COVID-19 lockdown diary: Fleeting thoughts

I.

A power maintenance in my condominium building that was scheduled an entire day brought me to my younger sister’s apartment in Pasay city some weekends ago. There, we exchanged stories about how we’ve been over the past few months, as she indulged me in vegetarian meals. Yum!

She had previously told me about her purchase of stylus pens, which made her artistic pursuits more convenient. Among my sisters, I’m the only one who had no skill in drawing. I made up for that in my typography hobbies.

Given my preference for writing with pen and paper, I hadn’t been able to keep this online journal as updated as I would want to. I borrowed one of my sister’s stylus pens to get a feel if digitally handwriting notes would work better for me, then decided it’s worth a try.

I asked my boyfriend for a stylus pen — red, of course — as an advanced holiday present. It is now what I’m using to draft this post.

II.

When stressed, my previous immediate supervisor tended to blurt out, “My life is in shambles.”

I’d always thought of it as an exaggeration until I adapted the quirk myself. I think it was bound to happen — we always learn to adapt to our surroundings — as my boss and I were always together and communicating with each other due to the nature of our work. At some point, colleagues who were not part of our regular team said we sounded the same: the same expressions, the same inflections, the same manner of speaking.

In times of great distress I found myself uttering those five words. And, to me, the shambles did not refer to anything material. Life just sometimes has its way of making you feel like you’re falling apart.

III.

Once, I had this nagging feeling to reach out to an acquaintance. I didn’t know much about her personal life, and our interactions were limited to when we first met in a conference and when she called to interview me for an article she was writing.

The only thing I knew at the time was how I haven’t been seeing her bylines for about a week then.

I wanted to say a quick hello, I hope you are doing well amid these trying times — but I fought the urge. Days later, I found out her mother died of cancer. If I had sent her a message the time I felt an inkling to do so, I could’ve given her some comfort before the moment of grief came.

Since then, I keep reminding myself not to let those little, unexplainable urges pass. It could be the universe’s way of informing me that there is a need somewhere and maybe I could fill a void.

IV.

On the 23rd of November, we commemorated the 11th year of the Maguindanao massacre — which has been regarded as the single deadliest attack against journalists and the worst case of election-related violence in the country’s history.

Last year, the local court convicted several masterminds in the decades-long case. While it spelled victory to a long-dragging trial, many other suspects continue to roam free and we fight for the recognition of the massacre’s 58th victim, photojournalist Bebot Momay, whose remains were never found.

While Momay’s dentures were discovered on the site, the judge dismissed the 58th murder case as it did not establish that Momay was indeed killed in the bloodbath that followed the supposed transport and filing of Maguindanao Rep. Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu’s certificate of candidacy for the province’s gubernatorial post.

What bothered me during this year’s commemoration was a photo of a marker that stands at the National Press Club compound, which was etched with the names of media workers who died in the massacre.

^ Photo from Jun Mendoza

It bore the following text: “Go tell the world journalists know how to die”.

Thing is, we’re not supposed to know how to die. That there are so far 191 journalists killed in line of duty in the country since 1986, according to the National Union of Journalists in the Philippines, is testament neither to our bravery nor our martyrdom in the name of truth-telling and public service.

One death is one too many. If anything, the spate of media killings only shows how the government is remiss in its duty to protect its citizens.

V.

The study of love languages has always fascinated me. It’s essentially a way to understand how someone relates to you.

My partner and I used to have big arguments before I knew about love languages. Interestingly, my main love language is his least favored, and vice versa. With the cognizance though of how we tend to show and prefer to be shown affection, it gets easier to strengthen bonds.

Love languages don’t apply only to romantic affairs. Sometimes, I would try to think about what my friends’ love languages are and see if there are some changes I can do in the manner by which I interact with them to make them feel more appreciated or supported. But my personal bias for affirming words would always win.

(I have this theory — I’m not sure if there’s any study supporting this yet — that our love languages depend on the sort we received too much or too little in childhood.)

So, I often pepper the people I care about with messages of encouragement, gratitude, and support — and, of course, I mean them every time — but maybe this is, at its core, an exercise in vanity. I, too, hope for someone to give me words of affirmation and mean them.

VI.

Some people say time is relative: that it goes by swiftly when you are having fun, and it can be painstakingly slow when bored.

To a degree, I agree with this old aphorism. The pandemic has made 2020 so painfully monotonous, yet, now that the year-end is approaching, the past several months start to feel like a blur. Where has my time gone?

And I know, I know, that the present is all there is, so we ought to make the most out of the time we have. But... everything still feels like a droning dream. I don’t know what to make of it.

VII.

Some quotes from the pilot episode of former US First Lady Michelle Obama’s podcast from months ago, where she and her husband, former US President Barrack Obama, spoke about, among others, generational differences in the approach to politics, society, and life...

“When in doubt, rely on hope.” — Michelle Obama

“You’re not supposed to have it all because that means there won’t be enough for others.” — Michelle Obama

“We’re constantly nervous where we’re going to be in this Peking world. And that then reflects itself in our politics because, at a certain point, you know, I’m going to start thinking about politics in terms of how do I protect me, not how do I look after us.” — Barrack Obama

VIII.

In one of my last teletherapy sessions while on lockdown, my psychologist told me, “The more we get older, the less we have patience for other people’s shit.”

I never liked playing politics. When I was promoted to a more managerial role in 2017, one of my superior’s first pieces of advice was to learn to play the game. It’s been a frequent source of surface tension between me and some higher-ups since then. No, my insistence and doggedness didn’t affect my performance or cause any rift in our working relationship, but the push-and-pull had always been lurking like shadows.

When my clearance was signed, the same supervisor told me this:

Hi, Cherry! Thank you very much all the help. I honestly think that Docucentral could never have survived without your organizational skills, leadership, patience and maturity. Your firm hand at keeping everything in order and everybody in check was the secret to making sure the cogs of the team were working like clockwork. Good luck in your bagong lumang trabaho. Learn to adapt and adjust. Not everything is black and white all the time. Sometimes there are bitter pills to swallow for the greater good... specially when you’re looking out for other people’s welfare. I know we don’t see eye to eye on that. But I just had to say it anyway. I will pray for your success. It is not far away.

Some recent events pushed me to scrutinize workplace dynamics. It’s always been clear to me even before I entered the workforce that the only way to survive a dog-eat-dog-world is to not be a dog, and the rat race, to not be a rat.

Especially in the newsroom, I think it’s a sin to get caught up in office politics. Sure, politics is not inherently bad, immoral, or unethical. But when self-interests and professional expediency become prime motivators in compromises, then that, to me, is a red flag. Politics in society is already so muddled as it is. It’s self-serving and vain for journalists to get involved in Machiavellian affairs when duty already requires so much work outside the confines of the newsroom.

IX.

In many ways, the pandemic forced me to maturity. It’s an unwelcome effect of the self-isolation but one I’m grateful to have been quite accustomed to by now.

I think of the phrase “forced to maturity” as both a hackneyed expression and a cruel curse, and I hate to admit that it seems to be my life’s recurring theme, in the sense that I’ve been repeatedly thrusted into positions before I believe myself to be ready for them.

It begins in childhood, when my mother had to leave to work overseas, and I was tasked to look after the homefront. I was 8 then. If there was any resistance — after all, wasn’t there someone older than me who should be taking charge, as I am only the second-born child? — I kept them to myself. Now that I think about it, I may have always enjoyed responsibility. Then, again, many years later when I was made editor of a national broadsheet at 21, and an associate and program producer for what was historically the country’s largest media network at an age that was decades younger than the average of those holding similar positions.

How the pandemic changed me by hurling me to an unfamiliar territory lies in my newfound awareness of self-governance. Because establishments were closed for months due to quarantine restrictions, I had to bring the accountability back to myself.

When, pre-pandemic, all I needed to do was line up in our office cafeteria and choose my meal among a selection of concessionaires and their menus, this time I had to buy my own groceries and prepare meals myself. Where, before, I could easily bring my pile of dirty clothes to the laundromat when I don’t have as much time to wash them myself, now I am compelled to face the chore I hate the most. (It helps that I discovered my washing machine plays Franz Schubert’s “Trout” at the end of a cycle.)

This time, due largely to my previous company’s retrenchment program, I have all the time I would need to do anything I want. No more excuses. So, I’ve read more books, experimented more in the kitchen, and finished more chores during the past eight months of lockdown than I ever did in the past decade since I lived away from my family in the province.

X.

This is genius. •