Long days come with a little more reflective songs on the playlist
If you keep reachin’ out
Then I’ll keep comin’ back
But if you’re gone for good
Then I’m okay with that
You can listen to Maggie Rogers tear your heart out HERE
The human heart was—and remains—a mystery to me. But I’m learning. I have to. —Anthony Bourdain
Long days come with a little more reflective songs on the playlist
If you keep reachin’ out
Then I’ll keep comin’ back
But if you’re gone for good
Then I’m okay with that
You can listen to Maggie Rogers tear your heart out HERE
I’ve been thinking about my relationship with my home in the past month. Seeing friends early in the month that said “I didn’t think you would be in the country now.” and getting the “Where in the world are you?” text made me take a good look at where I feel most home. And this song really hits that chord:
I’ve been seeing lonely people in crowded rooms
Covering their old heartbreaks with new tattoos
It’s all about smoke screens and cigarettes
Looking through low lights at silhouettes
But all I see is lonely people in crowded rooms
This city’s gonna break my heart
This city’s gonna love me then leave me alone
Working from home and mostly at night, and controlling my own noise a lot of the time has me overwhelmed when there are crowds, and Metro Manila being the second most dense city in the world, it happens a lot. But this city can be a little disconnected unless you make your own community. But it’s home.
It’s been a quiet, tiring week, perfect for listening to The Weepies.
With lyrics like these:
The metal straps upon my knees made this sound when I fell
You heard those words from your peers, I was just your volunteer.
And these:
How your life cuts me, it cuts to my bone.
We pretend that it’s nothing, when we’re on our way home.
And I wish you’d abandon me here so I could be your volunteer.
It’s hard not to feel it all. Listen to The Weepies’s Volunteer here.
I’ve sat upon the setting sun
But never, never, never, never.
I never wanted water once
No never, never, never.
Listen HERE
Sometimes you just need to listen to Cat Stevens. -J

Because sometimes we all need just a little moment of peace.
Overthinkers here we go:
I’ve spent three hundred sixty-five days
And fifty-two weeks in my brain
Goin’ over the same thing
All my friends make sweet fun of me
I guess it’s funny but the truth’s I bruise easily
And sure, I’m down to be the joke
Metaphorically though
You could flip me inside out and they would show
Black, purple and green
-J
And it’s still going.

I’ve been so grateful to have my friends around to start the year. It was too short, and also a lot of things at the same time. I could feel my brain overloading and needing just a sit and a rest for a few hours. I space out — just feeling content sitting in the same room with people I love, on my side of the world for once. I recognize how rare an opportunity this is for us to breathe the same air. To just hear them laughing not from a microphone.
My life is different from what I thought it would be growing up. It’s filled with pockets of sunshine when the dark that I deal with every day threatens to take over. When the voice in my head saying that there is no good to all of this really, I get a random text from someone I love across the world, reminding me how much there is for me to look forward to.
Maybe it’s the lack of sleep that’s talking. -J

Lately, I keep catching myself letting out, or gasping for air. I literally keep holding my breath and don’t know why I’m doing it. I still don’t. But it’s now an annoying reaction to a lot of things.
Maybe it’s a reminder to take deeper breaths. Maybe it’s an indication that I’m holding inner tension. All I know is that it’s an inconvenient reaction to things that I’m trying to understand.
-J
Less than a month after we lost Chester, our last dog Backo left us too. He was six and got sick really quickly. It was the first time we had to decide to end a pet’s pain. It happened very quickly, and the vet that helped him go over the rainbow bridge was kind enough to let us do it at home.
I’m grateful. That he didn’t suffer long. That we were able to say goodbye and help him through it. That it went peacefully. That we could afford the choice that didn’t force him through more pain. But for the whole of his existence I felt bad for Baracko. I should, and could have done better for him, but I didn’t.
So now we are a dogless, Chesterless household and now going into a new calendar year, we’re not any closer to being a home good enough for a new pet to be in. And i’m not placing blame unto anyone in particular. I’m hardly a rabbit mom sometimes, the amount of time I’m not home. I know I can only do this because Joannaman loves Peeper as much as I do. And I’m lucky to have that. And I admit I was not that when she needed me to for Oprah. And I will carry that in my conscience for the rest of my days.
So I’m asking the universe to stop challenging me to scar tissue and to please just send me kindness. A gentle breeze instead of the rough winds that have been ripping through my emotional sails.
Please?