it took me a while to arrive in this space today. i am not sure what causes that kind of resistance.
maybe it's a feeling that i don't have enough to say. or that there's so much that i don't know where to start. maybe it's an obsessive-compulsive tendency that i have to go through my life in orderly and most importantly chronological fashion.
which is true. back then when i had to steal internet from the neighbours and had limited time on the laptop, i would carefully recount every few days all the days that had passed, making sure each day had words allocated to it, making sure that each day was accounted for. perhaps it was a way of making sense of circumstances that always changed. i knew my words wouldn't. so i pinned them down.
and then i grew up and a layer of documentation tendencies was somewhat stripped. being any kind of polarised is bad, i guess, because my old methods of remembering caused me to experience always in retrospect. but then growing from that made me go too far, so much that retrospect became something small, reliant on other things, people, circumstances. not that i wasn't always reflecting and thinking. i don't think that ever stops. but a physical manifestation of it was needed to become something that affected my life.
if this sounds like you.... make some changes, and urgently. being a prisoner of your own mind is never a good thing.
yesterday, i tripped up near the end of the day at a meeting. i have noticed that i often absorb information or instruction and then go away to exert extra effort to figure out exactly what was said... or go through unnecessary stress because of it. self-sufficiency is not always a sign of strength. things are much simpler when seeking answers is done the most basic way: by asking questions.
despite this last night was a good way to end a work week - dinner and drinks. i decided against alcohol because i haven't been taking to it well at all since i got back. is it the change in climate = i'm slightly more dehydrated to begin with? is alcohol in the UK so widespread that having a pint there is about 3/4 of having one here? i can't be bothered to stick it out and find out why or go through headaches just to increase resistance. so when glasses were raised for a toast, i held up a large teacup. (no one even commented or asked why i'm not drinking. thank God for adults - i am so sick of that spiel.)
the evening reminded me of who i am. where i am comfortable. what i don't have to make myself deal with. where i want to go. who i want to be.
*
11 jan.
i fell asleep writing last night. the consequence of resistance is that you do not accomplish.
i am taking time for myself before lunch because thankfully the rhythm at home today is quiet. after hearing from my dad that the shipment should be delivered on wednesday night, i had anticipated that the weekend would be a bustle of making space, of my mom's quick steps and flapping slippers, of small irritable discussions and light jokes. yesterday they were out helping our tita move in to her own house; her shipment had arrived last thursday. i had an appointment at work so i got out of it.
i think my parents, especially my mom, have an uncharacteristic rhythm today because last night they received news that one of their good friends from their 20s had passed. there were no tears, but i think they were quite guilty for not having visited the past few months despite knowing he was in hospital for kidney failure. i am not sure how they are processing things like this. i'm not sure what they did or what words were exchanged behind their bedroom door. but my dad was mindlessly on the computer for a bit after the phonecall, and then ended up watching Captain America: Winter Soldier. my mom was beside him, on the iPad, half watching and half playing a mahjong game. but today, they are meant to go to the wake in the afternoon and they're quiet. plans to ready the house for nearly 200 items made of boxes and furniture seem to be put on hold. my mom didn't even say, baba ka na magaayos tayo.
i have received and have been reflection on a few stories the past week that need pinning down. i have to leave the writing for now but i'm noting it down for the next one, so it doesn't get lost:
- lolo, the church, their land.
- lolo, and his life wealth.
- Jesus' humanity, and the art that remembers it.
- B and her faith. in the wake of paris.
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