The following is a long, up close and personal take on my life so far. And by “so far” I mean just this weekend. That being said, I made absolutely no attempts to make this appealing by conventional standards. Best of luck and thank you, reader.

Grandmothers are sick.

I visited my grandmother last Saturday. Friday night’s booze and hangovers tried to keep me on my bed the entire day but the thought of visiting the woman who raised me got me through. Also my best friend since elementary wanted to hangout and get drunk, so yeah, hit two bird with one stone that faithful Saturday. I entered our ancestral home, the one I grew up in, carrying a big paper bag stamped with a gigantic bee head and yelled “Naay!” (it means grandma) I pushed the door to one of our rooms and in it were my cousins and my aunt, circling my grandmother. “Kuya Jake!” (kuya means big brother), my youngest cousin greeted me with a smile. His smile was joined by the others when I said I bought burgers but warned them that the fried chicken were for grandmother and I. As the gods ate my offerings, I sat on the bedside, staring intently at my grandmother as my mind cannot grasp the reality it was facing: this isn’t the woman who raised me. The woman who raised me wakes up at 4 AM everyday to cook rice and food for us. The woman who raised me does the laundry and even irons our clothes even if we strictly “forbid” her. The woman who raised me was allergic to the idea of us bringing our lunch to school because the food won’t be warm by the time the clock strikes 11:40 AM (my old elementary school, which my younger cousins also now attend to, had an early lunchtime). She cooked for us and had a tricycle bring our food to school everyday. The woman who raised me often asks my auntie if we’re coming over for the weekend (I left our province for the city to continue my education) so she can cook my favorite sinigang na baboy and heat the food when we arrive. The woman I was blankly staring at can barely utter words. Almost instinctively, I laid my head down to her chest while gently caressing her arm. In response, she squeezed the skin of my right forearm as the words “masakit ya” (it hurts) escaped with her breath; she was vehemently against slapping or pinching as a form of disciplining ever since. She’d go in between my parents and I whenever they were reprimanding me for something I was definitely guilty of. As if losing breath, I sat straight up and gently told her I finally got her the 2-piece fried chicken she’s been asking me to buy. Being the eldest grandchild and the first one she raised, my heart can’t say no to her in the same way she never said no to me.

As I finished dinner and prepared to go to my best friend’s place, my dad crossed my mind. It was when I rode the tricycle I understood why. All those tears he struggled to keep inside whenever we visited my other grandmother, who suffered Alzheimer’s, began to make sense as the wheels of the vehicle started rolling. He, too, was well-acquianted with what I experienced last Saturday. The pain of undoing. The pain of seeing good people suffer for what seemed to be the equivalent of all the good they have done.

I lost my friends, and am losing my cousins.

If I were to be tattooed with a branding iron it would spell “desperate-to-find-a-tribe” because as far as I know, the moment I left my province for high school, I have been tribe-less, friendless, and whatever “less” you can come up with that involves friendship. Every circle I’ve entered and managed to be part of ultimately leaves me. Now I can count with my fingers the times I was blameless, but I guess for the most part, I am at fault. I tried hindering my weird habits and be normal but it didn’t work. I tried changing my personality to blend in with a certain crowd but it didn’t work. I went full-blown weird and didn’t hold back and…hey it worked! Worked. See, October last year, I found my tribe and I couldn’t be happier, plus you won’t believe where it all started: in a family gathering. YES, those usually awkward events where aunties seem to have scripted lines about your weight, your relationships, your plans for the future and when you’ll get married. THAT kind of gathering, except this one went off script. Instead of insulting me like how a “good” family gathering should, it went rogue and gave me the group of people I’ve always dreamed of: my cousins and relatives of the same age. What followed were months of bliss and contentment that I didn’t mind being jobless back then, yet as those days unfolded, the pessimist in me rose from the grave to nag…or so I thought.

He was right, my pessimistic side. Or was it I was right? In many ways, I knew this circle wouldn’t last. My dream of having “sophisticated” friends who didn’t shy away from the deeper questions in life disappeared without explanation. I’ll write about it some other, maybe.

My girl isn’t always there for me (she has more pressing priorities).

Don’t hate on her, she was my world and that was my mistake, it’s something that never should have been. If you are in love with someone right now then heed my warning: never put anyone on a pedestal and make your world revolve around him or her because the moment you do, everything you do will be about that person. You have to be you without depending on someone. This was the harshest lesson that I learned probably because I needed it.

Growing up having everything I needed and wanted, it was difficult to process someone saying no to me, directly or indirectly. Such was the case with my girlfriend who was born on the opposite side of the spectrum. I showered her with the attention, affection, love, and everything else that I expected would be done for me, except that didn’t happen and I either coped with it or throw tantrums and be dragged. Long story short, she isn’t always there and you can interpret it in anyway you want to. The acceptance and the understanding that she won’t always be there for me, regardless of how much I need her, made me more enduring and self-sufficient. It is a continuous, grueling, and sobering experience that I won’t have any other way.

With what’s happened and is happening in my life right now, am I crazy to assume that God wills my solitude? Am I wrong to think that He is preparing me for a life to be lived alone? As an only child who’s losing a pillar of his life, being constantly left by friends therefore having no intimate relationships or consistent shoulders to lean on to, I’d say it’s a fair assumption and is a foreshadowing of my life in the distant future.