P.S. I'm so sorry, dear blog, for not being around much.
Firsts
It's the first time someone shouted at me. And we're not even remotely related with each other. I've never seen her and before I got to pick her call up, I never knew someone as brittle as her existed. What's worse, I didn't get to shout back. I raised my voice, fine. But to have the relieving feeling of having shouted her down as much as she did to me, I didn't get that.
Resolve: Someday, our positions we'll be reversed and I won't even shout at her. I'll show her what class truly is.
I've been to my, erm, nth goddaughter's Christening last April 3. It's a good ol' collection of firsts--my friend's first time to be a mom, my other friend's first time to see the cute little kid, and our group's first meeting since graduation (however incomplete we were). It's a good Sunday, like the older days where we gather over food and many gossips. The difference of those days and that Sunday though is evident, in shorter haircuts and heartier laughter and nastier commentaries on officemates. I like those differences, though, for some reason.
Stops and Pauses
Sometimes, I can't help but feel the irony of my relationship with my paternal grandmother. She lives directly across our house and yet I seldom (bordering on rarely) see her. I feel kind of guilty, I guess.
My Lola Mama had been bedridden for around three or four years now. She had a stroke and until now, had not fully recovered. She still recognizes us, her friends, and even her dead relatives. She's still aware on what day it is or even which TV shows are new. But mostly, it ends there. She can't speak clearly, can't move the left side of her body, can't bathe herself, can't even walk on her own. When we bring her out, mostly to go to church, she panics and frantically makes us take her home.
I often wonder about how life would have been if she's still normal. Maybe she's still working, still taking care of her husband's nieces and nephews, still at the mercy of her in-laws. Maybe her only daughter wouldn't be working abroad, her youngest already a doctor, and her eldest would have found a better wife. It sucks sometimes to think about how life would be different if she were different. But most often than not, we are just thankful of what we have right now.
Because on the opposite side of those would-have-beens, there's a worse and probably more unacceptable option: maybe she wouldn't be with us anymore.
Misses
I miss surfing the Net, on limitless access (emphasis on limitless, please). I miss movie downloads. I miss SMSing non-stop. I miss YMing people. I miss Tumblr reblogs and blog-hopping. I miss Ebook-reading.
Heck, I even miss scrubbing our vinyl tiles.
I miss the kind of life I used to lead, back when I still think I'm too young to be thinking about starting the steep climb up the corporate ladder. I miss going to interviews, not knowing who or what to expect, wearing the same "business" clothes again and again with no one really noticing (except that nosy, spandex-wearing lady who chats non-stop with her neighbor on the street). I miss taking IQ tests and made-up exams and psychological Q&A's.
Well, I guess it's true that you only know how nice it was back then when you look at it from now.
People-person
Now, I am a hundred percent sure I'm not at all a people-person.
Or better yet, I'm not at all a fraud (colloquially, plastic).
I maybe a new kid on the block but that doesn't mean I don't understand implied sarcasm and underlying issues. Hey, I grew up there. And to tell you, I'm actually better at it than you.
It's somehow amusing how some things never really change. Even if the environment's new. Even if you expect the people around you to be more mature. Even if you're supposedly in a 10%-personal-only place. It's amusing how the gossips never really chooses the place where to flourish. I guess the same process and idea works for everyone after all.
That you can't be perfectly pleasing to everybody. Someone out there would really, really hate you for what it's worth.
Transitions
You know how it is when parents kind of countdowns on their kids' remaining school years? My father did that when I graduated from college: "One down, two to go." He did that again when my sister finished high school: "Four more years to go." And my mother always does that when she talks about my brother's schooling: "Hopefully, one more year to go. *BIG SIGH*"
I don't get it, to be honest. They sound like assassins taking down people in their master's list. Sometimes, I just laugh at them. But mostly, I wonder how tired they really are to be counting on those numbers. As if their (the numbers') dwindling down means the rising of the amount of rest my parents are gonna get.
Real Askals
We don't own pets. As children, my siblings and I were so used to being out of the house (traveling most of the day to and from school) that taking care of anything living had become an impossibility. Hence, we never learned how to water a plant or to feed cats or dogs.
Lately though, there's this one stray dog who seemed to have found a home outside our very door. It used to be just a roaming askal, Filipino term for a dog without an owner and that lives on the streets, eating where there's food or garbage and peeing everywhere. And then we started throwing out leftovers at him. We didn't mind him loitering about under our van or our house's window. At some point, it learned to follow us everywhere we go--the sari-sari stores, the subdivision gates, our neighboring relatives. Until people started noticing that somehow, the dog has actually started to treat us like masters. He's particularly partial to me and my father, probably because it's always either the two of us who brings out the leftovers for him.
It would have been nice to have a surrogate pet except for one flaw: he bites. And since we've never known where he's from, naturally we all sort of concluded that his bite could be lethally infected with rabies. Hence, the village's general fear of him especially when they realized he's an overly protective animal that is ready to bite anyone he sensed to be a potential danger.
We never acknowledged him, though, never affirmed when people would ask if he's our pet. Never affirmed, always denied. Which is true, practically.
And a few days ago, some drunken, ruthless, senseless excuse for a man took the unbearable liking of coming closer to where the dog was and started hitting it. Then the man would swear at us because the dog was running and barking threateningly at him. Talk about drunken stupidity. It seemed like the catharsis our other neighbors were waiting for--they asked for my parents' permission to hunt down the dog (and well, do whatever it is they would want to with it). If only they had asked me, I would have said no. But my parents said otherwise.
Two nights ago, a shot rang outside our house followed by the yelp of a wounded animal. I dared not go out and look at what that could have been.
Silly, I know, but somehow I found it difficult to allow them get rid of the dog. He was an apparently misunderstood case, an amusing animal who responded to our commands, a comfortable thought to have when we sleep at night or leave the house. It gives me the creeps to know that when I go home everyday starting today, there would be no one to greet me or jump excitedly at the sight of me.
I hate my drunk neighbors.
. . .
Small thoughts, little by little they'll be formed into bigger clouds.
