this too shall pass.

i don't want to be in this place anymore. i don't want that i am not doing anything. i am just so tired of this. it is such a exhausting experience seeing myself unable to take a step forward.. nor even another step backwards. what's happening with me? i don't even know myself anymore. i used to be dark, twisted but incredibly strong willed and fighting. now i'm just dark and twisted. it's just killing me to keep my composure. no one can even realize that, nobody can even notice that. that's because nobody cares. i can't blame them, i totally get that everybody has their own problem to fix. they all have their own struggle and really.. i'm not asking for anyone to notice, it's just sad to realize that not even a single person knows. maybe i should tell somebody about this.. or not. i don't want to be some freak who cries while singing like a virgin while cutting a dead body (sandra oh) when things are beyond my control.. but then i also don't want to be this drama queen who tells the world how miserable her life is as if the street children are luckier.

i want to be some place far. nothing's happening here for me. there's no party anymore.. or if there is one.. i'm not even invited. i want to blame some people for hurting me, for making me feel this bad but then i won't. why would i? it all ends up the same.. this is my life and even if i admit it or not.. i made all these happen. it's all directly charged to me and me alone. people around me maybe accessories to the end product (which is my pathetic life) but still.. i'm the one holding the steering wheel. everything was my call and i called wrong.

i know in the coming week, i am about to make one decision that i will regret for a long time.. and when i say long, i mean 5 years or so. even if i am well aware right at this moment that i am about to make a mistake, i can't help myself but consider doing it. my mind is like saying "you've got nothing to lose". yeah right. because clearly i have got nothing at this moment. maybe i'll make this mistake just like what i always do. do things that are not good for me, eat unhealthy food, be with people who leave me behind.. the usual. maybe i'm bound to know everything about myself and the effect things on me but then maybe i'm also that brave to think that i can overcome those things.. or just plain arrogant.

i don't really know what to do anymore.. but i know i'll be fine. i'll hold myself together for eveybody.. because after all, life is all about holding it all together. keeping yourself from falling apart. i can do this because i know that this too shall pass..

Baby Angel

This will be the first time in a long time that I will blog about work just because the experience is too much for me to put up with. I have this wonderful feeling, like the high that some heroine dependent feels whenever a baby is being delivered specially in a spontaneous method. That high is on it’s climax whenever the OB hands me the baby’s body then after cutting the cord, totally entrusts the life of the tiny little creature to my hands. I feel very important. The “baby-you-wouldn’t-live-if-I’m-not-here” feeling immediately deposits a sky-scraping dosage of adrenaline to my whole body. I love the feeling so what I do is really take care of the baby, hold it so gently, rub the blood clots all over its body soothingly and make sure that it’s dry, warm and comfortable while trying to be familiar on the new world that it is experiencing.

I remember Grey’s Anatomy. George will drag Meredith to the nursery whenever everything is just getting out of hand. They work on the Surgical Department which is totally hardcore so they go through some kind of therapy on every occasion they spend looking at those little angels in the nursery. That’s just so sweet. Babies. I adore babies. I always say to myself that I’d like to mother a couple of them when the time comes.

Yesterday, the hospital was I must say benign for a Monday. A few out patient having their check-ups, a couple of admitted patients for induced labor and some in-patients ready to go home. While I was busy finishing the charts, I heard some commotion down the ER. After finally making sure that everything’s okay in the ward, I saw that there was a direct admission so I went straight to the Delivery Room. Seeing my Senior Nurse calling my name in a very nervous and toxic (as the medical people say) voice, I grabbed the scrub gown, mask and cap and took a look at what’s inside. What I saw was a floor soaked with amniotic fluid and a woman with no gown, no IVF, no oxygen in a lithotomy position pushing and bearing down already. If some doctor have seen what just happened we’re so going to make an incident report for breaking all the rules in sterility. When I saw the area where the baby’s supposed to come from, it was red, like fresh blood red in color which is very unusual because if the presenting part is the head it should be black because of the hair or pale for the face.. me I’d accept any color, any color aside from red. My Senior Nurse was asking me “Cj, ulo ba yan? Sa tingin mo ulo? “ and I was like, “Hindi yan ulo mam! Bakit red? Baka cord or.. ano yan?”. We are both on panic stage when I heard the door open and saw the OB. The baby’s head was finally delivered showing us a part of it’s brain. Apparently, that was the red part presenting earlier the delivery. “Anencephalic baby”, said the doctor. According to Wikipedia, Anencephaly is a cephalic disorder that results from a neural tube defect that occurs when the cephalic (head) end of the neural tube fails to close, usually between the 23rd and 26th day of pregnancy, resulting in the absence of a major portion of the brain, skull, and scalp. Children with this disorder are born without a forebrain, the largest part of the brain consisting mainly of the cerebral hemispheres.

Once the doctor cut the cord and I have the baby on my hands she told me to show the baby to the mother. I was so apprehensive, it breaks my heart to see such little being in that condition but I know I have to do my job, so I showed the baby on my hands on the crying woman on the DR table. She screamed upon the sight of her baby. “Baby Girl, Baby Out: 5:30PM” was all I was able to say. I placed the baby on the crib and was asked by the OB to come with her as she shows the baby to the father. This is beyond tragic, I thought. The father naturally cried when he saw the baby. “Tatawagin po ni CJ yung Pedia pero usually po oras or araw lang ang aantayin natin. Kung din po talaga para sa atin, kailangan tanggapin na lang natin. Wala po tayong magagawa.”, said the doctor. I took the baby in the NICU not knowing what to do first. Should I suction her? No. It will further increase her ICP. I opened the oxygen tank, gave her O2 and kept her warm with the droplight. For a good 5 minutes I think, I just stared at the baby. She’s breathing, heart rate is still there, she’s got a cleft lip, and yeah.. her brain is outside her skull. I was trying to make her cry. A good cry is a sign of good coping mechanism to the change of environment but I know that this case is an exemption. “Baby, laban ka ha?”, I told her when the OB showed up and told me to fix the baby. When she left I cleaned the baby and dressed her. I realized that I was crying while I was doing it. I just stopped crying when I remembered that the brain is bare and my tears might drop there. I did the routine then the Pedia came and told us that we’ll just have to give Palliative care. Palliative care (from Latin palliare, to cloak) is any form of medical care or treatment that concentrates on reducing the severity of diseasesymptoms, rather than striving to halt, delay, or reverse progression of the disease itself or provide a cure. Simply put we’d do nothing. :(

It was really a depressing experience for me. I felt like all my energy went towards the sadness that I felt. My muscles felt weak and I just wanted to home right away. I think the baby is really about to die but she still wanted to see her parents that’s why she fought to live even for just a couple of hours. Now I’m sure she’s in heaven. An undoubtedly better place.

Then we talked about you.

Dootsie: “Do you have a boyfriend?”

Me: “I’m not sure. I used to.”

Dootsie: “What’s his name?”

Me: “Leo.”

Dootsie: “Is Leo a human bean?”

Me: “We’re all human beans.”

Dootsie: “Do you love him?”

Me: “I think so.”

Dootsie: “Does he love you?”

Me: “He did. And then he didn’t. I think he will again.”

Dootsie: “When?”

Me: “Someday.”

Dootsie: “Where is he?”

Me: “In the state of Arizona. Far away.”

Dootsie: “Why?”

Me: “Why what?”

Dootsie: “Why is he far away?”

Me: “He goes to school there. I moved here to Pennsylvania.” (Oops…now you know. We moved to your home state. Well, I won’t narrow it down any more than that.)

Dootsie: “Did he kiss you?”

Me: “Yes.”

Dootsie: “Did he kiss Cimmamum?”

Me: “Yes.”

Dootsie: “I don’t wanna talk about him anymore.”

Stargirl Chapter 32

That was fifteen years ago. Fifteen Valentine’s Days.

I remember that sad summer after the Ocotillo Ball just as clearly as

everything else. One day, feeling needy, empty, I walked over to her

house. A For Sale sign pierced the ground out front. I peered through a

window. Nothing but bare walls and floors.

I went to see Archie. Something in his smile said he had been

expecting me. We sat on the back porch. Everything seemed as usual.

Archie lighting his pipe. The desert golden in the evening sun.

Señor Saguaro losing his pants.

Nothing had changed.

Everything had changed.

“Where?” I said.

A corner of his mouth winked open and a silky rumple of smoke

emerged, paused as if to be admired, then drifted off past his ear.

“Midwest. Minnesota.”

“Will I ever see her again?”

He shrugged. “Big country. Small world. Who knows?”

“She didn’t even finish out the school year.”

“No.”

“Just…vamoosed.”

“Mm-hm.”

“It’s only been weeks, but it seems like a dream. Was she really here?

Who was she? Was she real?”

He looked at me for a long time, his smile wry, his eyes twinkling.

Then he shook his head as if coming out of a trance. He deadpanned,

“Oh, you’re waiting for an answer. What were the questions again?”

“Stop being nutty, Archie.”

He looked off to the west. The sun was melting butter over the

Maricopas. “Real? Oh, yes. As real as we get. Don’t ever doubt that.

That’s the good news.” He pointed the pipe stem at me. “And well

named. Stargirl. Though I think she had simpler things in mind. Star

people are rare. You’ll be lucky to meet another.”

“Star people?” I said. “You’re losing me here.”

He chuckled. “That’s okay. I lose myself. It’s just my oddball way of

accounting for someone I don’t really understand any more than you

do.”

“So where do stars come in?”

He pointed the pipe stem. “The perfect question. In the beginning,

that’s where they come in. They supplied the ingredients that became

us, the primordial elements. We are star stuff, yes?” He held up the

skull of Barney, the Paleocene rodent. “Barney too, hm?”

I nodded, along for the ride.

“And I think every once in a while someone comes along who is a little

more primitive than the rest of us, a little closer to our beginnings, a

little more in touch with the stuff we’re made of.”

The words seemed to fit her, though I could not grasp their meaning.

He saw the vacant look on my face and laughed. He tossed Barney to

me. He stared at me. “She liked you, boy.”

The intensity of his voice and eyes made me blink.

“Yes,” I said.

“She did it for you, you know.”

“What?”

“Gave up her self, for a while there. She loved you that much. What

an incredibly lucky kid you were.”

I could not look at him. “I know.”

He shook his head with a wistful sadness. “No, you don’t. You can’t

know yet. Maybe someday…”

I knew he was tempted to say more. Probably to tell me how stupid I

was, how cowardly, that I blew the best chance I would ever have. But

his smile returned, and his eyes were tender again, and nothing

harsher than cherry smoke came out of his mouth.

Angelo via fuckyeahhlove

There is this one elderly man that comes in to the restaurant at 6 o’clock on the dot every Friday night.

He wears the same Hawaiian styled shirt and blue jogging pants. He is 82 years old, and I know this because we celebrated his birthday two Fridays ago. He comes in by himself, sits in his usual table which we already have prepared for him, and spends around four hours there with us. He walks around and speaks with everyone. He knows the entire staff on a first name basis-except for mine since I’m fairly new-and he jokes around with them since he has known them for such a long time.

On the exterior, he seems so happy. Like nothing in this world bothers him. He orders his usual drink and at about 7 o’clock he sits at his table holding his drink in his hand. I warm up some bread for him and he eats in complete silence while staring into space. Unless one of us comes to him to exchange some words, he says nothing at all. He tells me I look like one of his nieces who’s name happens to be Karleta-that’s the only way he remembers my name. (My name is Karla, so it’s pretty similar.) He sits there for hours at a time, orders his meal, his dessert then just sits there doing everything so routinely that it is so clear that he has been doing this for years.

My boss once told me that it wasn’t always like this. His wife and him used to go there every Friday, together. But for the past four years, it has been just him by himself. He lost his wife four years ago. The person he loved the most in the world. Gone.

They had been married for fifty five years he tells me. Fifty five years. Can you imagine that? You spend your entire life with someone, and one day they are gone. What do you then? How do you survive?

His way of surviving is to keep every tradition he shared with her alive. He goes to the restaurant, he sits at their usual table, has their usual meal in remembrance of her. It is his way of keeping her memory alive. He stares at couples dancing with his eyes full of tears, because that used to be him, that used to be his life.

He refuses to dance with anyone and when asked to get on the dance floor, he shakes his head ‘no’ and points at his heart in a symbol of saying ‘I can’t. I’m taken, my heart is taken. My heart belongs to someone, and that someone is no longer here.’

His everything, his entire life is gone. He carries a picture of her in his wallet. A black and white photograph of her in maybe her thirties, sitting outside in the front yard posing for the picture. Smiling so warmly, as if she knew that moment would be captured forever, to sit in his wallet for the rest of his life. He showed it to me yesterday. Holding back my tears all I could say was, ‘She’s so pretty.’ He looked at me, looked at the photograph, and said with his voice breaking while breaking my heart, ‘It has been four years, but I just miss her so much.’

This was the love of his life. His reason for living. He jokes constantly but the pain is so clear in his face in his every movement, in his every word. I try to make him feel as less lonely as possible, by making him laugh and smiling at him when I know he’s feeling sad. I look forward to every weekend, because I know he’ll be there. With a heavy heart, but with his warm and caring smile to share with all of us.

I’m just scared that one Friday he won’t show up, because I know exactly what that will mean. He has given me hope that love is not something unattainable. Love is real, love exists. Undying, unconditional love. He has taught me that. I don’t know if he knows how much he has impacted me. But I know that this is the first time in my life that I witness what true love is. And I learned it through him and a photograph, and a memory.

I just hope that one day I will have someone to love me the way Angelo loves his wife. With the same deep and eternal devotion. That right there, is my deepest desire. I don’t know if that will happen, but at least now I know that it is indeed possible.

Thank you Angelo.

You,

You are officially ignoring me. I am officially hurting. What's wrong? I need to know because I want to understand. You know you have to stop pushing everybody away, including me. That wouldn't make things easier for you.. believe me.

I don't know what's happening but I want you to know that I completely understand whatever it is. I love you and I know you too well. You can't do something like this and mean it. I think you are just giving me the key to leave so that I wouldn't be hurt. And as much as I want to give you what you want.. I can't. I need to prove to you that I can also do things for you. That I love you as much as you do. I miss you so much and if I get a chance I will hug you to make you feel that everything will be alright. In time.

I am not used to hanging around but like I always say, I like you a lot. A whole lot and I have never liked anything or anyone like this before. This is the reason why I am still here. Hanging on. Clinging. Please do not make me give up. It's already hard and heart breaking to live my life far from you so please be kind to me. I know you love me. I just know. And I know what I deserve. We deserve each other. So just please stop all the drama and let's just love.

Me.

I have been thinking about us a lot though... all the moments... I'd thought we could survive anything. But... now for the first time in a really long time, I'm happy. Before I left, you said something that I tried not to hear, but now I... I think you were right. If a relationship can't move forward, it withers. I've been waiting for you to decide, but sometimes, not making a decision is making a decision. What I'm trying to say is... you don't have to worry about me anymore. I'm good. I'm really good. And honestly, I think it's better this way. - CSI

It sucks to admit that sometimes, there are certain scenes in your life that you want to edit or even delete. It's like wanting to not sleep every afternoon when you were a kid and then looking back and saying "Man what was I thinking?" or seeing your first love and asking "Man what was I thinking?". There is always this one scene in our life which defines the type of person that we are. The thing is, you don't know if that scene showed that you're a coward or you're brave, your actions pathetic or scheming and if the decision is a smart or dumb one. You'll memorize each touch, you'll recall every word and you know that it's your heart did most of the talking but whether what you did is right or not.. Not even you can tell. When you look back after so and so years you'll realize that the answer to your question is just right there all along.