I read somewhere that this Covid-19 crisis is actually just us being in a votex. We're on a brink of transitioning to a new "normal,2 a new world and that we are just given a chance to sit and re-examine our bearings.
Where are you now? What is your "state of happiness" barometer? What are the things that you currently value? What are the things that you hold close to your heart? Are they really as valuable as you think they are? Are they really worth being held in your heart,devoting your time and life to?
So where am I? I am currently in a job that I used to believe, helps define who I am. In a way it does. It does. Do I love my job? I do. I am grateful for having the job I have -- having the opportunity to contribute a little of me and the perks that went with it. It's a privilege to be earning my bread and butter, feeding my children, spending for their education and what-not's from doing something that I love to do. I am grateful for the opportunities for learning and self-growth as well; for the many wonderful souls I've met along the way; for the opportunity to sow love and light in my own little way.
At the same time, I am also exhausted, bone-weary and close to burnout. The demands of my job is not easy. It requires much thinking, heart, blood, sweat and tears. But I love numbers. I love analysing. I love thinking. I love being in the community, hearing their stories (albeit painful and heart-wrenching). I am happy to hear about their lives -- challenges, triumphs and all. I am grateful to be a witness to how indomitable the human spirit is. As to how generous can the soul be, still wanting to give even if they've just recently lost everything they've held dear.
It's being in a camp, interviewing people, imposing on their time, asking questions you are not sure they have answers to or are quite prepared to think about them amidst their situation. And then, being offered the only bread they have, a fan, a seat because you are a guest in their homes made of makeshift tarpaulins and rugs. How is that not heart-wrenching? How can that not one want to stop to simply be grateful to be in the midst of that? I am privileged.
Yes, I put long hours. I pour my heart and soul into every conversation I have in the community. I take pains in crafting the questions so as not to make them sound patronising, intrusive and or underlining the hopelessness they are already feeling. Sometimes I would be spending hours pouring over documents I don't like to read really but had to. Our pour over Excel files to try to make sense of the data yet being careful of tainting them with my own biases and prejudices. There had to be that balancing that had to be done. All the time.
Yet, I am also getting paid to be doing all these things. And truth be told, all those long hours are really self-imposed because of some inner barometer I measure my actions and work against. Everything had to be truthful and beneficial. It had to have "real" meaning, whatever my own convoluted mind construe that to be.
But that is work. How about the other side of the often coined "balance" -- work and life balance. Where am I in my life? I have a nice, comfortable house. It was a love-work that was quite slow in progress. Building this house took 2 to 3 years but really, if one is to count the little improvements here and there, growing this house took 8 to 9 years in total. It's how old Forest is and how long we've stayed in this house. It's not as grand as per others' definition but it is how we've envisioned it to be.
That is the house. How about it's soul? The home part? I have an angst-filled, almost-14 teenage son whom I am always in constant power struggle with. I look at him and I see someone unhappy, angry, spinning out of control, hurting, afraid of failure thus short-changing himself and under-achieving. I see a damaged soul in need of love but too proud and scared to ask for it or even to accept love when it is given. I look at home and I try to search where in that angry or poker-faced, sarcastic demeanour was the sweet, little boy who was so full of mirth and was so intelligent? Where was that boy who would read alongside me and delight me with conversations about ancient cultures and civilisatios? Where is that sweet, little boy who would cry at the airport, not wanting to let me go or would tell me to "take care" when he knew I was off to some road, work travel after I dropped him in school? What had hppened? I knew full well what happened.
How am I as a mother? I started so full of love and ideals of how things should be for my children. I was and still am self-depriving, so driven to do everything for the children at the expense of my own wants and needs. The children come first. There was no compromising that.
Now, I am just tired. Disillusioned at the state of things at home. There's oo much anger, distrust, pain, abuse. We try our best to heal, make things alright but we have a beast in our midst. We are contending with a Jekyll and Hyde person -- too sweet and kind one moment and then explosive and hurtful the next. Sometimes you don't even know what the trigger was. It was an endless cycle of being hurt, wanting to give up to understanding and having to forgive again. All for the sake of the children, of having a complete family. But where are the children now?
I have an almost 10 year old daughter who told me over breakfast this morning how I easily give in when Tatay starts giving promises. Promises he keeps until the next explosion you never knew what the trigger was. Sometimes it's as trivial as voicing your own opinion or saying no to what he wants. It'shaving that same daughter cower in fear as he threatens to overthrow all the food on the table or when he starts to attack his own son, her Kuya. It's her rushing to shield his Kuya from another blow.
My daughter-neice, who is turning 18, a full-grown adult a few months from now, who's happier and free-er when she's around friends than at home? Almost adult but has no voice of her own; who readily does some chores that Kuya was supposed to do but refuse over some whim or another; who can and should be independent soon but had no answers to give when asked a simple question as to what she wants.
I'm in a 14-year old marriage that are full of happy memories true, even of real giving of the self and sacrifices from both sides. It is a 14-year struggle of wanting things right, to change, overcome personal ghosts and be better. It's years full of defining dreams and working together at reaching them. But it is also a 14-year marriage of broken laptops, cellphones, cabinets, diffusers, doors, door knobs. It's one littered with physical abuse sometimes sparse in between and sometimes not quite. It's all those years of struggle of wanting to understand, to forgive, to hope, seeing the abuser struggle to become a better person and then slid right back again.
It's me becoming angry at having to compromise, forget my sense of justice, having to fight back because I do not want the children to see a cowering, weak woman in the face of violence. It's me rushing to the side of my son, blocking blows, sushing-down over-deflated temper. It's me asking myself the same question of whether to choose to let go or to forgive and start hoping again.
I remember when friends asked me why I have to choose him over a more "decent" someone. I remember distinctly answering that it is because he grew up not truly belonging anywhere and hungry for love and me, having so much love to give. Being my usual, naive, messianic self, I truly believed I can soothe all his pain away and fill up all that he lacked. I thought I could "repair" him by all the love and understanding I can give. And I tried. God knows how much I did.
One thing I'm learning amidst all these is that I shouldn't have assumed that I could fill the role of a parent, partner, counsellor, fan, "encourager," personal coach all at the same time. It took me 17 years in total doing just that but all for nought. There's no helping a person who 'attempts' to change himself yet has an intrinsic belief that he is who he is and could not change at all. There's no helping someone who do not own up to his mistakes and blame it all on others instead. There's no helping someone who is already expecting that all whom he loves would leave him in the end anyway. There were would be a battalion of concerned, soul-workers who love to see him through it all but all that amount of love does not have an effect on anyone who find it hard to believe that he is worthy of that love. I've tried and rationalised all these years, finding again reasons to believe that he is worth another go, at exposing myself and my children to these abuses. Enough.
If we are indeed at a vortex at the moment, at a brink of a new world, I would want to enter that world broken but on my way to healing and self-becoming. I want the same thing for my children. Indeed, I have so much love to give but I have given all that love outwardly. I should have left a little something for myself. No wonder I've been running on empty the past few years. My love tank is depleted. So help me and my children, Abba.
