photo source: http://blogs.targetx.com/pbu/Sam/2009/03/

I’ve spent the last week looking at stuff. Yes, stuff. I have been at the mall for two days straight, and not buying a thing (Except food and a replacement mouse, my third in 3 weeks). It’s been nagging at me, how much fun shopping can be. It is. The girl in me longs for shopping trips, walking around the mall like I used to for hours, calling it exercise, but actually checking out The Gap and Topshop for things to buy the next payday that comes along. It was fun. I was alone, but I felt freer being by myself. I could check out stuff as long as I want, go to the stores I wanted to, without apologizing for the time I was taking since it was all mine. (And the sizes I ask for, kept a secret between me and the salesperson, the tag could always be snipped off later hee)

But I digress. I’ve seen people (not the people I was with, coz they deserved that trip) throw away money on stuff they forget, not use, or break after a couple hours. And I think, the person I was with summed it up perfectly (and my mom says the same thing) in a sentence “Work, and you’ll find out the value of money.” It’s true. I’ve never realized how hard it really was to make money until I worked. Years of blowing my allowance on useless things that I admittedly didn’t really like, have turned into carefully looking at stuff, weighing if I really wanted it or not. Not that I’m short on money (on the contrary, I’m much more comfortable now, doing something I really like), but I know now, how hard it really is to make it. I work for a living, and I’m really lucky to be doing something that I really like, but not everyone has that luxury.

Some people are even luckier, and get everything they want, without even lifting a finger. During sleepless nights of work, and dreading waking up to a bunch of emails about tasks, I get a twinge of envy, yes, I’m only human. But if my parents ever taught me anything, it’s the value of making it on your own. Even when we were kids, we couldn’t point at stuff in the mall and just get it. We had to save our allowance for it. My parents provided all we needed, and sometimes gave us gifts all of a sudden, here and there, but the common rule was, if you wanted it, save for it. Very practical, these people. We never hurt for things, if anything, it taught us to really work for what we wanted.

As a kid, it was easy. We were doted on by relatives from the US and my grandma in the province, sending money almost every month “to buy whatever” or “to go out and celebrate” every little thing, every little achievement. It was a cool deal. Even if i was the worst at saving, I still got to buy what I wanted, thanks to those relatives.

I finished college and the privilege of being sent money by relatives I grew out of (well, some relatives still send a bit, to those who do thank youuu), deemed too old and should make money on my own. It was freeing, not having to ask for money from my parents, and actually helping out a little at home (key word is little, I’m not rolling in dough ye know).

It was also a little bit frustrating, being disciplined about money. I felt like an adult. (In any civilized society I do realize I’m considered one) But going through, I’m a bit better about it. I can actually buy the things I want, and still have a little bit left over to treat the family on food and go on dates.

I work. I bought all of the things I have, with the money I sweated for, bled for. Go on trips paid with the money I saved up. The proudest of which is spent on the people I love, making them happy with meals, or buy gifts that are just perfect, or take them to where they want to go.

I guess I’m glad, of my middle class life. I have enough to be a little carefree. I don’t have too much to just throw it away, to realize how good I have it. And I have to thank my parents, and God for providing me with the sense, the ability to make it.

I work hard for the money. And it makes me better for it.

A friend who works at Starbucks just posted that Red Cup season is about to begin (If I’m not mistaken, November 2 is Toffee Nut day 1!), and as I’ve been pondering the past few times I’ve been to bookstores, it’s whether I’m gonna go through collecting stickers this year, for the ubiquitous planner that almost everyone considers a “must-have” every holiday season. I’ve had one for every year since 2006, the first two years were from copious amounts of caffeine and five pounds added to my frame, the next, from friends and connections. Those planners chronicled every little thing that went on in my life. Everyday filled with bits and pieces of my day, those I considered, well, important enough to want to remember when I unearthed them the next year or so.

This year’s planner, has well, been neglected. Truly and utterly more than half blank, and it’s almost October. It started when I first got it, I wanted the cherry version and got the one with coffee beans, though equally pretty, I was holding out for the cherry one, for I love cherries. (Even coffee cherries) Next was the bulk. This was the bulkiest planner I’ve ever had, and even if I do carry huge bags and backpacks, the hard binding, large size, and weight of the thing was too much to carry everywhere. It simply didn’t fit. And the pen, unlike the others’ was unreliable and easy to lose.

And maybe, this year was a whirlwind. I can’t even believe my ears when I hear Christmas carols on the radio. It still feels like last year, when I was making promises to get back to Baler for October surf season. Or was fresh off the Cebu trip wanting lechon by the bucket. Or planning to send Christmas cards to everyone I knew (and for the third year, did NOT do). It’s still a little hazy, the year that has been and is still going on, that I’ve wanted someone to document it for me, or hit myself over the head since I didn’t do it myself. A lot of milestones. A lot of new things. Crazy good and crazy awful things have happened. And this is the year I didn’t jot it all down.

I guess I’m thankful in a way. That a lot of nights, I’ve been too tired to do anything but wash up, brush and fall down the bed. Promising to fill in the previous day’s activities later that day, then forgetting coz I went to do something else. Repeating the cycle for a week. then a month, and now, a flurry of blank pages stare at me when I try to look back on my year on specific dates on my coffee bean covered planner.

This year, I lived my life. I know how lucky I am to be doing that. And when I do want to remember, I figure, those days that are important enough, i’ll never forget.

So will I get a planner for 2011? Maybe. Just for the Toffee Nuts.

Yup, those are my lips on the card.

I have only had 1 person comment on my lips, my friend Anna did, when I was a model for her makeup class more than a year ago. I don’t really notice them until i bite them and they bleed, or they feel dry and i swipe them with chapstick.

See, I don’t know much about this girl stuff. I’m hardly one. I had my mom do my makeup for years until Anna came along. My idea of having my hair done is getting a hair spa so it smells really really good. I paint my nails then scrub to remove the excess.

I think you get my point.

So I never really thought about that kind of thing until she told me that she really liked the shape of them, that they were easy to put lipstick on, asking why I don’t wear red lipstick more often. I replied that I invariably eat my lipstick.

What can I say, it was an honor to pose for this card. For one, Anna is the only makeup artist  I would trust to do my makeup. (She really is talented! She did my makeup for the Christmas party last year and I felt like a rockstar.) And two, I don’t really pose for anything. I had one shoot for my friend, and the pictures felt stiff and I don’t know angles and shiz like that.

10 minutes and a conference room later, (plus a little help from Ronan to put a card in between the lips and change the background and teeth hues) voila, a business card is born.

So guess what, Anna Angeles clients, that’s little old me on that card. And, you really should get her, she rocks the house.

And thank you, Ms. Anna Lorraine, for one of my favorite photos.

this is a real business card, if you’re interested in getting Ms. Angeles’s services, call the number on the card. And if you want pictures of her work, go to www.facesbyannaangeles.com

OMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOM

My grandmother passed away 40 days ago. While I was having the time of my life with my friends in Palawan. We got a call from my mom to tell us that she had passed away after living a full life. She was 87.

I didn’t cry. I think I was the only one in the family that didn’t. I didn’t cry because for me, I had lost my grandma years ago. What was left was literally a shell of this person that I knew for my whole life. A person, that in the last years of her life, wasn’t even recognizable to me.

See, my lola was and will always be known as a businesswoman. It was what she did best. She attracted money, and she knew how to make it grow. She, after being a teacher, opened a simple business and supported not only her family, but all others who asked her for help. Coz that was what she knew how to do. She did not raise her kids, someone else did, but she made sure that they were fed every day and had the education they deserved. When people asked her for help, when they could not pay for their kid’s schooling, she lent them money. She lavished gifts on everyone she took a liking to. She showed her love the only way she knew how, through material things.

I am not judging her ability as a parent, her two kids grew up well. After losing her husband in his 40s, she was a single parent. These two kids sprung from a single parent household finished school, raised kids, knew how to be firm disciplinarians yet show their affection in unique ways, that you had to know them to appreciate how they did it. They, my father and my late uncle, were not the most affectionate, not the most verbal sorts, but they, as they had grew up on, asked for the best of us and made sure we never went hungry and never to want for more. Prudent, practical men, they were the products of a strong willed woman, this woman that was never the cloying type, but never left you by the wayside either.

She went through a lot. Like I said, she lost her husband to a stroke when they were still young. My uncle, even younger. Died at 42, the only person left in her house, she took it as a huge blow. And i can never imagine the pain of burying your own child, I hope I never do. After that loss, it was only my dad and us left as her immediate family, and we did what we could to be there as often as we could. Strong, smart and independent, she refused to live with us in our house and stayed in hers in the province. She liked it there, she could go to church everyday, take care of her business. It was the place she knew and loved, and we understood and went there weekends to show our support, basically just showing her she still had people for her.

I don’t know if it was the right decision, leaving her to be. She went to our house for New year’s eve every year, but she didn’t like it, was always asking to go home as soon as January 1 rolled in. After years of calling every other day, she called less and less, finding comfort and affection in the hands of her househelp, who had been with her since i was a kid. Making a few decisions that didn’t go over well with my parents, there was a time she stopped calling at all.

She put her trust in the wrong person. I guess she was so starved for affection and attention she didn’t know, or didn’t even care at some point that she was being robbed blind. All her savings, everything, was wiped out, bankbooks cleared, debts incurred in her name, jewelry and other valuables, stolen.

That’s when we lost Lola. The thievery was only discovered as she had to have an operation for a broken hip. When checking for money to pay for it, it was only then that it all came to light, everything was gone. The help, disappeared with the boyfriend my lola let stay in her house because he could give her what we couldn’t, attention she badly wanted. Affection she craved and lost when she started pushing people away.

After the operation she had to stay in our house, we couldn’t find anyone to stay with her. And the woman who stayed with us, I didn’t know. Spouting hallucinations and ghosts and insane ramblings of a woman broken were what stayed with us that year. We could tell she was unhappy. Temper always up, always an argument here and there. She missed her home and even if it was empty, she longed for it. After a year, when her helper agreed, she went back to the house she longed for.

Even if it was somehow worse, bouts of dementia, losing all the weight because she couldn’t eat anything with salt, she looked happy. Between the hallucinations and the gibberish, there was a smile and a laugh. Everything she said, even if it was unintelligible, was punctuated with a laugh, and a silly grin that growing up, I barely even saw.

The last time I saw her was June. It was one of the times we went home to the province. As I went into her room to say goodbye, she laughed, in her made up grin and said something intelligible. I brushed it off and didn’t think anything of it.

August 16, 2010 she passed away. After years of Alzheimer’s and dementia, I was told she was lucid for a week. She had a chance to say goodbye to the few people who still visited her. She called out all our names that day. But in essence, she died alone. No family beside her, no friend to hold her hand. She died as my uncle died. Of negligent care and of loneliness.

At the funeral, as I saw my cousins, my family, some of her friends sob, I shed a couple tears. Not because I lost her. I knew the person in the casket, and the person who lived in that house, wasn’t her. It was a shell of her. I cried because of my father, who did not deserve all the loss he has suffered through in his life. And even if she was just a shell of her former self, my father had lost the last binding family he had in that house. I cried for the loss of my family, I cried for the days to come when everything had to be resolved, as there always is after a death.

She lived a full life. She had kids, got grandkids, had a bevy of friends, indulged herself, lavished her gifts on other people. She lived. And she lived the life she wanted to live because she had the means to, means she took care of on her own.

They say of everyone, I’m like her the most. The features, even the demeanor, the coldness. I am the most standoffish kid in the family. I like material things. I do not take the time to be there for everyone. I pick favorites. I have a temper. I am selfish.

I am like my lola, and I hope I learn from her mistakes, her accomplishments. Her face I am carrying and her legacy, mine to take care of. And I hope, that when I die, i do not die alone. And I know now how not to.

I really have a thing for desserts that are both hot and cold. 🙂

I’m still reeling from all the things that have happened in my life the past month. Suffice to say that my life has been turned upside down and shaken like a snowglobe and nothing looks the same.

I quit my day job. I up and left the company I’ve called home the past 3 years, basically the only place I’ve known. Made friends there, lost them, found loved ones, kept them as well. In the end, the only thing that kept me there was the emotional ties that I realized, would still be there even if I wasn’t going to the same office every single day. And if I did lose them, if that was the only thing keeping the friendship alive, well, it’s not worth keeping anyway.

Not to discount all I’ve learned and experienced from the place, coz I did. I think I extended the reach of my internet know how and how the e-commerce market works from the best people there is to learn from. I had it great there for sure, it was, and still is, one of the best companies to work for, the best group to keep you happy when the job itself is making you nuts. Definitely a fun and supportive department for anything an employee, nee a person could ever go through.

It was time to move on. They deserved 100% of my time and effort and due to extenuating circumstances, I couldn’t give it to them, even if I wanted to. And it was killing me that I couldn’t. So I handed in my resignation and said all I needed to say about the company that brought me to where I am today.

But my friends, the friendships that I hold closest to my heart, I couldn’t, and I didn’t say goodbye to. Til now I keep expecting to wake up at 5am to get to the office by 7, to eat breakfast and complain about the food choices, or ogle the billboard from across the window. I have not been able to go visit or even talk to them as often as I want, but that’s gonna change as soon as I become more adjusted and mobile. (hear that edsa? I’m terrorizing you soon.)

This is not a farewell. This is just a warning. That I’ll be back. I’ll be there as often as I can. I have more time now.

Do you still want me there?

*Find a Jollibee to hug.*
Hey, lemme tell you today, that you are lovely. Just the way you are. You don’t need to lose five pounds. Someone, somewhere, you might not know it,(or if you’re really lucky, you do) someone is in love with that sideways smile, or that crazy laugh. Remember that before you think that there’s never gonna be the one for you. Just wait. You’re wonderful, you’re smart, you offer the world a lot more than you give yourself credit for.

And yes, I’m talking to you. You might not feel it right now, it might be one of those days, or you just feel invisible in the sea of dolls and long legs, but I am talking to you.

Stop beating yourself up for the one that got away. They didn’t deserve you coz they didn’t see you. How wonderful you are, how loving you can be. They didn’t take the time to know you.

Have fun with your life. Forget about finding “the one”. Forget about the endless search for the right person for you, just let them find you. Coz if they’re smart, they will. And really, do you really wanna go for the stupid ones?

So hey, chin up. You’re alive for a reason. 🙂

I am very happy that I am a private citizen. While I am a gossip blog addict and a blogger, I couldn’t imagine living my life for everyone to see.

You might be saying right now, “This is coming from a girl with 4 blogs to her name”. Yes I do blog, I do share my thoughts and sometimes pics of the people I love, but I choose what to share. It’s not a life like those people who have photographers running after them hoping to catch every slip, every mistake.

And it’s not just celebrities. I can’t do the whole Facebook thing, posting all I feel when I feel it for the people they’re connected to on that thing. No judgment on those people on those who do, in fact I admire people who can put it all out there. Those “I love you @significant other” posts, living your romance in front of all your facebook friends, is for me the equal of writing poetry and posting it on your blog, too soul bearing for me. 🙂 PDA for the 21st century, whole relationships can even be printed out on a Facebook news feed.  And even if I do get the urge to do that sometimes (coz hey I get the butterflies too) I resist it, as I believe that if you live in public, you crash and burn there too.

I am afraid. While I love the idea of sharing how happy I am with my friends, the times that aren’t so happy I couldn’t bear to have all out there in the open. And from what I’ve seen, even the changing of a relationship status is cause for comments and questions I sometimes don’t want to answer.

Things go sour, things get tense, people leave, people arrive in my life, and for the best, stay there. They know how important they are. I might not shout it from the heavens right now, but that doesn’t mean i don’t feel it. And that I’m trying to keep it secret. I’m just trying to keep it sacred.