A Couple of Things

XI. 

I feel helpless. 

It seems to me at this point that for the longest time, I was chasing goals. For the most part, I was meeting them - graduating, getting my license, getting into a career I liked, albeit with a few hiccups here and there. 

I feel like I really need to talk about what I am feeling. I'm studying right now, and part of that training is to be able to notice the distorted thinking of others, and how this thinking gets to affect how they behave. I know that one's experiences growing up can predispose them towards certain things, I do. For the most part in my training as a counselor, I felt that I was meeting them, you know? My goals, my work. I had a feeling that I was pretty okay doing this, that I was good and helping people out, you know? 

It's just hard. 


It's hard because there's a lot of things right now that say otherwise. From my training, I know that sometimes, it's how we interpret and react to it that's important. But I can't seem to shake this feeling off. I can't seem to get rid of it. I can't shake this feeling that all this time, it was all fake? What I've achieved, what i've done, what I am doing - it's all fake. I too, am a fake. 

I can't shake this feeling. What's worse is that a  very deep dark part of me knew it all along - from even before I entered this profession. If I give in to this dark part, it tells me something that I knew all along. I didn't know anything entering this field, and it looks like I didn't know anything until now, either. 

XII. 

There's a prayer room where I go to, and I usually go and stop for a few minutes there for silence. 

One afternoon though, there were a couple of people practicing for what I assume was a mass later during that day. There was a girl singing, and a guy on a piano accompanying her. Some people were assisting in the background. 

Everything was so simple. So ordinary. 

But I felt something. Something inside of me started welling up. It became too unbearable. I was on call with f at the time. I got up and made my way to the elevator, just outside the prayer room. I pressed the button to go down. 

"Dito ako sa prayer room". 

I say into my phone, looking at my partner's face. 

"Ano gawa mo dyan? Kamusta?"

"May kumakanta kanina, pes"

"Anong sabi sa kanta nila?"

I blinked. Ano nga ba? I wondered to myself. 

"Ang hirap lang, kasi". 

I felt this huge wave erupt out of me. I felt my eyes shimmer, and I began pacing, breating heavily, in front of the elevator. I remember it was at the 17th floor. I was at the 12th.

I ducked into the stairwell and hoped it was empty. I didn't need an audience for this. 

It was. 

I felt hot, wet tears roll down my face. My stomach hurt. My eyes hurt. Everything inside hurt.I cried like a child who sees the ocean for the first time and feels so insignificant as a result. 

XIII

It makes sense this is thirteen. 

Two weeks ago, upon my eye doctor's recommendation, I went to see another doctor at an upscale hospital in taguig. He placed me on different meds and had me take a series of exams. 

The meds alone cost us 3k. The exams cost  us around 7. 

I lost the meds just after a week. In a hurry to go to where i desperately needed to go, I left them inside the taxi. I tried calling the taxi line, but to no avail. No medicines where reported. 

Just last week, the doctor greeted us with terrible news. I had to have surgery. Basically my condition worsened, and the fluid in my left eye was crushing my optic nerves Recent tests pointed that out quite clearly. 

I was scheduled for a 90k outpatiient surgery, just to put a valve implant on my left eye. It's relatively not risky. But I can't  shake myself off remembering something. 

XIV

Miming, my dog of 12 years, died. 

Office work got suspended. I made my way home and saw Ming lying prone, his face sitting in a pile of bile and feces. He looked at me with his clear eyes, unblinking. He was breathing still very heavily. 

My hands felt cold, and for a minute, I couldn't move. Not wanting to move had always been my fear, and my curse. 

Ming was still tied. I took a step closer. He started jerking his legs, looking at me imploringly. 

I withdrew and stepped back into the street. I rang the doorbell and my little brother came on down. I tried to act calmly, but in my head, I was panicking, asking myself what to do. 

"Shit kuya, ano nangyare?" He looked at me, shocked and disgusted at the same time. 

"Hindi ko alam. Baka kahapon pa siya may sakit," I calmly remark as I began to make way indoors from the other door. "Nakita mo ba kung ano nangyari?"

"Hindi e"

We were silent for a while, the two of us alone in the kitchen. Both of my parents had to pick up a relative who will be staying with us for some time. Irt was my little brother who broke the silence 

"Paano natin siya aalisin?"

I look at him, puzzled. "Ha?"

"Si Ming. Paano natin siya aalisin?"

"Sina papa nang bahal diyan?" 

"Hindi pwede. May bisita. Ano yun, nakasalampak lang siya diyan?"

Oo, tapos wala tayong nakita I thought to myself. "O sige, tara". 

We fashioned a make shift stretcher for Ming.  We used an old metal folding chair and some plywood to ease Ming, and put him out in the backyard. Deo wanted to place him in the garden "para madali na lang ilibing pagkatapos". I shook my head no. "Umuulan. Dignidad naman"

We ended up placing him on the steps in the kamalig, a makeshift shed we had in our backyard. That was where he liked to sleep, anyways. We placed a small cloth over his belly, and he shivered when the cloth touched his fur. 

Me and my brother went back inside and started cleaning up. Filling a basin with water, hosing down hard to reach places. We took turns soaping and rinsing, washing up the dirt from our oldest dog, Ming, for the last time.