reading dj's last blog entry (on the temporarily closing down his blog site) made me think how well people know me. i guess it will be good to write something that is not fodder for everyday conversation - probably something that you actually reserve for those really serious times where you would want people to see what's behind what they see.
few of my intel friends know what my family is like - and since only a few people read my blog anyway (let's keep it that way), there's really no danger of this spreading too much. like most families, mine is far from perfect. in fact, i used to think my family was way screwed up that (as dj said) seeing families who were perfect or near-perfect made me wish that my family was like that. dad worked in 'their' sorta-family business (typewriter repair & selling, but where are typewriters now) and mom was really the one who had the stable job. mom worked as the executive secretary for wyeth for i think more than 35 years - this is why i have high regard and respect for admin assistants & secretaries. kahit na mostly administrative work ang ginagawa nila, they are REAL work na nakakapagod din (this is why if i can do it by myself, i don't burden any of our admin from doing it). i know, cause mom was always tired when we went home back then.
mom was the one who supported all three of us in our studies. dad did chip in on our 'baon' from time to time (pero those were irregular and can't remember times). i cannot imagine how hard it must have been having to send all three children to private, exclusive schools (don bosco makati & colegio de sta rosa) and then again off to college (de la salle & st. scholastica). i remember only got daily 'baon' because we couldn't really afford weekly or monthly allowances. i guess we had to live with managing expenses & our budget on a day to day basis. mom had additional income by becoming a SM guarantor and also through deferred payments (4 gives e!) we managed to buy home & school stuff.
i managed to afford going to la salle only because my tuition was partly subsidized by my OCE (our children's education). Partly because the plan we could afford was good enough for schools where the tuition was lower (UP, UST, Mapua, etc) so we had to pay an additional amount to bridge the difference and my last year in college, we were paying for the whole amount already dahil di na covered ng education plan ko. i used to dress up really plainly (shirts, shorts) in college because we couldn't really afford buying a lot of clothes. Di nga namin kaya afford bumili ng giordano back then, hahaha. purita kalaw ng konti di ba?
my younger brother was my dad's favorite. in a way i was mom's favorite because i took my studies seriously. today, my younger brother is a useless parasite who has no work, who lays down all day, who's such a lazy pig. He had a promising job before but he quit - hirap daw e? e ano bang madaling trabaho? He's 28 and he doesn't have a freakin' job. Feeling inaapi pa palagi. Drinks a lot. Kung makagamit ng ibang kotse namin, kala mo sa kanya. Hindi man lang nagpapaalam. He's super lazy it just freakin irritates me.
my sister is ok, but she can be a freakin' bitch. when she talks back to my mom, she's very disrespectful and she yaks on like forever. Tangina, can't they shut up once they said their piece? why do they have to repeat it like a broken record? Are we deaf? She also doesn't know how to manage her money. She's freakin' 33 and from time to time she still piggybacks on my mom to buy stuff for her kid. C'mon, grow up! we're not kids anymore!
brings us back to my dad. well he stays mostly in mandaluyong now. he goes home only during the weekends and for a time, we knew he was having an affair. i really don't know if meron pa din up to now but i don't really give a damn. wag lang syang hihingi ng pera para dun sa ka-affair nya. dad & mom are civil pero before there used to be really bad fights/ in fairness to my dad, he never hit my mom or any of us, but he verbally abused my mom a lot. there were fights that got so bad that i took a knife one time and threatened to stab him if he didn't stop.
so you see my life is also pretty much screwed up before pero i guess in a way it made me stronger and hungry to succeed. lea & i used to have talks about what our life was before - she said that there was a time na they only ate once a day kasi yun lang ma-afford nila. we agreed that the hardships we encountered and we endured made us become better persons. sure there were times i used to cry and despair - sabi nila "the world has bigger problems" pero bakit ba? my problems may not be as big as the world, pero they're my problems and i'm entitled to cry over them and lose sleep over them. pero after crying over it, its just time to move on. The world indeed has bigger problems and that should be a comforting thought.
so for those of you out there, hang in there. we all can't be at the bottom forever - well we will, if we don't work on it. there's really hope for all of us. Sabi nga "Life is hard for all of us - that is why there is a great reward at the end of it."
well i don't mean, we should just die to reap the great reward. we should make life meaningful, our life meaningful. Not letting those baggages weigh us down. I'm not really perfect, i get pissed off still, i answer back to my mom sometimes but those are rare occasions now.
looking around me, i know there will always be other people who are better off, who will always be wealthier and happier but that is the reality of life. We are not equals (at least in the status of life). But each one of us deals with different complexities in our lives. God does not give us crosses we cannot carry - that is the universal truth. At the end of the day, we just have to play with the cards we've been dealt with.
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