What Up, B.

My co-worker and I decided to try out Bikram Yoga for the first time tonight. I've done yoga in the past, often on and off, but it was never in a heated environment. I'd have to say that the hot room really made a difference. There were moments when I thought my head would explode from the heat.

But this isn't about the Yoga. Exactly.

There was a part in the session when our instructor was telling us to think about why we were there. Some wanted to get that summer body, the usual. And then he started talking about people with diseases, how these people thought they weren't strong enough for yoga. And he started telling us to just focus on why we there.

I was there because I needed to find my center. I needed to ground myself on something I could control. Because the past few days have been horrible.

I had to rush Lucia to the hospital because she had a forty degree fever. After a blood test, some harrowing nebulizer sessions, X-rays, and a steroid shot (with all the horrific drama, yes), we later found out that she had the croup. Nothing is quite as terrifying as seeing and hearing your child gasp for air.

And then I realized that I had been lied to—for months—by the person I thought I could trust the most. And that shook me—still shakes me—to the core. I cannot begin to explain how this hurts except to say...

...in between the breathing and the exhaling and the perspiring and the bending and the twisting, I was weeping. It started with just tears in my eyes. And then tears started falling. And then I was heaving, like legit Maalaala Mo Kaya pangit-crying.

And so now, I am drinking my Guinness and eating some leftover adobo, thoroughly, thoroughly, beautifully spent.

And I turn to my silver linings:

1. I did NOT collapse during the session. There were some who tapped out, but my co-worker and I did not. 
2. Lucia is getting much, much, much better. No more fever. And her cough's the gross phlegmy kind now.
3. I found comfort from the most unlikely of persons. Perhaps having been the recipient of the same kind of lies has brought us together. We aren't grieving together (for this sort of grieving must be done in solitude, our levels of pain are different, but pain it is) but at least I know I'm not alone, not crazy. 
4. And I know I'm a much stronger person now. I can do this. 

So I raise my frothy Guinness at you, Powers That Be. I shall overcome. Still I rise. And damnit, I survived my first 1.5 hours of Bikram yoga without quitting.

So, yeah. What up, B?!?

Chunkified for Later

It starts in the chest.

Somewhere. Not the heart—too cliche. Somewhere in the middle. I suppose that's my diaphragm. I imagine it being this mini atomic bomb mushroom and since that whole visualization thing from Lamaze is still in my head, I try to do away with that image. I replace it with a vision of Superman (seriously) carrying the bomb safely out of Earth. Superman throws the bomb miles and miles away into the great nothingness and I watch it (yes, I've become Superman now) as it explodes safely away from everything that matters.

That's what happens when I encounter something that's troubling. Sometimes, I am able to process the massive wave of emotions and ride on it, hanging ten safely back to shore.

Sometimes, though, I need more time to process things, so I take them in chunks. I take the situation apart, appropriate the categories for each chunkified emotion and set them aside for future consumption.

—

A former student of mine died last week. He wasn't just a student, he was my kid, part of my first ever moderating class. He died. He's dead. He's no longer with us. 

Saying these things ought to make it more real to me, but it still feels strange and painful all at the same time.

There are moments when I look to my right, and I see the memory of him. We used to carpool every day and we shared the back seat. He'd always be on the right, I'd be on the left. And so now, whenever I sit on the left side of anything, I shall always think of him.

He was a quiet boy in class, was never an aggravation. He was my beadle, so I managed to speak to him every day. Such an efficient boy, hardly ever absent.

He was more troubled than he led on, but that's how he is—was—he didn't like to be a burden to anyone. 

How I wish he had unburdened himself to someone, to anyone, to me. But.

—

I'm watching some kind of slow yet (definitely) un-quiet implosion take place. I vacillate between wanting to help and getting hit by shrapnel. I suppose I should just stay away.

—

Lucia will be three in a few weeks. She's growing so fast. There are times when Chad and I will just say (to ourselves, to each other), "Ang laki na nya." One of us would say it first, and then the other would say it, even if it was said just moments ago. As if the repetition would somehow slow the process.

But she is growing and blossoming and...I still wonder how I will ever become worthy of being her mother. She says things that blow my mind, does things that make me tear up with pride, and understands way too much. 

We decided to hold off on the play school/daycare since she's looked after by either me, Chad, or the yaya during the day, but next year, she'll be starting school. I am excited and fearful and, goodness...let's chunkify this emotion. Let's deal with this later.

My baby. Ang laki na nya.

—

I am happy where things are and where things are headed. 

I'm not going to Pollyanna this thing though. I am fully aware of the extraneous variables that need to be addressed, need to be removed. But things are where they are due to hard, ongoing work and prayer. And I am grateful. Ever so grateful.

—

And everything else.

—

His anger came from the stomach.

Rest in peace, Billy. Rest in peace, Kurt.

Because, This

No matter what, it will still be about what is important. 

And that means finding out what isn't important and doing away with that.

Objectification

I had another tsunami dream.

I was in some resort with my family. My brothers and I were exploring the place as my parents were sleeping in our room. For some reason, the resort was deserted, but I didn't feel scared. It didn't even feel weird. My brothers and I went down to the pool area but found it boring, so we went to the gate that fronted the sea.

The waves were huge, like buildings—but calm. The water was a deep blue, almost like it had been dyed. The waves were constant and kept coming and coming, but there were no whitecaps. Just a calm onslaught, if such a thing were possible.

And then I woke up. And that was that.

---

Before falling asleep last night, I remember telling myself, "Hmmm. I feel blue." Not sad, not angry; no intense feeling of anything, just...blue. I contemplated on whether or not to take my for-emergency-only medication, but I wasn't anxious, I wasn't panicking. I just felt—yeah—blue.

Sometimes I feel like my sense of calm is being poured on top of me, like water. It cascades from the top of my head and then the water makes a deliberate path down my body and then envelopes every inch of me in this thin, protective layer of moisture. For a while, everything is all right. The water cools me, calms me down. And the moisture stays.

After a while, when I feel the calm escape me bit by bit, the moisture becomes this thin layer, like plastic wrap. I don't know if this happens automatically or I somehow trigger this. It becomes a barrier of sorts. When things become more difficult to handle, the barrier thickens and thickens and thickens until...

...I am now in a glass case that's formed to fit my body exactly. I can still see through it and people can still see me, but it's getting harder to move. Getting harder to see. But I'm not panicking. I still know what's going on.

The next stage is akin to the shedding of old scales by reptiles. I can see that, at some point soon, a tiny crack shall appear in this glass case (either by my doing or some outside force) and that shall signal my eventual exposure.

It's a vicious cycle, but, as with all routines, it also gives me a sense of calm. For as long as that cycle continues to turn, I know I am still alive. Every click that indicates movement is a signal of another breath taken.

I can now somehow objectify myself, something I wasn't able to do when I was in the depths of my depression. I am able to sort of hover above myself and zoom in to the parts of me that are identifiable.

I am a weather station map. I see the storms that have left my area of responsibility, I see the ones that are coming. There are parts of me that are obscured by the claw-like wisps of the outer fringes of a storm.

I am a ticked box in a check list.

I am the hastily written marginalia on a book.

I am the un-highlighted portion of a heavily highlighted law textbook.

And that is that.

"And, where there is objectification, there cannot be participation, and without the availability of participation, there cannot be presence." - Jill Graper Hernandez on Gabriel Marcel