Raising my son and raising myself

I am a parent with one child.
The way I was raised is not the "acceptable" way of raising a child.  My parents were both strict and loving.  Though I did rebel in a lot of ways, I wasn't a bad child.

My son can be very similar and very different to me.  I liked being alone, I detested having to share my room with a sister who I always had to look after, take care of... Especially when I was young, I wanted to be left alone.

My son wants attention. There are times he wants to be left alone but he is strong outside but fragile inside.

I am afraid that one day, he will kill himself.

I've already lost one child.  People who read this blog - me and like 2 others probably..., no that I have already lost a child. I do not want that to happen again.

But how?

Last year, I witnessed depression and fer grip my child, he was just 8 years old and I couldn't help him.

This year, he has taken on a violent nature, and I still can't help him.

How do I do this?

I feel like I am the one that needs therapy.  I also need help.

Is there a place that I can go to for help?

Isolation Journals

I have actually been catching up on the Isolation Journals prompts to be inspired to write everyday.  Isolation Journals was started by someone named Suleika Jaouad who started this as a daily creativity project to help people during these times of quarantine.

I've restarted this blog which no one reads because any output from the prompt does not require an audience.

This daily prompt does help me when I am in a slump.

I want to write everyday because it keeps me sane and if I don't have any other topic in mind, this really helps.

So for some insane reason, you are reading this, why don't you sign up and give it a try?

Fear

Fear is an irrational emotion.   Other people can look at something I am afraid of and never understand why I cannot sleep or breathe whenever I start to think about it.

I understand that. I respect that. I can also look at a spider and wonder why some people have panic attacks from something so little.

I feel my fear as a coldness in my heart that spreads to my hands.  Not a simple feat considering the high heat we experience in a tropical country on a day to day basis.  I feel it as a know in my chest, as a paralyzing agent in my veins.

I run from fear. I am not brave.

I fear my job and I want to run from it but I do not know what I can do.  I need work. I need money but I feel like I lost that feeling of loving work.

I don't know if it is just Covid and the quarantine.

All I know is I am scared of it. 

Let's see if I can find either a yoga or meditation app to help me.

Nathan's Letter

Dear Nathan,

I am posting this because as we are in quarantine because of the Corona Virus, I have decided to start blogging again.  Blogging is such an old social media trend, I doubt even your younger brother knows what it is about. 

Yet here we are.

When I lost you, blogging helped me to ease my pain.  Writing does help. I've always written down my thoughts or stories in journals even when I was a child. I actually thought I would be a writer but, like everything else, I am not disciplined enough to follow through on that talent.

I am writing to you because I have never written to you.

I barely knew you. 

In the one day and a half that you were here on earth, I spent less than 2 hours with you - something I will always regret. April 18, 2019. If I had the ability to go back in time, I would go there just so I can spend more time with you.

Which is probably why when your younger brother was born, the moment I was taken back from the Recovery Room, I went to the Nursery immediately.

I sometimes imagine what you would be like as a child. You would be 11 years old now.  I imagine a soft spoken boy who loves to read books and write like me.  Circumstances of your health will probably lead you to more indoor activities unlike your brother, but you will be braver.  Going against the odds would drive your life.

Maybe one day I will write a story about you and your brother.

I also want to say sorry for missing your birthday. April is usually the most emotional month for us.  A lot of our family members die during April and I feel most vulnerable during April.

It is my birthday but something bad always happens to me.

Having you was the best.

Losing you was the worst.

You will always be my firstborn.

I love you.  Till we meet again.

your Mother.

40

To be fair, the answer to life, the universe and everything is 42.  However, 40 is still a pretty big milestone.
I've had a fairly good life. I've had bad years and I've had good years. 2009 was a bad year, 2019 and right now after reading my other blog, apparently even 2014 was bad. 
In my experience though, years that follow bad ones are usually good and I had such high hopes for 2020...
Three months into 2020 though and we have gone through a volcanic eruption and a pandemic. My son, who was such a sweet child before suddenly became a demonic teenager and has decided to start fighting me.  Work is okay but I am under so much stress I wonder all the time if this is really right for me.
I feel like I am always being thrown into a situation that I am not prepared for and it is exhausting.
I missed my solo trip to Japan.  I was so worried of catching the virus and risking my family that I decided not to go anymore.
So no marathon, no solo trip, no hotel staycation and I barely managed to buy myself a cake.
We just went through one quarter and I feel like this year is so long.
Though looking back at the last 40 years, I have been able to accomplish a lot:

I ran a marathon even if my heart could not technically handle it.
I went through two miscarriages but
I had a child even though it was impossible to have one.
I swam with sharks - reef sharks and a whale shark.
I went to Europe on my own.
I broke an ankle.
I lost weight.
I've drunk so much I forgot what happened except for the throwing up part.
I performed in front of people multiple times.
I've climbed mountains, dove down the sea...
I've gone to Japan 8 times now, across all 4 seasons.
I found my soulmate.

I'm basically ticking my bucket list.

I just need to write all this down, finish my novel and I am good.

I just need to survive.

Here's to the next 40-60 years coz I plan to live till I am a 100 or at least live my life to the fullest.
Wish me luck.

Linux forever!

I got a new mini laptop from my dad. Not an HP Mini, but an Acer mini laptop. It's so cute because it comes with a small Linux OS. I've taken the challenge of making it into the ultimate Linux companion. I need to be able to take it anywhere with me so I need it to be legal and optimal (hence Linux). I also need it to be compatible to the top 5 things I need a laptop for:

1. To store and edit my photos
2. To study Japanese (ebooks, programs, dictionaries, japanese input compatible)
3. To write stories, blog entries
4. To download stuff - bittorrent compatible
5. To do some minor programming when the bug hits me

So far, I've chosen Ubuntu as my main Linuz OS. It is a user friendly interface and they have an OS especially for small notebooks like mine.

So far, I've downloaded it. However, I need a usb drive for me to install it in my laptop who I now baptize as "L". For Linux, for Life and of course, for the Death Note character. I'm sure Neal will probably try to name his laptop now that I've started the trend.

I'm so excited I want to go out and buy myself a laptop skin for it. LOL.

the new house part 1

I wanted to create a photo montage of everything that has happened but I was way too busy to actually find the time to get pictures taken. So here's a brief summary of what happened:

Dec 19: Move in date, got most of the stuff from my old home, Anahaw and my dad's apartment into our new home. We are still missing Neal's books from Bulacan. We got them all stuffed into the 3 bedrooms. The dog cages and the gate just got delivered.

Dec 20: Overall status: No chairs, no tables, no kitchen, no dogs, no food to speak of. In the bright side, our appliances, minus the oven, got delivered. On the other hand, since we weren't connected to Meralco directly, we couldn't use any of them T_T. Our kitchen and sala set also gets delivered! Hurray for us! We also borrowed some tools to be able to finish our dining table since we only got the chairs set up. Neal's mom came home so we picked her up and made sure the other bedroom was at least livable.

Dec 21: No one came!!! No deliveries, no workers, nothing! So my mother in law and I went to Alabang Town Center till Neal came home and had dinner there. We also rearranged the house to look like a house. We also bought the one thing that would save us from hunger: an electric griller.

Dec 22: Our sala set and kitchen gets finished. However, we lacked granite so I had to go around canvassing. I wasn't able to get the color I wanted initially but I still got the black one ^_^ The oven also got delivered. It barely made it through the assigned space but at least it did.

Dec 23: Neal started working at home so I at least got someone to help me find laborers to install the granite which was delivered this morning. Neal's mom left early this morning and the gate finally got finished.

Dec 24: The screens got delivered and installed! No more mosquito bites. The granite part of the kitchen has now been finished and installed as well. Woot! Amazing how fast people work on Christmas Eve. However, we still didn't have gas so the kitchen was just somewhat functional.

Dec 25: Christmas! I spent it with my family at ATC hehehe. We also bought an AVR so we could finally plug in stuff. The refrigerator was finally alive!!! Cold water tastes great.