We actually had it in us to clean our house and organize our stuff a little bit. You can see most of the floor now and it’s not too embarrassing to have our business partner come into our home anymore. (It’s only just a little bit embarrassing now..) You can actually see the floor now. We’ve moved our mess on to the tables and shelves. Cords are tucked away and most of the junk-that-hasn’t-been-used-for-a-year-now has been discarded. You don’t see dirty laundry lying around anymore, nor do you see tools everywhere.

All it takes is a puppy.

Because we adore him and want to keep him safe our topsy turvy house is almost decent. Almost.

- i think i might be having some sort of mental breakdown
- the pressure from building my dad’s house is killing me
- the constant short temper outbursts from my husband is taking its toll on me
- the difficulties of working with my husband is a steady ache
- my pilates instructor went on vacation and her replacement made my back and neck hurt so bad I decided to just wait for my instructor to get back.
- Finn is such a happy place in my heart and I just kind of wanted to keep it all to myself for a while.

No he’s not really a wookiee. He’s a poodle. We call him Finn. He looks like a Finn. He looks like a Wookiee Finn. (if that makes any sense at all..)

He is a complete sweetheart when he’s not trying to wrestle the Alpha dog position from me. Of course I always win- he always ends up doing what I want him to do..but it does get tiring sometimes. He is the cutest little hairy thing though.

He likes to sleep at my feet when I sit in front of the computer. He likes to sleep next to me on the couch when I watch TV and ask him to sit next to me. He is a sucker for treats. He will do anything for treats..we got him to do bang (play dead), give me ten, apir (filipino term for high five), shake, shake with other hand, up, stand, sit, down, stay, roll-over, turn around, tabi tayo (sit next to me), no and come. lots of things for a 3 month old little poodle.

He gets all excited when we come home, when we wake up in the morning and come out of the bedroom..It brings back a lot of good memories that I shared with my dog James Bond (yep..after that movie….) who died in my highschool sophomore year (and broke my heart for what felt like forever).

We’re still struggling with the pee and poo when we take him to my dad’s house but at home, we’re pretty set – he goes in a 2 square meter spot…..not perfect but getting there.

One of life’s happy gifts is a puppy who grows with you.

Someone once told me that in order to become a writer I have to write something everyday. But what happens when the words escape me? What happens when my life is boring and there simply is nothing worth writing about? But I want to become a writer. I want to write and yet I don’t know what I would write about.

I think about the daily grind and if anything interesting happened to me lately. None. Unless you count dealing with irresponsible engineers who prefer to blame you for everything that goes wrong in the project that their office is managing. I hate irresponsible people with PRC license cards who think it is a right to wield such licenses. Hello, it’s a privilege! I will have my say about all that but not yet.

I could write about our little wookiee. His name is Finn. He’s gaining weight. Lord save me from the word No. Finn knows what No means, but he likes to hear me say it three times before he gives in. Hard headed little wookiee he is. Oh but he’s adorable. He sleeps resting his head on my feet. Sometimes on the couch next to me when I put him there. He like’s being taught tricks. He can sit now. sooooo cuuuuuuute.

Oh but I was writing about being a writer. And I probably won’t be one just yet, seeing how my fingers dance around the keyboard this way and that, not really thinking about where this post is going.

It comes in short powerful bursts. As if the wind was punching the city, banging against my windows and whistling those eerie sounds through my doors. It fades away as quickly as it comes barging in. Toying with my imagination and creeping me out.

The rain falls sideways, as if spinning with the earth, propelled by the winds. Horizontal droplets that are almost like pellets hurling themselves against my windows. And they all disappear too, just as quickly as they came.

The sun plays peekaboo behind the clouds. Or are those clouds messing with my head hiding and revealing the sun as they please?

I am in awe of the power, relentless, unyielding and unforgiving. The cold creeping into the stitches of my past and causing me pain.

I have purple cranes from a friend’s wedding. They were all tied up in strings with beads and bells so pretty. I put them up my window – an illusion of being up in the sky. So close and yet so far. Glass between them and the clouds. Tied into place being taunted by the breeze and the glorious sunshine. Wings spread as though in flight but always stuck in the same place, anchored against will.

There are no illusions about this marriage. There is only my one wish. It seems my hope is not enough. Everyday is a struggle against loneliness and despair. It might not even be a problem if I could simply float and rise above it. When I am alone, I’m a little less lonely, a little less desperate and a little less sad because I am free to do as I please, think as I please and talk to anyone as much as I would like. The little time that he is around, makes me want to be someone else, if only to make sure he doesn’t get mad, make him kind and caring towards me, anything at all – just to jump that distance, this wall, this pain of coldness and infinite sadness.

1. keep your thoughts to yourself

2. keep a blog to maintain sanity

3. email your friends

4. fold paper to make yourself forget

5. think of your one greatest wish

6. for physical pain, just grit your teeth and bear it

7. send SMS to your friends once in a while to let them know you’re still alive

8. stare out the window and see if anything changed

9. look up the blue sky and imagine jumping into an ocean of joy

10. eat chocolate even if it hurts your throat

11. try your best not to talk because talking is the root of all evil

12. play with your DS lite until you fall asleep every night

13. wake up the next day and do exactly what you did the day before

I’ve never really had my mother clean up after me like she just wanted to help. It was always a messy event what with all the screaming about how I should keep my room clean and neat – our neighbors always knew because they heard all that from the top of her lungs. Not a pretty sight.

But I think I know what it means now to have someone do things for you just because they want to help, just because they know you can’t anymore, just because it matters to them. Just because. Maybe that’s what it means to be loved. Doing things just because you care. Helping out even if they don’t want you to, just because you know they need it and they’re simply too proud to ask you. Because someone finally helped me just because.

I kind of felt bad after that. I didn’t know what to say. I still don’t know. But maybe she knows that too.

The past couple of days have been difficult. Pressure at work, relationship stress and impending doom have made it so. But I came out on the other side. I remember sending JM a message right before the big leap, I said: see you on the other side. I don’t know why I said that. I think I was scared I wouldn’t come through. I’m not sure that Mister understood how I felt about the whole thing, he has been impossible to get through lately..I feel like an island. But so many people have helped make me feel better. TL and TB and MC and AA and K, mostly text messaging with JM and emailing B. I think B liked the post-crap photo I sent her. I’m happy that I’ve finally decided to just let people in one at a time. It’s really difficult. Sometimes I don’t know what to say, how to say and why I should bother saying anything at all. But it seems to make them happy? I don’t know. But the song I recorded for AA made him happy for sure – even if it only lasted five minutes. I liked that my efforts worked.

I don’t know. Maybe this is a good thing for me. Having friends around, and other people who care..especially since being married makes me feel like an island. How goes it that I feel lonely in the company of this Mister? Maybe it wasn’t meant to last so long. I’ve exceeded expectation by simply staying married for this long. After all, this has been the longest relationship yet.

(Okay, so I went from mother to nice people and then back to husband. wtf is wrong with my head?)

what do people mean when they say they made love?

I don’t think I have. Headache cures for sure, but did every instance mean love? Did we ever make it to be love? It’s just a shell what we have now. It withers with age. It suffers with disease. How do you make love in nothing but a temporary you? How do you make it last?

Come to think about it, when I think about him that’s not what comes to mind. It’s usually something so insignificant that only I seemed to notice at the time. When I remember him I see his bright eyes in my mind’s eye. On a perfect moment, I can see myself in those eyes.

It a stupid thing to do but I wait for that perfect moment that I’ve only seen twice since I met him.

I think I know already, what it is.
I think I have the answer. I would like to think I know. But the proof won’t really come until later. So I’m waiting to see if it is what it is.

I’m sad and tired of waiting, but I don’t really have anything left to do. So I’m looking to the skies for hope. It’s a fool’s dream. But I’ve always been one.

I was telling my friend today how much I appreciate him being around. I like that he thinks about me and sends me messages asking about how I’ve been. I like that he’s forgiven me for something I did not do years ago. I like that he’s still around. He tells me he’s embarrassed that I am thanking him.

There was a time we were good together. He was a comfort zone. I was so comfortable around him I drank myself to ickdom. It was so bad I puked green slime all over his white floor (don’t ask me what I ate, it was really a dark shade of green). Our good friend AA used his shirt to mop up the ick. I spent a half hour in the bathroom wobbling around trying to wash off the ick from my pants and shirt while all the other boys knocked on the door worrying about whether I passed out already. I finally opened the door and they gave me one of his shirts and a pair of his shorts. How I managed to put them on, I don’t know. When I stepped out of the bathroom the ick was gone. I sat on the floor and they gave me icy water to drink. I just sat for another hour or so. When my stomach grumbled I asked to go to Wendy’s and ate to death.

What is so embarrassing about receiving thanks for being nice when once upon a time I puked all over his floor?

It is ordinary. Nothing stellar about this story. Just another girl. Just another body.

I like eating good food. I could spend hours in restaurant – by myself even- just enjoying each bite. Lost in a world completely mine, oblivious to time, and always wishing food could stay warm forever so that every bite taken could be savored longer, make the experience last longer than it normally does.

It’s almost sinful, this insatiable appetite for all things good and rich and sweet. A perfect bite causes an explosion of flavor and provides the experience of the perfect blend of texture in my mouth. It’s a feast for the senses all around.

It makes me forget.

But it all sounds like moving from one addiction to another. Everything I get into sounds like the ultimate extra sensory experience. And I just float from one thing to the next, chasing after oblivion like it was all that mattered.

I just want to get away from it all sometimes. It’s so painfully unexceptional. The past few weeks have been spent looking into my life and what it means. I’m twenty eight and still just like everyone else.

I got a red chair from the Mister.
He says its a non-bribe.
But we’ve also been eating out a lot. I think those trips are non-bribes too.
I’m about to do something I will probably regret. My gut feelings are usually right.

I got a call today from my ex from 1997. He sounded nice and kind and wanted to know how I was doing. I think peace has finally come between us.

It was a bad breakup because I was bad. I was horrible. And then a few years into college (right before the non-ex) I called him and tried to say sorry but he would have none of it. (but I’m not sure if I remember that right.)

I think that call from him making peace, is a sign of something not good for me.
I’m scared about any number of things that are about to happen, things that will change my life either way. And this peace thing, and all the nice warm friends I have all around..it’s freaking me out.

I texted the Mister and told him it feels like I’m going to die soon or something. All these weird things happening all around..perfect meals and unbelievably warm text messages from people. I’m sure it’s paranoia, after all, bad people like me always live to be a hundred.

is to let go of the ghosts from the life already lived.

is to eat all the wonderful food and indulge in a feast for the senses.

is to walk along the sunny shoreline with the ocean gently lapping at my feet.

is to sleep and dream at night so that I can wake up with renewed hope in the morning.

is to feel like the world is not about to end.

is to feel like I am part of something bigger than myself.

is to know the difference between dying and living because it all feels the same.

is to create an opportunity that will make my change happen.

is to stop waiting and just grab my answers.

is to make God say something to me because all this waiting feels hopeless.

is to get rid of the vicious cyst.

is to swim in the clear blue waters and watch my fish friends and forget about my stupid life.

is to be with somebody who can make me a little less lonely, a little less hurt and a little less tired.

is to see the vastness of the world so that I can remember how tiny I am and forget about all my troubles.

is to dive into the deep blue where sickness, work and the ghosts cannot touch me.

is to stop thinking about work, get away from demanding clients and business partners because all the work won’t matter when the vicious one comes to get me.

is to pretend to sleep on a hot summer afternoon in in my grandmother’s bed while she tirelessly waved her fan to protect me from the heat.

is to go fishing in our lost farm with my half a dozen makeshift fishing rods and half can of worms from pig poop.

is not feel like a sinking island.

is not feel like an active volcano, constantly molten and waiting to explode.

is cry until my tears are gone so that I will never ever cry again.

is keep going to pilates class because it makes me feel better about being alive.

is to take out the vicious one before it takes me out.

is be sedated because I can’t seem to stop.

We have bus lanes here in Manila. Special yellow lanes for city buses and extra special ones for provincial buses, right along the length of the busy busy EDSA (short for epifanio delos santos avenue). Lord knows how many lanes EDSA actually has, the white painted on lines are never straight and usually fade in and out of sight. Miraculously, there exists a yellow lane for buses that never seem to fade.

I rarely drive. I usually have the husband to do it for me, but on the occasion that I do, I always have this one wish. That they change the bus lane policy on EDSA. It’s stupid and here’s why:

- buses have 2 lanes, sometimes 3 lanes, dedicated to them. private cars get a ticket if they enter the bus lane regardless of whether it was an emergency stop.
- buses who already have the exclusive lane, are allowed to weave in and out of the private car lanes.
- buses outside the yellow lanes stop wherever they want to load and unload passengers.
- buses outside the yellow lanes sometimes occupy two lanes at the same time zigzagging their way like they owned the friggin’ highway.
- bus drivers don’t check to see if there’s a car in the adjacent lane, they just snake through the highway like humongous kings of the road, leaving you to jam your foot into the brake and sending your heart ramming into your throat (hoping that the car behind you is far enough and quick enough to not crash into your behind).
- they have the best of both worlds with their exclusive lane and rights to terrorize smaller cars on the other lanes.

So here’s what I really want: Buses should stay in their yellow lanes forever. They should terrorize each other instead (you know, deal with someone their own size..). They should not be allowed to drive on the private vehicle lanes. Buses should have dedicated stops with schedules.

Why can’t we just have road trains instead? They would be on time, won’t cause traffic, won’t endanger other cars, will have better fuel efficiency, would be quiet, and will be properly taxed (the government would love this).

I’ve wanted to write but the words are gone. Apart from that, it feels like my life is in complete stand still. Nothing happens apart from work and more work. It’s like a lost sense of purpose or being.

A friend from long ago came to visit last week. I could not understand how he could look at me like I meant something and not see how I’ve lost all sense of who I used to be. It feels gone. Like the faint shimmer of something beneath the surface that’s really just the sun being reflected back – nothing more. It’s empty. Mostly just reflecting things being thrown my way. Someone else’s words echoing in my head.

But there is a fear of disappearing. This fear of not knowing. A fear of pain. Sometimes I can’t sleep because it gnaws at the corner of my mind. I think I’m just scared that all the struggles I’ve been part of was never enough to make a difference.

I think I’m just really lonely between work and the deaf & mute husband. But everyone I used to be able to talk to are long gone. Sometimes I wish I fell in love with someone else.

Things aren’t so bright and happy right now. I sought the opinion of a diabetes endocrinology specialist and after further tests, he concluded that I am not diabetic yet..I just have twice as much insulin as everyone else. I have a chance to escape diabetes by exercising and eating anything in moderation. But he found a complex nodule and a complicated cyst in my thyroid. so there..and because I like to suspend the inevitable, I have not scheduled a biopsy just yet.

I want to scream. I have been working so hard. I don’t need crap like this. Can’t I just will it away? How come evil doers don’t get sick?

She’s the mother I imagined I was meant to have. Not that I didn’t have one. It’s just that the one I had always seemed to make me feel like I couldn’t measure up.
I strive to let go of excess baggage because of her. The rage in me was usually quiet whenever I was with her. I could be myself, but she makes me want to be the better version of myself too. She has repeatedly shown me what it meant to forgive and accept people for all the good and bad they can be.
Sometimes I think she knows that my heart is not well but she never says anything. Sometimes I think she wants more time with me, but she never asks for anything. She’s always just there waiting for me to open up, ready to listen.
I think it’s the listening and the not pushing me to do things that makes me feel comfortable. It makes me feel like she understands that I have my ways and I cannot be prodded to do things. She knows that I will eventually make the right choice – it’s just a matter of time.
I want to be like her that way.
And no, she’s not perfect. She’s had her moments. But that I can be myself with her is one of the greatest experiences of my life.

i trudge along all tied up. I want to believe that I am better than most. I keep telling myself that I made a choice and I have to keep my promise. But I’m angry all the time and I’m tired of excuses. I’m tired of waiting for something that isn’t likely to happen. For the most part, I just want to be lonely by myself. I don’t want to waste my time being dragged along by someone who doesn’t care to know what I want out of my life. The rings get heavier every single day.

what happened to me?
I have been buoyed up into a stress-filled existence and I am so tired and completely unhappy.
I’ve tried so hard to just make it work but it still does not. And I wish I could say it was worth the effort but it does not feel like that at all.
I was so convinced that if I just kept trying to do all the grown-up work stuff, things would get better.
it’s not better. And I don’t think it will ever get better. There’s no time for anything I want to do because there are so many things that I’m supposed to do.
I am so tired. I tried giving up – but even that was taken away from me.

After over a year of trying to be a grown up I have successfully torn my entire sense of being to shreds.

I am totally unable to pick myself up. Not that I’ve failed in all of my projects. I reviewed for the licensure exams for architecture last January to June 2008, and I passed. I took on several projects thereafter and have seen those projects to completion. I have since, worked night and day. I did have two week long trips somewhere between the reviewing and work. But then I also started graduate school last November 2008 and I’m actually towards the end of the first semester now.

I’m tired. I’m sick. There’s never enough time to eat, sleep, rest, do the laundry, tidy up the house, talk to my friends, or dive. I am physically and mentally exhausted and literally at the end of my ropes.

It would not have been so bad if my marriage was a little more reliable than it is. But I feel like a sandbar out in the middle of nowhere. It doesn’t even feel like something’s falling apart. It’s almost as if I had been holding on to something that was never mine to hold. Sounds familiar?

It seems that the story of my life is a string of so many things that were never mine. Why should all this be in my life if none of it was meant for me?

I just want to be happy, to have time to eat right, sleep and dive. I just want to rest when I need to, and have a husband who actually realizes that I am human too and I do need to eat and sleep.

This is not me. I don’t do self sacrificing shit. But the meetings I can’t say no to, and my obsessive compulsive approach to projects is getting the best of me.

And yes, before this post I have tossed dirty laundry everywhere, kicked a chair, screamed in frustration, moaned in agony, bawled like a child and cried my heart out tears snot coughing fits and racking sobs. Complete and utter lack of control – a surrender to the rage.

I thought it would be good to let it all out but I still feel the same.

I am who I am.
I am not anyone’s half. I am fine by myself and I can handle being with someone else too.

I’m pretty defensive when it comes to being someone else’s Mrs. I didn’t want to change my name. What’s wrong with mine? Does changing my name guarantee a lasting marriage? I think not. But I did it just the same because it was important to that Mister.

I do not like being identified by my husband’s actions. His actions are his and mine are mine and one cannot be responsible for the other. It’s completely unfair to judge my character based on my husband’s or judge my husband’s character through mine. Contrary to popular belief – a marriage contract does not make two people one. Two different brains mean two different personalities and that is that.

But people cannot be helped and that is that.

In that part of my universe every person I’ve interacted with has gone bad.

I’m a walking anomaly. Should I avoid all the people in that one person’s life? It started with his ex and moved to his relatives and now all the way down to his friends. Am I ruining this person’s life?

saw the non-boy non-ex.
it was much like the non-ex post non-break-up meeting except the Mister was there.
She was much like the way she was when we were in the non-relationship. We tried to pick up a bit where we left off but there wasn’t much to pick-up. I wonder how she felt? I’m not the same person anymore. She was almost exactly the same. Almost because the seeing and the talking and the being with her was not enough to say everything.
I think it was the way it was because unlike the boy non-ex, we didn’t leave things unsaid. (more like- unwritten)

I can completely relate to love in writing. What I’d like to be able to do now is write love so that it reaches over the distance. The echoing silence from this Mister is driving me crazy. I can hear my voice bouncing off the walls and reverberating in my brain. After all this time, I’m still unbelievably lonely.

feb.6, fri 2.18am

Every beat brings greater misery still. In every effort comes greater pain. Reaching out only proves there is only nothingness out here. A futile exercise that never seems to end. Every moment is a greater sorrow. Every step a bigger defeat. To want to rip my heart out and stomp on it so I can never feel anything again.

no I have not been wiped off the face of the planet..still trudging along, one foot in front of the other. just keep walking.

It’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s a little tough. I have to say a little tough because if I call it what it is, it will only seem difficult.

To every problem is a simple solution. (and I’ve been saying that to myself a whole lot) I’ve just been unable to notice that simple solution just yet. I’m sure it’s right under my tiny nose and I will have a good laugh about it when I finally realize what it is.

Laughing makes it easier to deal with crap people. Sick twisted money grubbers are digging their way to their eternal home in hell. I have no price tag (well, maybe I do, I’m human after-all, but no one’s been able to afford me yet) and because of that, I scream inside for the underpaid workers of said money grubbing wretch.

The workers are asking me to take them in, but the quality of workmanship is poor. I can’t take them. So this year my goal is to be kinder to all of our workers and to encourage them to better their skills in their respective trades. I cannot save someone else’s workers but I can really take care of my own.

Demanding schedules get the best of me sometimes. I would really like to just sit back with a good book and cold San Miguel Super Dry beer, on the beach. I have two books unread. I have stopped buying new ones because I feel guilty about buying when I don’t even know if I’ll have time to read them. I think never been read books are completely depressing. Just like a never been met person. Something about all the great things that could have been was naught because the book wasn’t opened.

Counting money sucks when at the end of the tedious counting you realize that there’s not a lot left for fun stuff after you buy work stuff.

My father gave me an insurance policy file that he bought for me 7 years ago. He didn’t really buy it for me. I paid for it with the insurance money from the insurance policy my grandfather gave me when I was a year old. But my grandfather didn’t really buy that policy for me either. It was my grandmother’s money and I doubt that she liked insurance as a gift very much. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this insurance thing because I don’t own it. I’m insured but all the benefits go to my father. Rather sad to prepare for the loss of your child. Children should survive their parents. It’s a tragedy to have to bury your own child.

The people who met my grandmother told me that she bought them balloons and cotton candy at the Luneta Park. I wish I met her, then I would have something fun on my hands instead of a boring insurance policy that tells me I can enjoy fourteen million pesos when I’m eighty. Can a lupus positive diabetic travel and eat the universe at eighty? I’m not so sure.

At the moment I have not seen any of the doctors and I’m scared they will start calling me. I’ll try to go next week, if courage and patience permits.. but, more likely if I start feeling lousy. (which is usually the case, I never really go until it’s too tough to handle alone)

For comfort and joy I snuggle like a puppy at night and go see the Chachi, Bruce and Bat-dog. But because the loneliness of my tongue without chocolate is sometimes unbearable I cry and get mad and feel worse. And then I throw myself into work and obsess about getting everything done way before the deadline.

I really like to eat the tongue-approved stuff but it will make me worse for the wear. Can’t this be a mind over matter thing where I just eat whatever the heck I want and stay healthy?

But because of stupid diabetic diet stuff I’ve lost an unbelievable amount of weight. I fit into my college pants again and it’s starting to feel loose. They want me to gain weight but they won’t let me eat more rice and beef or pork or anything fried or sauteed. The thought of eating limited rice and more chicken and vegetables makes me lose my appetite. It’s so sad.

I’m twenty eight, I have not eaten all of the cities in the world and they’re telling me that I can’t anymore. But someone once told me there was no cure for lupus and I was dying but she was wrong. They could be wrong again. right?

I would like to think that if I fight to live every single day then, nothing could kill me so easily. But then I think about God and not knowing when He’ll decide it’s time for me to go and I’m not so sure. But then again, I could just jump of the medicine van and live however I want, if it’s time to go, time to go no matter how good your medicines or doctors are.

I should eat good quality chocolate before I tear myself apart.

I’ve been unable to bring myself to see my ailing father in the hospital. I think it’s called denial. I refuse to see the future of my insatiable appetite for chocolate. I cannot look at the man and stand firm about my choice to live. I am afraid he will tell me one more thing to demolish this fragile shadow of who I could be.

I have stopped checking my glucose in the hopes that it would take care of itself. Not eating chocolate is driving me up the wall. Fear of tubes and scalpels is the only thing keeping me from buying that box of truffles and eating them in secret.

Suppliers and partner have gone ballistic and delivery is threatened. I fired all irresponsible workers, but I am not the boss of them. (in my head I am anyway, and I will never do business with them or the companies they work for ever again) People who can’t commit to delivery dates should be banned from doing business forever.

Meanwhile, I am counting on the universe to deliver diligent and conscientious workers and business partners my way. I expect 2009 to be a better year, bigger business ventures, and a warehouse for my future trucks and equipment and a kickass workshop with all the lovely Makita and Maktec tools I can imagine.

For now, I run towards the brick wall in the hopes that my momentum can break through. It is only stress after all.

There is an abundance of pens and notebooks in my house both used and new. Yesterday I bought another pen. Today the Mister bought me a fancy notebook with a watercolor print of a girl at the foot of the rainbow holding her blue umbrella. I imagine being that girl standing on top of the pot of gold. But instead of her morose expression I would have a face splitting smile.

I wouldn’t be treated like I was stupid at the construction site.

The site engineer will actually listen to what I have to say instead of pretending to listen.

They wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss my suggestions at the construction site.

I could be the biggest idiot at the management meeting but they will do what I ask them.

I can win an argument with the dumbest statements ever.

Fate’s cruelty knows no bounds. Cards on the table reveal infinitely deprived taste buds and belly ahead.

I can’t help thinking about all the chocolate in the universe that will never be mine.

No seriously. If I wanted to I could die by sugar – or the lack of it.

Yesterday I was diagnosed with diabetes. I hate my gene pool. And I’m thinking about my future kids. Not that there’s one on the way. But really. I love food. I love chocolate. I feel bad just thinking about it. It’s almost unbearable. Almost.

So I’m on Metformin 500g morning and evening, and I have to prick my finger morning and evening 3 times a week to monitor the blood glucose. It’s not so bad right? Except that now I’m not supposed to eat anything with four legs, or fried or with sugar or with alcohol. WTF right?

I live for food. I swear I do. I don’t care how much food costs if it’s good. Really. I fall in love with food and memories of good food linger in my head. I cannot exist without chocolate. I really can’t.

I’m turning 28 next week and it looks pretty depressing from where I stand at the moment.

1. Get rid of the earache, headache and this tonsilitis-bronchial crap that’s gets me teary eyed with uncontrollable coughing.

2. Actually talk to the pleasant version of my father who can read the paper, walk normally and eat steak. (and hopefully he would be over the fact that I had him intubated last week)

3. Have a nice quiet dinner with no phone calls, no business talks, and no bills to think about.

4. Get seriously good sleep. seriously good sleep in a nice and quiet and cold room, with a bed that has crisp, soft, smooth, and clean sheets.

5. Get a proper haircut

6. Eat all the skin of 1/3 of the 15kg Benny’s Lechon.

miserable wretched failure of a daughter. I did not grow up fighting to be free just so I can end up faltering when fighting counts the most. I should not have listened to my conscience. I should not have given myself the chance to think about it. I should have respected an old man’s wish even if I was not sure he truly wanted it. I should have believed that he was capable of making that choice for himself. I should have done so much that I didn’t.

so now he’s stuck with tubes everywhere. In his suffering I apologized and in that moment I believed that I should do something to end his pain. I believe I should do something to get him out of there. But because I am a weakling and a coward I sit here hoping that I did the right thing to break the promise of no hospitals, no tubes, no needles.

I thought I was doing the right thing to bring him here because I felt he had to have a chance to get well even if he was convinced he wanted to die already. Now it seems the suffering is prolonged and I am unable to undo things. I want to give him medicine that will make him sleep forever. I imagine sneaking in to do it too. I hate that there are some things you can never take back.

But I really don’t understand it. Was it the spoonful of sugar in his milk that the nurse gave him this morning for breakfast? He was fine and ready to eat before the milk. Last night he was doing so well too. He had been moving around his bed like he was almost normal again, except for the fact that he’s still unable to get up by himself.

ah the suffering in regret is almost unbearable.

If the problem has a solution then there is no reason to worry.
If the problem does not have a solution, it can’t be fixed by worrying.

But there is fear of the unknown especially when your universe is changing and it can’t be helped. It’s almost as if you are invisible in time. A speck of dust without meaning or purpose, simply because there is nothing you can do or say that can fix anything at the moment. So maybe it is time to let it go. In complete faith it makes sense to let go and let God. If only because the entire scheme of things is too much to bear or comprehend, trusting God that He is watching over you and giving you the best deal should make you feel better. If only you had the faith to believe.

So I’m teeter tottering between belief and worry. But mostly I just want to be hopeful. So I say to myself that I am waiting and hoping for the best. Even if deep down I am so very afraid.

I have been taking risks I am not too happy about but I refuse to be left in the dark. I think about the light and imagine it reaching into my shadows. I think about walking on the sunny side of the street.

But the wait is long and I wonder if I have what it takes to make it to the very end. And if it takes too long I worry that I might actually die before he does and actually end up killing him with grief. All this wailing around me is exhausting. I would like to believe that I can make it. I want to be that one person who rises above it all. I want to be that one person who can surpass the loneliness of being left behind because it is ridiculously selfish to want someone to stay just because you somehow think you need him.

I spent the last hour staring out the window.

I tried to think about my beautiful pier of dive dreams but my mind refused.

Last night left me in tatters. The past three weeks have reduced me to practically nothing. I understand that I am made of stronger stuff but I knew this buckling will was inevitable. So I got dressed up today and decided to have lunch with a friend but she cancelled. I planned to have lunch with her and talk about nothing and then after wards head off to the library to get started on the grad-school papers.

But I found myself staring at nothing and thinking of nothing until I had to pee. So now I’m writing again. My last resort. There are people I could talk to, but none that I actually want to talk to.

In the end I’m left with my struggle against my failure as a friend and the hurt of complete indifference that I truly did not deserve. God save me from my lonely broken heart.

I meant to post about my dive holiday..the awesome thresher shark and the amazing pillars of the pier. But life got in the way. I was organizing files and stumbled upon big secrets.

So now I can’t write about it just yet because words don’t come. I feel like jumping out the window and plummeting to the concrete below – but there must be more to my life than this.

There must be more to my life than being the family reject, the boring unattractive wife or the worst lover someone’s had. There has to be more. Please tell me I did not survive lupus to be a reject.

I opened it. I really did. I’ve always believed that all truths will be revealed in time. I guess today was destined to be the day for us.

I can’t breathe.

All this time, my instincts have been true. All this time. I was never paranoid. My mind was never playing tricks on me. I was so right. But what now? I have always known that I was not the first no matter how many times he insisted that I was. But it hurts to know that I am the worst. To actually read his writing. To actually read about how he told his friend about me and what it was like making love to me and how he longed for someone else’s touch. To actually read about how unsatisfying it was to be with me. It was a very long time ago. But the rejection I felt was so clear. He pacified me with lies.

Was it my fault I did not have as much experience as his other lovers? Am I to blame for not having been with someone else before him? Heaven knows I tried. I researched and whatnot. Is it my fault I look more like a kid than a woman? I’ve thought about it often enough. And I have tried to be sexy but he’s always just laughed at me every single time. I’m so fucking tired of being funny when all I want to be is an attractive woman. I guess I’ll always be just the girl – boyish at best. Maybe some girls really grow up to be women, and then some girls end up just like me. Silly and awkward when I just really want to be the much desired wife.

Why is he still with me? If his heart belongs to someone else, why is he here? Is he just waiting for her to come back? Just floating with me until she comes and calls him back?

I had the worst dream yet. My father had been missing for a day. I was waiting in the garage of the San Mateo house when a long black car pulled into the driver. It was Judge Diamante and a few other people. I could see someone in the back of the car fussing over someone with tubes. Instinct told me it was him. I was horrified. His older sister comes out and tells me it’s stroke. I got angry. He specifically said, many times over that if he has a heart attack or a stroke he should not receive medical treatment at all costs. He just wants to die right there. But there he was coming back to this house full of his painful memories – a ghost of the man that he once was. I wanted to kill them all. And then I woke up in tears.

Because I didn’t immediately realize it was a dream, I felt angry. I wish she was dead. She should have been gone a long time ago. It would have spared us all so much heartache. But she’s still here doing her evil deeds. I wish I had it in me to be a bad person so I can kill that poisonous wretched bitch. She downloaded all these lists of medicine side effects from the internet that made my father stop taking his medication, stop believing in his doctors and stop following his diet. She makes him drink a half liter glass of carrot-apple-orange juice which really makes his blood sugar skyrocket. (thereby inducing high blood pressure, popping more capillaries in his right eye, causing his right eye to go completely blind once more) She’s got him wrapped around her tiny finger and she knows it. I’ve been praying to God asking Him to please make her see the light but He hasn’t come through for me. Why? I have never asked for anything more selfless. It doesn’t matter that she succeeded in kicking me out of their family, I just want my father to be taken cared of. I don’t want him to be hospitalized against his will. I just want to give him what he wants in as much time that he has left.

I have given thought to talking to her royal wretchedness but given her history of planting seeds of chaos where there’s none, I could end up causing my father’s death. Which brings me to, Lord save me I don’t want to kill her. But if she keeps doing this, I might have to after all.