Back to the old house

 Uling, my dog, died in 2005. I was heartbroken and needed an outlet, so I started writing on my first platform, Blogger. I played around with other sites but always came back to this ancient but reliable platform. It's simple and clean, just what I needed as someone who only wanted a place to type my feelings away.

I don't own a computer back then. Before I go to bed, I would write my thoughts on a notebook and visit a computer shop the next day to post it on my blog. Eventually I familiarized myself with blogging and different niches, and from 2006 to 2009, I was at my peak blogger era. I learned how to get paid by writing reviews of everything- from cheap headphones to local landscaping company. I would grin at my parents who insisted I needed a “real job”. I would cash my checks and blow it all on silly things like action figures and stationeries. I managed to save away a little, which to my twenty-something self meant that I was the definition of an adult. Yes, it was fun. But despite getting monetized, I somehow forgot why I started blogging in the first place.

2010 comes and I got a full-time job. I got work clothes, desk work, and health benefits, the kind of perks my mother had been preaching to me since college. And honestly, I felt like a real adult. Like I was finally becoming a good citizen to my country. I had by that time stopped blogging almost entirely. Work and commute left me so little time I barely slept at home, let alone write. Until one day I just deleted the whole thing. All those reviews, off-topic essays I spent hours writing gone with the click of a button. Did I regret it? Yes. But at that time I was certain that that era of my life has ended and that it's time to embrace a new one.

And then COVID happened. I was trapped in a one-bedroom apartment and couldn't go home to be with my family. Although I communicate with them daily, it didn't stop me from having breakdowns. That's when I decided I should start a new blog. But lockdown scrambled my brain so much that writing felt like torture, so I dropped it almost as fast as I started with only a single entry. A year later, I quit my job and moved back to the province, leaving the city noise behind me for crowing roosters and a spotty cellphone signal. Since then, I've been slowly finding my way back to blogging.

I am now forty years old. I don’t know if I can still write regularly and keep this blog going. But for now, I’ll try, because I miss having a place for my thoughts to exist. And somehow, writing still feels like home to me.

Aircon

 

Sa tanghaling tirik ang araw ay galit,

Pawis ko’y natulo na parang munting batis.
Bintana’y bukas ngunit hangin ay wala,
Mapapamura ka na lang talaga,
Aircon na lamang yata ang aking pag-asa.

(Muni-muni sa loob ng banyo. Letse, ang init sa Pilipinas.)

Apparently, I used to write multiple times a day

I found my old journals last night. It was unintentional. I was cleaning a shelf and opened boxes I had ignored for years, when I stumbled across a couple of my old journal notebooks with loose pages. Some of them still had dates written carefully on the first page. Others were covered in stickers. One of them even had names of people I randomly met or no longer talk to.

Since it's almost midnight, I told myself I would read only a few entries. But instead, I spent hours sitting on the floor turning page after page. I was completely absorbed in a version of myself I had almost forgotten.

I laughed and laughed as I read my entries. I never realized I wrote cringey things back then, mostly about how much I hated doing the laundry and about my favorite TV drama. I wrote mostly about my crushes, mentioning how I am falling in love with them in multiple entries. Heck, teenagers really write about predictable things. But what surprised me wasn't the content. It was my consistency. I wrote regularly back then, like multiple times a day. I filled entire notebooks without thinking twice.

But damn, now I struggle to finish even two pages. 

At some point over the years, writing became harder for me, even though life itself became fuller. I have more experiences now, more stories and complicated emotions, and more understanding of the world. By all reason, I should have more to write about. But I often find myself staring at blank pages with nothing to say. Or worse, too much to say all at once.

Maybe writing was easier when I was younger because I had not yet learned how to hold back.

Back then, I wrote everything down without shame. I wrote unapologetically every minor disappointment, every single interaction with someone I admire, and every fleeting thought I had. I was never worried whether my writing sounded intelligent or meaningful. The act itself was enough. The younger me thinks writing wasn't a performance. But now I edit myself before I even begin.

I think adulthood does that to people. You become more aware of how you sound. You become more careful, and your thoughts compete with responsibilities, distractions, plus the constant pressure to stay functional. There is less silence now. Less boredom, less time spent sitting alone with your own mind long enough to hear what it is trying to say. Reading my old journals made me realize how attentive I used to be to my own life. I noticed things back then. I wrote about ordinary afternoons, the weather, conversations with my siblings, songs playing in the background, and even wrote about the feeling of walking towards the bus stop after school. Nothing was too small to document. But I stopped paying that kind of attention and convinced myself that ordinary moments no longer deserved to be remembered.

Lately, my life feels less documented. It's been more than a month since my last journal entry, and days blur together quickly now. Sometimes I wonder how many memories I have already lost simply because I never wrote them down. Maybe that is why finding these old journals of mine affected me so much. They felt like proof that there was once a version of me who moved through life more slowly.

Narcotics Anonymous

I went to an NA meeting. Hindi ko na matandaan kung paano, pero naalala kong may Zoom link na nag-alangan pa akong i-click. Sinubukan kong pumasok kahit may pag-aalangan; baka mag-gatecrash ako sa isang importanteng meeting, o baka mapasukan ko ang meeting ng mga alters. Pero sige, go. Bahala na kung i-kickout nila ako. Wala namang pumansin sa akin. Siguro kasi dahil halos 100 ang mga participants, lahat ay mga taga Amerika. Ako lang yata yung hindi taga doon. Pero walang kumwestyon sa akin. Tuloy-tuloy na nagsasalita ang facilitator, doon ko nalaman na NA meeting pala ito. Narcotics Anonymous.

Anong gagawin ko dito? Naisip ko ‘hala baka tawagin ako to share’ eh di naman ako drug addict. Buti at ang tinatawag lang yung mga nagtataas ng kamay at nung binasa ko yung chat, nakalagay naman na ‘open to all’ yung meeting. Kaya hindi na din ako umalis, nakinig na lang ako sa mga kuwento nila. Ang napansin ko, karamihan sa mga nag-share na drug-free na ay mga kababaihan; yung iba sa kanila 4 na taon nang sober, yung ibang mas matatanda ay dekada na. Karamihan naman sa mga nag-share na addict pa rin at struggling ay mga kalalakihan. Tumatak sakin yung isang nag-share na lalaking estudyante. Umiiyak siya nung nagkukwento siya. Mga dalawang buwan na din siyang hindi gumagamit pero nate-tempt ulit siyang tumikim dahil sa pressure ng buhay estudyante. Binigay din niya ang contact niya dahil may mga iba sa room na gusto siyang tulungan. 5 minutes lang ang time allotment ng bawat isa. Bigla tuloy akong nagkainteres na mag-share ng saloobin ko, gusto kong mag-raise ng kamay kaso naalala ko sumasawsaw lang pala ako.

Pero nakakatuwa din at nakapakinig ako sa ganung meeting. Hindi lang naman sharing yung ginawa nila, may poetry reading pa silang ganap at may pa-mini games din. May participant pa mula sa isang county jail. Nung magsisimula na yung mini game, nag-exit na ako. Pero next time kung may pagkakataon ulit na makapag-gatecrash sa isang NA or AA meeting, bakit hindi. Di ba?