bluetooth headphones on to try and shut out their noise but their noise was on different level that I could still hear it through my music. I turned to Lorde and prayed for the rhythm and the beats and colors to take over and take me away, shield me and give me patience, but this noise was intense and overwhelming. Never mind when the playlist would transition from one song to another. Never mind when the headphones act up and needed resetting.

Now, this was a multicab. One where you’d (coz, really, you’ve no choice) end up touching elbows with the person next to you and you’d be knee to knee with the person sat in front of you. The kind that will make you go, ‘Ooh! I don’t know you but I guess we’ve shared this very intimate moment now’ with complete and utter strangers. One that just demand that you minimize your personal space and require you to find a way to get comfortable however uncomfortable.

This ride was full of passengers just trying to get from point A to point B. Some unwinding, relieved to finally be done with the day. Some whose stares let you know they’re mad at the world coz the Cebu heat is making a comeback after days of afternoon rain. These ‘kids’ had a Bluetooth speaker playing at top volume.

I understand the need to listen to music with your friends. I understand the need for conversation. But let’s get real here, is this ride really the best place for all of that? I doubt it. Because the volume of their tunes were already up there, their gossip had to be extra loud.

Listen, I’m a chill passenger. I actually enjoy my commute – but never, in my life, have I felt the dire need to hastily get to my destination just to avoid losing my temper and flaring up and burning beings and things in my journey.

They kept up their behavior throughout the entire ride.

Surprisingly (like, I surprise myself), I didn’t call them out on their behavior.

Why?

First, I couldn’t.

As a college kid, my friends and I were loud passengers too. So, again, I get it. At the same time, loud as we were, we weren’t gossiping about other people. We were talking about our music and creating and being better at our craft. We were constantly joking – belly-laughs all around. It was joyful noise, not malicious discussions about why ‘gwapa kaayo siya pero wa gyu’y magdugay nga uyab niya’ (‘She’s pretty but she can’t seem to keep a boyfriend’) or trying to figure out ‘Unsa diay ng Hollywood?’ (What is Hollywood?) for what sounded like a school event that had a theme.

Second, coz I shouldn’t have to.

Maybe I should have but this gor is just done with the world…

… In the sense that, oddly, the older I’ve gotten the more I’ve been trying to be a more peaceful – more zen – being. I’ve been trying to be more patient and more understanding about people and how people are different and the never-ending, ever beautiful thing that is humanity.

… It’s just… Yeah… The world can’t seem to stop testing this gor.

However, all this self-restraint didn’t stop me from giving them the Kerly-death-stare which, I’ve been told, is not pleasant. This didn’t stop me from imagining their skulls piled up in catacombs when we passed by a private property that had an outer façade of dark gray stones stacked up together that looked a bit like… well, skulls piled up in catacombs.

This didn’t stop me from documenting their behavior the way artists immortalize and eviscerate infuriating beings through their creations.

What of manners, children?

What of decorum?

What of bloody splitters and headphones?

Write Everyday

08.25.2018 03:25am
[Thoughts written as I revisit my love (nay, obsession?) with Paolo Nutini while drunk on mint tea coz I’m hardcore like that]

Write everyday. This is something I’ve been told by many people in my life many times over. Write everyday. Write something – anything – everyday.

I used to write everyday. I grew up keeping a diary which I gave many nicknames coz I wanted to be original and since I treated my diary like a friend it seemed only fitting that my friend would have a name that’s not generic as ‘diary’.

The obsession with keeping a diary started perhaps when I was around 9 or 10 years old. The diaries started out filled with dreams I could recall and also showcased my love for Backstreet Boys and how well I knew MTV (back when MTV was still MTV).

As the years pressed on, the pen and paper later became my outlet as I entered the weird and confusing and angry teenage years. I wrote and wrote and wrote. I had friends but it felt better when I wrote. I understood myself better when I wrote it down. Unloading emotions that my teenage heart and mind could barely hold.

I am being dramatic, of course. I don’t think my teenage years was all that complicated or that I was complicated but I guess part of that was because I had something to turn to. I had my music. I had my writing. Left with in my room a radio, my guitar, a pen and a few sheets of paper and maybe my diary, I was good. That was heaven.

Write everyday.

I used to write everyday.

Then I started to work and growing up took more of my energy that I couldn’t write down things anymore. I didn’t want to write down things anymore. What was there to write? What was the beauty about growing up and having to own up? I had no more daily mundane things to write because it was all becoming much too big and heavy to bear most times that words didn’t do any of it justice.

I focused on my music. I always tried getting a song out of me at least once every two months. I wrote alot of songs that were, looking back now, quite honestly good and were significant in helping me learn about myself and the world around me. In my youth, I was fearless and hopeful. That showed in my writing.

The deeper I got into my relationship with coffee, I discovered, the better my writing got. The more caffeine I got, the wittier the lines were and tighter the structure if it was a song or a poem.

But like I said, growing up became too much. It took all my energy. I had nothing left to spare. I couldn’t shut the noise in my head that was screaming for the noise of the world to shut up.

However, it’s in these moments that I try. I wait for a calm to come around. The calm that takes place before the madness. I take a few deep breaths. I pick up a pen and find a few sheets of paper – still feels as good as it’s always felt – and I write. It will start off rusty, words won’t come as smoothly as they did but I write. You’ve first got to write off the dust before you find yourself again.

And here I am, writing. Revisiting my old self. To when I was sure and fearless.

Burn

Singe. Heal. Strike. Revive.
Spark anew. Inhale. Exhale.
Alive. Ignite. Burn.

Plaids and Eights

August 08, 2018. A Wednesday.

At around 8pm, as I was taking a stroll around the office trying to walk off the chicken proven I had for dinner, I caught up with a colleague I hadn’t hung out with in awhile. I decided to walk with her for a bit.

She pointed at my plaid polo and said, ‘Oh, I thought you had it on inside out’.

‘What?’, I said, trying to brush it off thinking how silly of her, I mean, I’d know if the thing I was wearing was worn the wrong way.

She then pointed at the stitching. I paused. Then ultimately had to admit the human error.

I went back to my station thinking I could just wing this. After all, I’m more than halfway through my shift now, I even stood infront of a class for nearly two hours and have not had any problems with my outfit.

I thought I could wing it. Simply brush it off as a style choice. Then I remembered the ginormous tag situated at the neck of the polo. I realized how wrong I was.

I then flipped the polo and put it on properly.

Oh, to be human.

Bookends

An introduction – nay, ‘excuse’ – to my absence, my lack of posts:

April 15^th, I celebrated my 29^th birthday. Alas! The last stretch of my twenties has officially begun and am now left to wonder what else is ‘out there’.

My twenties haven’t been easy. As a matter of fact, to say ‘it’s been a pain’ would be quite the understatement. Each year, a new challenge has come up to shape me up and tear me down and put me back together again. No, my twenties – so far – hasn’t been all bad. It has, of course, had its fair share of loveliness that’s allowed me to withstand and survive each year.

This has brought me to my own version of ‘Life is a balance’. It’s not exactly original but, allow me to explain:

I believe everything in life ultimately balances itself out. For example, if you’ve had a bad morning, to balance it out, the gods, fate or whatever you believe in, will come together and make sure you’re going to have a good, or at the very least decent, evening. This ‘balancing out’ comes in every version of the bookends. It’s in every hour, every day, every week, every month, every year. If you’ve had a not-so-good start of year, trust that you’re going to breathe a sigh of relief at the end of the year. It will balance itself out.

This is something I’ve come to believe in as my introvert self continues to contemplate over life, its inner workings and intricacies. It’s not so much an out but more of a saving grace. This allows to me have something I turn to whenever life sneaks up on me and shows me I’m not in control of things – really, of anything. I learned to just take deep breaths, pause, and tell myself, ‘it’ll balance itself out’.

About a week after my 29^th, a new concept popped up in my orbit. I read Leslie Odom Jr’s book, Failing Up. A lovely, enlightening, uplifting book. There’s a bit that talks about Saturn’s Return and I was immediately intrigued (as I have an interest for things that are not necessarily within this atmosphere we exist in). The book eventually explains that since Saturn takes approximately 29.5 years to complete its orbit around the sun, your 29^th will be the first time ever that Saturn’s been back in that same spot it was when you were born. This cosmic activity is often thought to bring about significant changes in life. Taken with a grain of salt, I thought deeply about this.

There’s no denying that the 29^th year, the last of your 20s, your last go at being a pseudo-adult, is meant to bring in a tidal wave of changes. Bookends, remember?

However, it’s good to keep in mind that whatever those changes are, they are left entirely to however you perceive and accept them to be. So, it’s best to make the most out of it – something we always hear but needs to be repeated constantly.

Breathe through it. Breathe through your highs and lows. Breathe through your laughter and suppressed pain (please know you’re not alone). Breathe through all your endeavors. However cosmic or minute the bookends may be.