how it's going

so i'm always the one wanting to be a mom. it's one of those things i'd always wanted, knowing i'd be really good at it, having that perfect picture in my head. how many times have i felt the weight of my unborn child in my arms? (like 10 years ago, right?) so this is past due.

and now here it is, i'm the classic buntis, nausea, food 24/7, but i've food exhaustion too, not wanting to eat the same food once i've eaten it, so the list is pretty dwindling... i've gone through the nearby food haunts, searched for every fast food delivery numbers, and you could only have those so much, after a while, they're blah.

today, i'm off to spaghetti factory for lunch, to have my favorite bolognese, after which, i've nothing up my sleeve. i mean, what's for dinner, right? last night, my husband and i went for a subway, but that would be my last in this lifetime ever (such is the story of my life these days).

so this pregnancy thing is not something i would do again conciously ever. i'd always wanted 3-4 children, that is my one constant, wanting to have lots, but now, bah, humbug! sleeping half sitting is certainly no picnic just so i would not wake up feeling like i have to vomit, i wish i would, to get it over with, but i just wouldn't. nor always having that gnawing hunger that just would not be filled, when i don't eat, i'm damned, when i do eat, i'm damned (i ache both ways).... then the bone deep exhaustion that creeps up to me, ever so slowly feeling like i've climbed up some mountain and i just have to crash and watch everything from the sidelines because being involved means lifting a finger and i couldn't. i just want to lie down and never move....

what i've gotten so far in my 2months, is the fact that i have the best, best, best husband in the world. he's literally doing everything to make this easy for me. he'd bring food home from work (when i get lucky), he would go out in the middle of the day right when the sun is in its hottest to get me choco sundae fudge from jollibee. he would eat fast food with me even when he's a home cooked guy. he goes to 7-11 to get me all sorts of things, even chocolates when we both know it's bawal, he cleaned up our room and told me he cleaned up coz i came home from work and didn't notice right away (and he cleaned up real good), and he again did general cleaning this weekend without me lifting a finger, i was just either lying down or sitting down just staring at nothing being useless because i was just so tired. and even in the wee hours in the morning, when he turns and catches me staring at him, (staring because in my head i'm trying to weigh how he would take in my requests, being hungry again, i mean it's 4am) he would gamely say "ano gusto mo kainin?"

and this blows me away.

it's such a beautiful comfort knowing he's got me.

telltale signs

couldn't sleep, couldn't stay still. i'm home bound today, was asked to go home from work because of fever and given that i'm more than a week delayed makes it a bit alarming. i cried the whole time coming home from work because i had to commute and felt a little sorry for myself, thinking about how things would've been different if mommy were around.

now that i'm expecting, i've had four pregnancy tests but no word from the ob yet, i'm not supposed to break the news yet anyhow, i think about my mom more often and miss her all the more. i am ashamed to admit that i forgot her death anniversary this year. every year, it's a different drama with her death anniversary and this year, it was all so much about just getting married and settling in and upcoming birthdays and forgetting. so yesterday i felt awful. and felt again that terrible gnawing pit that's absolutely endless that comes with missing her. oh, if only you'd known my mom, she's all character. such beauty. such joy. such sadness too. she is all simple and grandiose. and oh so caring.

some pregnancy articles would say that to know how you are when pregnant, you've only to look at your mom, how she was when it was her time. pictures, maybe asking her questions, her little anecdotes, but i don't have those, not anymore. i keep racking my mind for some snippets of conversations, some memory of her telling me if she experienced morning sickness or anything, anything at all from her.


i don't have anything to show for this pregnancy thing yet anyhow. it's more based on hope than actual fact and without the doctor's confirmation who is to say what will happen next. but let's keep four fingers crossed, two for each hand. that will double the luck, i hope.

http://www.jaysonandjoanne.com/?p=352

and i like my window open when it rains outside. i like it just so.

these days, i do it with much guilt and trepidation knowing that the rain i enjoy so much from the comforts of my room is causing others a lot.

a lot, a lot.

the accidental tourist -- borrowed from Anne Tyler

there's something about being a tourist, a sort of separation and a little surprise about the things you find out about yourself-- it's a sort of a getting-to-know-oneself-experience and you find that you agree with yourself on those points too.

we went to Honkong for our honeymoon, a little pause from our usually timid lives and the trip involved bravado and a lot of peso conversions, of course. i love to travel. i love what goes on and our little trip affirmed me on that one. the experience was really really worth it.

but i found that there was a little heart-twinge at dusk and was surprised by it. even being with him could not appease it. looking at those strange faces and strange places when it was near dark puts a bit of longing in my heart for my familiar. it was a bit odd because i am a going-overseas advocate and yet my heart just had to had that pull and regret and calling for home.

now i know that i love being a tourist. being in one place at one time for some silly moments but that's about it. home after that would be a lovely breath of fresh air. but if i have to be there anywhere for a long time, then i know there would be a lot of prepping to do.

thoughts of an ex-bride

really, there is no need to rehash things. no need at all to feel like i am in the middle of nowhere, small and vulnerable. there is no need for it.

after the hair raising ride of the wedding preparations, things are going back to normal. week after the wedding i was feeling a little bored, longing for the endless text messages, unknown phone calls, unabashed queries, strong opinions, unwanted point of views, confusions, uncategorized thoughts, haphazard decisions, quick ones, definite no-nos, lovely yes-es, repeated issues, unwelcome dramas, compromises, reflections, quiet talks, heated discussions, shared realizations,

being swamped with people, thoughts, events, work, preparations, and being swamped, period.

it was all a hay ride.

going on a crescendo.

everything all at once but not really. it was all created. i was creating it and i was wallowing both in good and bad ways.

and now, no text messages. no unknown calls. all quiet. thoughts are slowly settling down. precipitations close to none.

and slowly i was closing in on bored. and worried sick about putting on some excitement. some drama. some. something.

all done and finished. and now, back to life. back to the regular drama of getting a cab in the morning to work and that's about it--

re-focusing and finding meaning again in things like waking up and going to work and trying to make that exciting--

then today it's all about our little room in a houseful of people and about making things perfect, functional, easy, smooth. and feeling overdrawn because things are far from there yet. feeling a little stretched and being a little suspicious that it is just an inflection, something to occupy the mind, an exercise of drama.

and there's life, a lifetime of it stretched out so long ahead of us.

and maybe a niggling question of: what to do, what to do?

(one really has to occupy the mind to keep thoughts at bay).

Everybody's such a fan of "moving on"

'Moving on' has become such an abused, overused, overrated phrase. As usual, we get into this bandwagon of what are accepted and expected behaviour and "moving on" has become quite popular.



We have forgotten how harsh and unrelenting it could be and we always miss the process in between entirely.



I am no fan of "moving on", you see. I am all for it, sure. I see it as the great finish, the goal, the target. But not now, not yet.



She laughed at me and goaded me with the fact that she has "moved on", while I, poor little me is stuck in the rot they left me. True, I am the one getting old with my anger and I'm the one who gets to have a black heart with all these hatred in my heart, but that is my way to be. I am in no rush, in no hurry to be anywhere else than where I am right now.



They have done me wrong and for me, it is important to be shocked, to be mad. To be hurt, to writhe in pain. I want to be bothered by it and to understand how painful it is because it is so. It is not otherwise. I want to bathe and wallow in it while it is the way it is and not close my eyes and pretend and reassure myself that it is not and it should not be so. That is my way to be.

I do not want to cast my feelings aside and forget how painful things are when they are painful. For me, pain is not something to get away from, to rid yourself of, to be over with. I imagine how she has moved on so easily from her past hurts and disappointments as if it they were a phase she is over and done with so that she has now become un-feeling and without conscience, making her inflict pain on another easily, without thought, without pause. For her, being in pain and causing another pain is "all in a day's work", get over it....

For me, pain is to be studied, reflected on, to immerse yourself with, to befriend and to be one with if only so you do not inflict it so easily on another. I want to be confused and wallow in it and be wrong about it, understanding how it is to be there so that I become careful about hurting others in turn.

We are a society who is so concerned with the end-product. We want to be on the opposite end of the spectrum, wanting to be in the destination rather than in the journey. We want end results, casting our eyes on the far horizons, contemplating the probabilities, leaving the in-betweens empty of our attention and honor.

We become happy and comfortable with the thought of someone moving on and we celebrate that occasion, happy to forget her pain for her, relieved that she is over it. We are all in a rush to be in that imagined happy ending...

I am stuck in my pain.

I honor it. I honor my anger. I honor her who has caused it if only so I would not be like her. In what she has done, I begin to understand that I do not want to be like that. In how she presented herself in situations and in her choices, it became clear to me that there are always a range of choices to pick from and it boils down to who you are and the kind of person you want to be. For now, I will be a ying and she will be my yang -- that other side of me. She likes to blame it on another and on the situation, not seeing that she has it in her power to do right. And whatever the choices are, it is always good to be in that place where you do not inflict pain on another because that's just not something you would do.

I am here. right now. unmoving. And I will not move until I am finished and give it its due. I will be here until I am not. Eventually I will move on, that is the nature of things, but I will not bandy it about, because for me, that is not the point. Healing will come, it is in the order of things, it is the law of nature. But until then, you can goad me and laugh at me and sing your silly songs at me, rub it on me as you only can because you are the way you are. It's actually funny how you are claiming you'd moved on already because of course you have, because you are not the one left crying, for you, after you've done your thing and made your mark, it's finished and done. And so I give you the happiness of the thought that I am hurting, because I know that feeds you and strengthens you...

Just until when I no longer am.

By then you will just be a hazy memory, some silly girl who did bad things because it's in her nature to do so.