Year 2008

Day-off, at last




Now my friends, I've finally been provileged to take a day off, maybe the days off will become more regular this time. I deserve it, I need it. My co-workers remind me constantly about patients who suffered cardiac arrests and strokes due to overwork. One time Victor, one of my PT buddies brought a newspaper item that reported a Japanese who died due to overwork. My department always gets nervous when I become forgetful, or when I just lie on the mat at lunch and snore instantly in a minute or two. My fatigue is that bad.

"So, how's the Fort Lauderdale scene?" asked Matt in a recent phone call. He asked this question because I told him I'd frequent Fort Lauderdale more after the Gay Parade last June. I was confident then that I would be able to have more days off. But that stupid night became the last straw that broke the camel's back. I got a cold. A severe cold. I was so sick after work I stopped everything: No running, no reading, no watching movies, no surfing. Just plain old sleeping, and coughing, that's all I did.

"Nothing happened since then, Matt", I said with a tone of frustration. Indeed it's not funny anymore. What is so wonderful about working seven days a week for six years and...well, it's really my fault. All I needed to say was no and I did not say it. It's also debilitating. You see, when you lived for the past 18 years afraid that if you don't work people will starve or if you don't earn enough money kids will not go to school or if you did not work your parents won't be able to pay their medical bills, you just become so paralyzed with fear. I was so scared of getting injured or getting sick that...oh well, you already know what I am trying to say.

Matt offers his usual litany of words. "Goddamnit, you never learn. One day you'd be the patient in your fucking hospital." And I counter him about my perfect health, in fact compared to his back pain now requiring cortisone shots, I am way way way better than him. And he's always have a non-working week-end. Oh the argument would last for a minute or so and then we'd say goodbye and never think about each other for another six months. That's the nearest I can get to a romantic relationship. It's nice he calls.

But I have my own way of dealing with life. I am now thinking about my upcoming days off. I am planning on them already and the plan doesn't include partying in Fort Lauderdale. I never cared about the party scene except once or twice. For me there are more exciting ways to spend my days off. One of them is updating myself with reading and writing. I have so many books to enjoy reading. And then, there are personal websites I use to harness my writing and to share my life with the world. It has nothing to do with narcissism or seeking attention. This writing is therapy for me since I was, well, I do remember now when I started writing - I was 14 years old and I kept a notebook where I jotted my prayers. I used to write prayers in a journal , and from there, I progressed to short stories, long stories, essays and novels (believe it or not). I know there is nothing special about my fiction but I feel so fulfilled when I write something. The writing is perhaps the single most influence in my life. It is the very reason why I exist, act, think the way I think. I did not pursue social life because I knew one day I'd lock myself in a room to write. I avoided relationships because I knew one day, I need to be alone so I can write. I helped my family to become independent so that one day, I won't worry about working hard to provide for them anymore and I'd have more time for myself to pursue this writing.

I know I know I know - I am no Hemingway nor Dostoyevsky but who says I want to be any of them? All I know is this : I need to express myself through writing. Whether I'm read or not does not matter. Whether what I say has any value or not doesn't matter either. I don't aspire for my writing to make me money or for it to become my career, Lordy Lordy, I have a very satisfying career already. But I want to fix my time through writing. Now.

Soon, I will try to write stories along the content and style I've been following all this time. But instead of the past, I will write more about the future. I see a different pathway for the Philippines now. The country is finally moving forward and I feel I should be moving with it. Though it is important to always be guided by the past, my stories now will reflect how I will view my future. This is the time I see my future. My fears are over. I can take more risks. I can change the course of my life. I can see myself alone, free of duties, free of angsts, free of fights and struggles.

I will arrive again the way I arrived to the US eighteen years ago. But then I was a penniless bundle of nerves who could only scream and cry and work everyday because I was so afraid of a failed tomorrow. It's over now. I am now willing to take the plunge to the unknown. I am braver. I am no longer scared of the future.