Moi (Over and Over Again)

*Getting back to blogging: My files were bugged. So I tried to recalled how and what I wrote originally and glad to have with what I came up with – simpler and bouncier (I think so!).

Always think of Me, become My devotee, worship Me and offer your homage unto Me. Thus you will come to Me without fail, I promise you this because you are My very dear friend.

Excerpts from One Night at the Call Center, Chetan Bhagat

     And then the word drama was given birth. With the mention of it comes what silent tears are from bold ones. What pain is after what love was. Bitterness gets unfolded still we manage to laugh mega tons. Yes, drama is what makes us human. Before my Creator cease my inspiration-expiration, I want to share pies of me to those who buy me.

   

    16^th April of 1987 was a celebration to both of the humans who waited for nine months completing their union as family. I was christened Crista Dad picked from the male character of a novel he read. The simplicity of the name, I wanted to think, reflected all that I am. I am the sixth grandchild from my maternal family and first from the paternal side. As I grew up, I came to look after my Dad. Everybody who knows my dad says I am his female version. Yep, more of the physique. Of large calves. =) Igorots are known for these though because of uphill and downhill of their geographical location. Months after, a brother was born and was named Jamie, sounds more of a feminine name, but his fine features disagree. Then came my baby sister four years his junior. Her name Carmilie was too complicated. Mom said it was misspelled during her registration at the hospital where she gave birth when it should have been spelled as Carmille. Five years after Cara, our baby brother Joseph, named after Dad’s favorite nephew, came.

  My father is one ideal by his successes in life as he measures these. His paternal stance I cannot question but we grew up fearing him. I was six by then when we went off to the community’s limit to have snail picking from people’s rice paddies. Snails are destructive to rice plants so farmers get rid of these and would be grateful if picked off from the paddies during planting season. We went hopping from paddies to paddies when we came across a ravine where I lost my balance and slipped off. Dad outstretched his arm and told me to just stay calm or the more I would move with the mud slide. He was my first hero.

    One morning, I was sent to an errand by Mom. I came back knocking by the door playing a vendor of vegetables. “Pechay! Pechay! Pechay!” I knew my pupils dilated to see the mini stool thrown to me. I was not hit though.

    Discipline was all he wanted to plant in our heads. The bigger burden was mine for the reason I am the firstborn. We all had his/her own stories of being reprimanded even before eyes and ears of neighbors. A key be lost and the whole of the family would go tracing the pathways from school back to the house with him and his lines of blah-blah.

       Mom tried me for my first taste of school. I showed up a very unruly kid pulling every girl’s hair and taking every boy’s thing. Then I found myself being taken cared by an aunt. I remembered how she cajoled me with a talking-walking-and-eye-butting doll to stay with her. Her Cloud 9 treats were magnetic, too. Being away from the way things were like sleeping and eating with the whole of the family was tear-jerking more with the sight of passing buses bound home. It was the age of setting my mind how family was of value to me.

I started grade school at seven. I was never keen to think then my parents were not that proud to attend details of my elementary school because of their job. They let my grandfather. In place of my childish whims and caprices, Grampy filled all the longings. Grampy was a big love those days.

The first quarter of my first grade was like torture missing my family. A neighbor-classmate-playmate accompanied me to our empty locked house and I don’t know if she can remember how I pounded the door crying out Mama! Mama! Mama! The afternoon dramas I was always eager of to get home and the Sunday’s ABS-CBN’s ”Ipaglaban Mo” were favorites of mine. My friends would cry with me during “MMK” episodes. Lola would knock on the wooden floor from the second story of the house to signal it was time for bed so my “Home Along Da Riles” or “Okatokat” sequels would be undone. Weekends were TV times for “Power Rangers” or “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

The following school year, Jam started his first grade school. He was one special being hard up in his lessons. In him I was took into the realm of the eldest sibling that I was. I knew I could not do more but wipe his vomitus off the coffee table one time he came home from school feverish.  An aunt in the house to attend to our needs was an idea to be grateful of. She would prepare me an alcohol bath after wheals from the guava tree or pick my nits after toweling off nymphs and adults alike from my head.

No one would like to be called anything like a bad kid but one time I got so naughty and took sticking an aunt. Maybe I thought how come she did not come spanking me but heard just a squeak from her twice or thrice. I did not expect my mother would do the pinching to make me go before my aunt and say sorry. It taught me how wrong was wrong.

I grew up to parents preoccupied with paperworks. Summerbreaks were busy-as-a-bee for my parents hitting their typewriters. Tagging their sleeves for a while was a disturbance to what they said preparing for our future. All that you would hear were do not’s. Once must be enough because naughtiness was equal to a snap. Not taking your burger right away and if being taken by somebody else that you would get interested on would heat up Dad. Seeing kids with chicharon or cotton candy in the park was told something not to be envious about.

Scouting was fun where I was away from family and be with other people. No parental restrictions. Feeling the eager-to-be-grown-up me being a Star Scout. So the kilometer walk to the jamborette site and poses before mountains and cloudless blue skies were priceless memories. Our troop leader was also our class adviser whom everybody turned attached to. Her request of stripping all the decors after she said she was leaving sent us crying only to find out there was only a repainting of the room to be done. A pet peeve I did not like to be identified with was a special feeling other than a relative would like me because I was good in class. My teacher oftentimes commented how good I was in spelling but berated me in numbers.

Second grade was more and more fun as I befriended a newcomer in the school who was a cousin. She had this long tube from a waterway and told me how it was to be a telescope. I nodded in agreement though I knew it did not enlarge the object but just focused the vision. She showed me her Chinese Checker board and taught me how and beat her in our first games.

Third grade meant moving to another school when my parents told us to move with them. I felt a confidence alongside my shyness when I introduced the flow of a morning program we used to do in second grade.

My parents’ nature of work forced us to move to another school after just a few months. New teachers, new classmates and a new environment grew me shyer. Maybe I was really good in class but after knowing that my adviser was a relative and added to that she was also a co-teacher of my parents doubts me today how all the medals came to my chest.

I made few friends sticking to the fewness. My first bestfriend who liked singing was my co-performer before an uncle’s wake and had been a buddy during lunchtimes and our doctrine of accepting the First Communion. We were separated by school and I found another bestfriend. With her I found the naughtiest of me. Crushes. Breaking into a classroom? Stealing a classmate’s notebook?Pocketing $+*|?* goodies? (Kids, never try these!) Weaving lies to my parents. Running away from a neighbor’s guard dog from where I took a scar on my upper lip when my knee bumped up my chin upon jumping off a stone wall.

Memorizing was an enjoyable thing to me. The dates of history. The regions of the Philippines and its capitals. The terms that killed me my college days. The apparatuses. Science was a forte of mine, at least made my way up to the provincial level during fairs. There was that time I missed one fair because my adviser woke up late and no ride to take us to the competition. It was a frustration to a science fan.

I was given a summer where confusion about what adolescence was, my menarche. I liked that fuchsia walking pants Mom bought me matching stains after I came from the computer tutorial Dad enrolled me into where I had a good-looking instructor but had this terrible breath. Summer breaks always brought me firsts of things. La Trinidad had this hanging bridge over which I had all the fears in life that it took me time to take a step over it. Dad had me a baggage to carry thru it that my shivers were longer than the bridge really. The girls were with Mom while the boys were with Dad one summer Mom enrolled units for her doctorate degree. We came to the boarding house all wide eyed to see my brothers seated by the door like alms seekers. The next day, Mom with my sister and brothers travelled back home and I was left to a co-boarder’s care. My mom handed me a thank-you card to message on and give to the kind co-boarder. The grateful gesture I carried with me up to now. Mom quitted summer classes and stayed with the family since then. That same summer, the six-some family went to see my mom’s sister and family for a beach experience. It was I think the first and last time to be together out of town. The shells and corrals we gathered were varnished by Dad and now are in the family’s mini reading hub at home.

My academic status I could not see smiles on my parents. Instead my flaws in the chores mirrored me. Our daily tasks were typewritten and posted on the wall for us to check. Mine, of course, was the longest one.  My parents I did not feel pushing us to extra-curricular. I was lain flat on my face when I did not make it to the science high school Dad wanted me to be. I was left to choose between a trade and a Catholic school. I went with my secondary school in the private school. I lost track of my academic distinction and it was where the slapping of Dad to me how important to him academic achievement was that I did not know.

The four years of my secondary school was a hurdle enough to have left me almost broken (to my OA-ness)? I thanked the itching mouths of people I claimed friends, little slips of the tongue blown out of proportion, misunderstanding stirred and relationships stained. I wanted to do things again. Impress my adviser with inch thick prints submitted late when she only need just one. Show my music teacher with lots of indigenous instruments when she required just a few. Join a choral singing and end doing a lip synch. Bring a sackful of empty bottles when I was told just five. Raise hand to do reporting in MAPEH with misspelled name of an athlete because of my astigmatism. Say a nasty thing as stigmatism instead of astigmatism in the principal’s office on my excuse letter. Do wall arts and be bullied about it by a classmate. Wear a mid-thigh shorts in a cheering exhibition and watch out for my crush’s eye direction and get disappointed to not even mind you existed in the world. Print word of gratefulness anywhere a term paper saying how good the teacher is even after she reprimanded you for telling something bad about her better-half. Fight your bestfriend for getting close to the teacher you dislike much. Reconcile with an ex-bestfriend and do crazy things and fight again. Hand a slum book from door to door to all your crushes. Wear baggy pants before a guy chiding you with his ILYs. Sleep over with a friend and get home to meet your mother along the way rushing a baby brother to a midwife for some antipyretic. Be OC with notes rewriting with small mistakes until notebook thins out due to tearing. Have eyes only to shut off at dawn after desktop overheats due to editing over and over. Escape the house thru the window to see friends at night. Swoon over boybands that dominated the music of your generation. Bryan of Westlife was my illusion date for times, my deviation from the peak of my growing years.

Dad came home one time telling me to try the Philippine Merchant Marine Academy. I made it to the two written examinations after which Dad accompanied me to the academy for the physical exam. I completed the dental prophylaxis and drowned myself with Cherifer^® to no effect, not even a millimeter.  My growth plate nowhere to work. Then came the DOST scholarship but I was denied of becoming a scholar. Left choice was Benguet State University. I enrolled Bachelor of Science in Forestry and boom! College turned my life in 360 degrees. My heart was like shrinking my last days at home packing stuffs to live in the sub-urban dormitory with total strangers. So the deal with culture shock my psychology teacher shook me for months.

Whoah. Forestry subjects were too fun I almost forgot how I swore to the stars I dreaded algebra for the 3 mark. I remember crushing on my botany teacher and wrote an anonymous Valentine note and he said he knew from who it was actually. I also have this big crush on a senior who was a basketball star from our college team clashing with other colleges during the university intramurals. The hysterical calling on him that distracted the group’s rehearsal for a stageplay left a punch hole by my girl groupmate on the green board. (I don’t know if the board was already replaced.) Oh the cutesy excuses. At first I was late during the college sportsfest and I was to pay an amount. He bought my plea twice when I was not able to join a college meeting. I shoot him hundreds of texts but when he said he wanted us to see a movie when I said no. A very right answer because a few weeks after, I learned he had his girlfriend having their daughter. I with an older dorm mate met his younger brother to confirm so I tried staying away from my phone sending him texts. His cellphone numbers should have not found its way thru me if not for his classmate who I learned to call Ate used his number to text me and encouraged me to text him. She even said he could like me. We ended Facebook^™ friends after his constant asking for a date. With his marriage status?

Along the way I considered shifting course. I liked how was it to think to be called doc with my frustrated childhood dream to become a pediatrician. I went for two successive summer classes catching up for veterinary subjects required to have the National Veterinary Admission Test. It was rewarding to know that I was reaping the best of grades from the class. I personally heard what a praise from a feared professor for his strict disposition.  

The medical course I thought was cool with the white garbs were un-glammed with fecal and bloody matters. Tearing up once, twice, thrice and every bit of frustration of not meeting up to the passing rate was the trend. Health issues I had to endure because of wellness overridden with the large enthusiasm for veterinary medicine. A big gratefulness over antihistamines, NSAID, topical creams, antibiotics, cough suppressants and mucolytics. Covering the stresses in a while was the annual socialization where every vet student had to be cladded formally before a sumptuous dinner to gyrating to loud music.

Flunking pharmacology was the biggest flaw I ever had my vet student days. Waiting for the next school year for the same course to be offered chanced me hopping from organization to another. Another detour, I had to take my basic medicine the second time. It meant more organizations to attend to. My vocal exercises I thanked for the Student Catholic Action of the Philippines for serving as choir in weddings or Holy Eucharistic celebrations. Guesting in the priests’ rectory for gustatory experience and a night at the bar with female friends to whisk away brittleness after exams, I did them once. The acquaintance parties with The Philippine Red Cross-Benguet State University Chapter and the Mountain Province Students Organization were chances for my happy tummy. My pen days with the Gray Owl, the official student paper of Benguet State University-College of Veterinary Medicine I always look back on. I put a smile on my face when I think of Kalaleng who first believed on my writing from where I started writing more proses and poems. The Ladies' Dormitory that catered to my sleepy days for many years in the university was an icon I have painted with ROYGBIV.

The biggest affluence my university days was letting the venerable fold touched my life. For my third attempt, I was let in.

In just a year or so, I reached the University of the Philippines-Los Baños, the Central Bicol State University of Agriculture, the Visayas State University, the Cavite State University, Ole Veterinary Hospital in Rizal, the Cagayan Regional Research Center and the Isabela State University. For the first time, I was merited by my leadership I never thought I had. I was simultaneously holding three positions from three different student organizations during my graduating year with my thesis those times. Upon looking around my fabulous co-graduates, I had in mind I was shining inside though I was the plainest and palest looking. The college publication of which I was the editor-in-chief published two issues in a year after years of publishing just one, and the Venerable Knight and Lady Veterinarians Fraternity/Sorority of which I was the Grand Lady received the award Most Improved Organization of the Year.

Still in my naughtiness, in between seriousness over studies and various extra-curriculars, I ended my long-time infatuation with an ex-seminarian. When he called over a phone, I read he had gone long so mature he wanted to settle down but he came to the wrong person. A city walk with a guy who I thought was just a friend when he grabbed my hands and seemed not to let go, I changed my SIM. A married man hooked with my charm I had the hardest time explaining things could not be, I lost my phone, accidentally?

Friendship with girls alike neutralized all my heart-crying-over-boys. Burnham Park, Center Mall, Good Taste, boiled corns and more street foods were our happiness. They were the best people to go to after you failed your midterms, submitted your course requirement and a nice comment in Facebook^™.

Everything, I once heard, has its end as we think but actually is the beginning. Graduation took its toll and then the board exam. Dad had these praises to my sister who made it to the DOST Science High School at least in two years and passed the elusive admission percentage of Bachelor of Science in Nursing. My sister went straight with her studies so we graduated at the same day, took the board and had our licenses all in a year. 2013 continued to rain blessings on me. The Philippine Daily Inquirer published my article I never expected and it was the best graduation gift.

After the oath taking, I, with a sis from the VLV, started to profess our chosen career in a small animal clinic of a bro from the VKV. The questioning look of clients on a young practitioner was some blade cutting through me without anesthetic. It pained me more when a non-vet graduate persecuted what I was doing because of his claimed length of stay in the clinic. It timed with the hospitalization of my dad that I left and decided to look for another workplace. Another published article about my apprenticeship on veterinary medicine was a nice goodbye.

Enough for the three months and helloed myself in another small animal clinic. At first, re-uniting with friends to work with was next to happiness. Before I was to complete the eighteen month contract, a business partner and I was able to put up our own venture. (Not to think I am one kind of selfish, I do not want to stagnate with a budding business so we hired somebody to run the business.)

I also had my share of ups and downs for a year and a half that I had gone thru. It was not about talking against somebody but showing someone they could learn from me. It is not also licking wounds of yesterdays or investing too much emotions for waste. As they say, wiser is the person who can learn from somebody’s experience than from his own. I learned that to signal positivity working with anybody else was approaching him with a warm smile and a firm handshake. That did not happen so I guess I knew it was not long that the rubbles would soon go down on me. I dealt with saying no to a drink over my unacceptable insomniac nature, putting down an invitation for an overnight swimming in place of a good night rest, sending home dead and dying patients, injecting a single drug to incapable clients, bruising feedbacks from customers and holed-and-patched-but-holed-again rapport with co-vets. When I was nearing to accepting to living with the social life of my employer, I accidentally hurt my vestibular nerve from a firecracker explosion. I spent my New Year’s Eve on a hospital bed. Thanks to my “superhero” that night who tucked my bulk from the bedroom to the car. I was diagnosed with bronchitis and discharged still dizzy and sweating on my palm and underneath my soles.  There must always be this gratitude after the company of a co-vet during duty hours and the use of the SUV and payment of the medicines and doctor’s fee from the employer.  I don’t want to add the grateful heart being crushed with audible insincerity. My “superhero” convinced me to have some fresh air so the decision of getting home was made. I sent a polite SMS to my employer who replied with an insinuation I could really leave for good. Still, I thanked him. I considered myself technically jobless before I received the confirmation I could start back anytime. I came back, in my mind, only to finish off the signed contract. I struggled on for months the resistance of leaving until the PM came up. None could sponge away the pain accumulated my |\|**|-, days. I could not fire back when I was confronted after I e-mailed my resignation letter because my tear ducts were more pressured than my vocal chords could sustain. The PM I presumed the root cause was an immature basis why things were so hard on me. He even added, he had been receiving PMs alike long before. If firing back was easier done than said, I would have lamented my lines, “So you have been receiving bad things about what I was and am doing in your clinic. Did it not occur in your |>?*|~*$$**|\|*|*$|\/| that you should have frankly told me that I did wrong things and this or these must be the things that I should do. Not this way you go to my friend and workmate and rant about a PM. With the crying spell, you even dared |)*|?|\/|*|_ (*|\|+*(+ as if your way of pacifying will do anything. While co-vets sucked with clients, you went clearing everything nicely. With my case, you did not even bother to ask not a single question what happened before assassinating me. Lest done in a front stabbing not the back way.”

There was more happiness than wallow in the opposite pole. I was able to connect to the most unexpected friend those times, at least thru the net and SMS with my messages summed:The first instance I met you, I remember I tried not to, was when you brought your pups for their first shots. I was computing how much you were to pay when you butt in saying some discount and you even said I may go ask the owner of the clinic so I did, thinking you were really one special acquaintance or even a distant relative of the proprietor. Later to know that there was really that client from where I was posted who oftentimes ask for discount. With your next visits at the corner of my eyes, I tried harder not to look at the name of the owner. As I was stamping the cards, I mis-dated the shots and you whined the cards were dirty so I gave a new set of cards. Your mom was even there puking up on me.

On May 21, you claimed your right to freedom of expression. The mentality that runs all customers alike is that they are the aggrieved ones, and that which they are always right. Not even a hint of regard to somebody who did a favor off duty hours?  

For two meetings, I was left in the clinic while all vets were gathered. It was ok with me that I was not invited over because I opted really not to be. Thanks to a frat bro in the VK/VF/S who happened to be the bf of my senior vet in that post. He went asking me how was I treated by my employer and from that I sensed something was to come off. He begged of beforehand not to involve his girlfriend on what he was to say to me.

And thanks to a friend who shed some light on me. I went scrolling the social medium that had become my favorite since 2010. There! I found two posts from two different people who I thought were harmless as they had been face-to-face.

I wanted to sound like I was hurt like hell so I squeezed my tear glands and with it came out my beautifully crafted resignation letter. The realization went that if for this matter a boss could forget |>?*|~*$$**|\|*|*$|\/|, my practice would die away with me. For two nights of thinking over, I e-mailed my RL. Insert here a heavy drama scene where the next day an employee was expecting to be put to hot seat about the cases she handled. The first lines left were like semi-painful and still she could hold back the tears. With the mention of she was supposed not to be coming back after that January incident when she went home for an approved leave, she cried real tears. She excused herself to fix herself at the back when her employer rushed after her and hold her back and shoulder. When she was to turn towards the restroom, he sandwiched himself between her and the restroom door. Fighting back the tears that had profusely dripping off her chin were too late so she steadied her palm across her wet face concealing her shame to the last bit. She was offered a seat and then she found |-,*|\||)$ /<|\|**|)|)*|\|&  |-,*|? +|-,&$ to whatever purpose.

Many were caught surprised by how we became toned as friends. Did you know that after the heavy tearing up, the first to bring a happy curve then to soft laughs to my face was you? I dated Mr Google^™ finding some facts or lies and I learned what mushy choice of songs you have.

The chat and SMS are not solid base we are upscaling off friend zone. In time, unplanned or planned, we’ll meet eye to eye.    

Oh h*ll, ye, this flamboyance when it comes to human relations.

I can take time to cut papers all night, print on them messages and singly hand deliver them to friends even to thirty plus of them during occasions or simply to just say my thank yous.

Even more flamboyant with guys. My sparring co-vet was caught into it. Blame me for my sweetness, or over-generosity? He was Superhero010114 who met his +*|\/|*% friend thru me. I actually finished some phrases for the story but I accidentally emptied the recycle bin. I gave him all the space he needed for the board exam and forgave him for counted replies but with these went trying to re-focus my thoughts about him.

I have another memory about wristwatches when I was at the height of my infatuation with a seminarian. I thought of giving him the gold *|)’/$$*’/ for men I took on a family exchange gift one Christmas but I gave him a Christian book instead. Mom later took the watch for herself.

Moving back with time, I was once stacked on asking a favor from a cousin, listening out to a sorority sis, going after an instructor’s plea, sticking to a fraternity bro and setting aside an awakening personal issue all at the same time. I was told by the adviser of the publication of which I was the EIC and who for how many subjects was an instructor of mine came to me saying my sorority sis being delinquent in her classes. I felt dog tagged and stood responsible. This and that happened until it showed up I had the affection with the frat bro I thought had died years ago.  Back in our senior year in high school, I had an extra-effort-exerting classmate winning me thru his song compositions but snubbed. We exchanged numbers sometime back in college but I lost contact with him with my lost phone. I tried retrieving connection thru his cousin who was my friend but said she had no ways. I tried to surf the net for his name but no trace even for namesakes.

There is more to life than all the drama and it is where I found solace with my fondness of books. Flicker on my laptop and scroll on my current reading or flip pages of my favorite authors. Thanks to my parents who taught me how was to put books not only to my life but to all of us siblings as influential.

When all the drama dies its natural death, another life springs itself. A celebration to that. Food is the number one that comes close to it. It creates ripples of recalling childhood times – carefree and all. Eat the stress out!!!

Or if not, set dates of seeing your friend’s kiddie and have fun with them. An energy drained for the day is worth the endorphin released after. How I adore kids a lot.

Of course, none can parallel His grace. Call on Him. When I get to new places, the first that comes to my mind is where the nearest worship place is. Wounds are healed and so get scarred. These make us beautiful. Less frightened to try new things. With it, the discovery of who we are, what we can do to be of something the world won’t forget about us. Then the only left thing would just be but gratitude.