un-sink

[un-sink]

hi all. currently not posting on here because tumblr still hasn't reinstated the edit post button. you can read my newer stuff on Medium: medium medium.com/@clrmmo

[un-sink]

i'm tired of everyone assuming what i need instead of just asking me

i wish you'd just ask me. like all of you. i don't think it helps me that literally nobody asks. that's why it feels like all you know are my social media posts. you've never needed to ask ∵ i'm loud online. but that's because i don't have anyone to talk to. it's a nasty feedback loop.

but i even feel itchy asking for that much. i'm not your responsibility. that's why i try not to bother anyone and just lay it all out online because i don't know when a good time to talk to you is. i really am not your responsibility. you shouldn't feel burdened to help me. it should be your choice and at your own time and pace, especially because you have a lot on your plate. my struggles with my disability are my own.

i'm not saying i won't give you time to make sense of this, please take the time you need. i'll need time too. i just hope you can also consider the fact that i don't need anyone to move mountains for me. i just want to be able to talk about things without anyone thinking or feeling that it's their problem to solve or that it's their fault. this is my problem to tackle within myself. i don't need solutions. i need a friend. actually we don't even need to talk about my disability exclusively. i feel like i've stopped being a person and i've been reduced to "the friend who went blind." i know that's not how you feel, but that's what walking on eggshells around me does to me. i'm desperate for at least one thing to be stable, a solid presence not revolving around my illness. i guess i thought i could get that from my friends.

i feel alone, as pathetic as that sounds and as hard as it is to admit that. remember you all have someone, a partner, to lean on. i only have you guys.

[un-sink]

She Was Courage, Strength, and Commitment: A Tribute to Trans Woman Revolutionary Dee "Ka Dahlia" Supelanas

My last memory of Dee was when she agreed to emcee for the journalism workshop of alternative media organization Aninaw Productions. I was the head editor then and organizing the workshop was challenging as this had been in 2021 and travel was still restricted due to COVID—not to mention my own limitations as a lupus patient—so the whole 3-part workshop had to be held online.

This was a very stressful time for me as I was approaching the final exams for the first semester of my master's degree, alongside continuing my organizing and journalism work virtually.

But Dee had a way about her, an aura that just put you at ease. So when she agreed to the task—and even assisted beyond that—I knew we would be alright.

Dee had a soft nature at first look, but once you got to know the firm student leader, you couldn't ever question the authority in her voice, her sharp analyses, and the way she held herself. Her conviction in her willingness to learn and improve in her work as an activist and organizer could not be denied.

Dee was a year younger than me and a fellow student at UP Cebu. She was part of the first batch of freshmen who underwent the K-12 program and had only entered college as my batch started our senior year. With three years between us, UP Cebu's population was smaller than it had been. This presented a challenge with organizing, but Dee and her fellow student leaders at that time held strong and persevered because they knew victories aren't won overnight. From the beginning, Dee had always showed dedication to serving the student population and other sectors outside the university.

I'd worked with her in multiple campaigns. There were many nights spent poring over the best ways to get things moving. We worked together during the 2019 Lumad Bakwit School, supporting the Lumad indigenous groups as they evacuated (bakwit) from the rampant militarization and bombing of their homes and schools. State forces are constantly making way for multinational corporations to steal from the resource-rich ancestral lands. The Lumad launched the Bakwit School as both an effort to continue Lumad children's education amid the horrors of imperialist plunder and as their way to show their resistance against militarization. While I was the person working behind the scenes, Dee was one of the representatives from the youth sector leading the charge as we marched alongside the Lumad people. We were there, too, when the police raided the Lumad Bakwit School in 2021 and Lumad volunteer teachers, Lumad leaders and students alike were unjustly arrested. We fought hard to ensure the safety of the Lumad children, who were being paraded around in the media by the police like trophies for their "successful" operation.

We also worked on several other campaigns together across multiple sectors, including human rights, education, labor, and LGBT rights campaigns. Part and parcel of our work as activists is the exposure to how the rotten system continuously fails and oppresses the marginalized. Dee bore witness to the struggles of farming and peasant communities in Negros Oriental when she joined the fact-finding mission that human rights organizations led into Oplan Sauron where 14 farmers were almost simultaneously killed across the island by combined military and police forces, for simply being under the mere suspicion that they were armed rebels. She saw how the education sector struggled—teachers, students, and support staff alike—as a student leader. She supported unions and workers' associations, and fought alongside fellow advocates for gender equality, an advocacy close to her heart as Dee herself was a trans woman.

As a victim of red-tagging and death threats herself, Dee saw how state forces consisently showed absolutely no respect for the rule of law and how a broken justice system enabled this.She was also familiar with the maneuvers of corporations and the ruling elite who back them to purposely raze urban poor communities to the ground to make way for greed disguised as development. Dee understood that this "development" was paid for by the displacement of the working class, most earning less than minimum wage and struggling with job insecurity.

Dee sat, spoke, ate, marched, and fought alongside the marginalized, the exploited, and the oppressed. Here, she learned the might of collective action and the power of revolutionary fervor so strong, those in power could not help but bend to it. Dee saw that the basic masses, even with everything up against them and everything to lose, still continued to fight people and institutions more powerful than them because it was just and necessary. Dee did not come to the decision to join the armed revolutionary movement lightly. I hadn't been able to see her in years, but this much I know is true. She chose to die serving the people, in the way she believed was most effective. She could no longer stand by and watch as our government stole from, tricked, and killed us. A drastic change was needed.

Dee was one of our best and brightest and, most importantly, kindest. It wasn't the type of kindness that folded in on itself, but one that reached out and touched people, one that didn't limit itself. She was fierce and gentle all at the same time. She was scary at times, but was also the first to laugh unapologetically at the bad jokes and the first to offer a genuine smile. She was courage, strength, and commitment.

At 26 years old,Dee was killed along with 6 other Red fighters on April 27, 2025 in a rural area in Cabancalan City, Negros Occidental.'

I wish I could tell you all about the vibrant life she led until the day she died, but no online space can truly contain all that Dee was and has ever been.

I love and miss you, Dee. I wish I could have seen you one last time. Rest in power, Ka Dahlia! ✊🏼

———

Dee, I wish I could have given you a better tribute more fitting of the wonderful and fierce woman that you were, but my blindness is in the way. I just know you would say, "Okay ra te uyyyy" if you heard me right now. You always had a way of keeping us in line. I miss your wisdom dearly.

Read on Medium

[un-sink]

We Can Be Something Better Now

You and I should be better friends than we are now. Not that we aren't good friends, but I've always felt such a kinship with you that it seems surreal that we're not that close. Perhaps it was never supposed to be romantic, what I felt for you. Perhaps I had misinterpreted those feelings as romantic instead of what they really were: a longing for what could have been one of the best friendships of my life and the recognition of its loss. I spectacularly fumbled that.

I've tucked away many memories with you. My memory is long and I've kept moments with and of you under lock and key in my mind, not to protect them like a prized possession but to protect myself.

Remember when we were 15, before it all fell apart? We had grown closer that year and often, when I think about you, I come back to that time, that year of close friendship. I used to wish I could get lost in the memories, in the hot-cold humidity of the school lobby bench where had one of the longest conversations of our friendship, the starless night sky and the Talisay trees bearing witness. We were able to talk a lot about all the nerdy things we liked because, for the first time, it was just the two of us. Our friends weren't there to make it awkward for us and I didn't feel any pressure to be nonchalant to hide what romantic feelings I thought I had.

I get stuck in the past sometimes when I think of you. In the small ways you took care of me when you didn't need to, like coming up to me to ask me to stand under the shade. You and our other friends were always so concerned about my health because I was reckless enough to not be.

There had been a moment when it felt like the world stood still, a memory I held on to for a long time, there in the middle of the third year hallways of our high school. I had just been exiting the drafting hallway and you were coming from the opposite side. you'd asked me where I was hurrying off to, panda hat on my head and a stack of notebooks tucked into my armpit. i'd stopped for a bit to tell you that I was heading to a training session for a regional journalism competition. You said good luck with a kind smile as always. I said thanks and I was on my way.

But just before I turned the corner, I felt the sudden urge to look back and when I did, there you were, standing, body half-facing the sun but with eyes turned to me, looking at me. If I could draw, I would have drawn that moment a long time ago, take it out of my mind and immortalize it in pencil.

But I was a teenager who Thought she had found love. I ascribed meaning to that moment for a very long time. As embarrassing as it is to admit, ,I didn't stop giving it meaning until recently. I know, I know. Ten years. Really, Claire? I ask myself that, too.

And when it fell apart, it fell apart.

You weren't supposed to find out, you know? I was supposed to keep it a secret forever. I never had any intention to be more than a friend to you. But what's done is done and all I can do now is wish I hadn't handled the situation the way I did.

Our relationship is better these days, now that we're 26 and old enough to have had time and distance mold us into people who are a little more somber, subdued, forgiving. We've grown up and I've stopped viewing you as some kind of untouchable person when, really, you're one of those constants and you're probably going to be one of my lifelong friends.

But I do also think that we would be better friends if the mess of senior year hadn't happened. I would have gotten over what I felt come college and I wouldn't have spent so much of my adult life so far grieving, longing.

I guess I'd like to say I'm sorry. You must have felt burdened by what you found out because you apologized to me. I wish I had been mature enough to have told you that night you messaged me that my feelings weren't your responsibility and you needn't apologize.

Of all people, though, I understand the guilt that comes with rejecting someone, especially somebody you know and care for. I caused enough of a mess to last me a lifetime because of that. You were there. You know the casualties.

I wish I knew better the person that you are now. At the same time, I'm happy and somewhat proud to have come this far rebuilding my friendship with you, a task I once thought insurmountable. It's slow-going, but I want to believe we're getting there with small doses of music, historical places, and animals. It's tentative, careful, and I still sometimes find myself tiptoeing around you. But we're older now and hopefully better people.

There had been a moment in time, a suspension in the air, when we had sat there in the middle of that crowded fast food chain as we talked about games. I don't remember what was said, but our friendship then was careful, too. And it got better. The same may happen now, because we grow now. The chest of memories is finally open and I am unburdened.

I'm growing up now.

I know I'm only brave about finally putting these memories into words because I know you'll never read this. But if, for some reason, you do, know that I would prefer this careful friendship over anything we could have been.

Someday, I'd like to sit with you again and talk about nothing and everything, just as we did when we were 15. And I'll never have to write about you again.

[un-sink]

About This Blog

to easily access archive, go to: un-sink.tumblr.com/archive

[un-sink]

A Letter That S Will Never Read

These days, I've been imagining how our paths would cross again. I don't care for you anymore, but something about almost dying really makes a girl think.

Maybe we would see each other at a marathon or a hike, if I ever end up in any of your sports,either as an athlete myself—yeah, I know it's funny to imagine until I'm able to actually do it—or as some kind of volunteer manning the booth—the more likely outcome.

Or perhaps a' literary event or a book club meeting because you finally got off your ass and actually started attending bookish gatherings. You're a big reader and yet talking books with other people is the one muscle you don't exercise.

what if it'll be at a concert of a local band, because you finally decided to explore Cebuano music? Or maybe it'll be at some bar with Frank Ocean's "Pink + White" playing in low tones from somewhere.

And I wonder what I would say to you. maybe I'd give you a "how are you?" and a smile, just to be polite. Maybe I'd ignore you entirely, but we both know that's not my way. Otherwise, you wouldn't have been able to ghost me 9 times, turning up once every month, disappearing, and then coming back the next month. On repeat. It was a situation that was only possible if one of us was being manipulative and the other dumb and fragile. Guess which one I was.

Perhaps you'd be civil about it and not ignore me for once, unlike all those other times. The tines you refused to meet up with me because you "weren't here to catch feelings" and then later implying you already did. "You know how I feel about you," you'd said.

Or that time you erased our history after I tried to reach out to you when I was discharged from the hospital. You said you didn't have an account on that website at all.

Maybe you'd take me to a coffee place you like, coffee snob that you are. I'd tell you all about my time in the hospital, as I'm sure you heard about from the online page my friends set up for me. Cebu isn't that big, even if you're only here for work.

I'd tell you about how I lived in an alternate reality in my mind while I was in a comatose-like state in the ICU battling meningitis. For 28 days, my mind brought me on an adventure with you, traveling across the world with my nurse and my cousin trying to find a hospital that would treat me despite my "criminal record." Because you had framed me for a bombing that you planned and executed' yourself.

Yeah, I don't know why either, but hey, it's fucking funny.

It'll be fine at first, this reunion. Like old friends reconnecting.

But then the weight in my stomach will start to pull me down". We'll start talking about those two weeks in January 2023 when we listened to music together through Spotify Jam. That time when you created an entirely new account and paid for premium just to ensure I didn't find out who you were.

I was in a different timezone so it was always nighttime for me, which was good because, as soon as the clock hit 5pm, you'd be out of the office and out of my life again, only to come back at 8 in the morning.

I knew you were stringing me along, but it was a hard year, just months after I left my 5-year relationship. I'd never felt more seen than when someone was being inconsistent with me. Mistreatment was familiar. So I kept replying to you each time you came back.

You should be proud that I found the strength to end it. Last time we spoke, I had already been in the hospital, misdiagnosed with a nasty headache. I was the one who deleted our message thread this time around. Wasn't that what you were waiting for? You must've yelled out "finally!" to the heavens that day.

I still listen to the playlists, by the way. I don't think of you when I listen to them, at least not in that way. I love music and not even you could sour that feeling.

You titled one of the playlists "songs claire will never listen to" and now you remember why the title of this post is familiar.',

Joke's on you, I like that playlist.

If I ever get to finally meet you in person, perhaps I will pretend not to know you. It's not so far from the truth.

———

Written using an on-screen 6-dot Braille keyboard

on Medium

[un-sink]

The Tube in My Head

(Originally published on January 24, 2025 on social media. I was too sad to care about finesse in the writing so there are parts that could've been written better.)

Today, January 24, marks one year since my brain surgery. They had to insert a tube called a VP shunt from a ventricle in my brain to the peritonium in the abdomen because the excess cerebrospinal fluid was no longer draining on its own.

The meningitis had relapsed a month prior just as we were heading back to my parents' hometown in Ormoc. We elected not to share this publicly because it was too upsetting.

But I am well now. Mostly. I'm constantly paranoid that every headache I have might be the meningitis relapsing. So that's fun.

I've been doing mostly well this past 1 year and 5 months since the ICU, just doing my best to occupy myself with interesting things and making myself laugh as the world goes by around me.

But the despair is finally catching up to me. Lately, I've been grieving the life I lost, the weight of every "what if" making me feel laden most days. I knew it would feel like an uphill battle, but knowing and experiencing are different things.

I've run out of inspirational lines for this one. I hope my grief is not too unsightly. I'm still soldiering on because I have to. Just for today, I want "because I have to" to be a good enough reason as any to move forward. I want it to not always be something grandiose or glorious or inspiring.

Just for today, I want to be strong only for myself.

***

First photo: February 3, 2024, two days after discharge, with Meg Lim. I still have staples wedged into my scalp in this photo.

Second photo: December 8, 2024

[un-sink]

How Do You Want to Be Loved?

I remember a conversation I had with my friend last year. She was telling me about the people she'd been meeting. Somehow, the conversation evolved into how we viewed love at this point in our lives, 26 with enough heartbreaks on our belts to be just a little jaded. It was timely that I had been thinking about that exact thing during those days.

In 2023, I wrote a post titled Quest for Love, though I have since changed the title to A Quest to Love and Be Loved. It was the last post I wrote before I was hospitalized for meningitis. It had come as a result of the end of a relationship with someone I actually enjoyed the company of, a failed first attempt at a casual relationship after years of being in long-term relationships.

My friend has been enjoying being single and meeting different people. She said that it has helped her explore her understanding of love, that she wasn't in a hurry to commit to anything because we were still young.

This was a little surprising to me because she and I are similar in the sense that we are both what the internet would call "lover girls." I marveled at her ability to turn off that part of herself for a little while, something I attempted to do and failed miserably. It's not without its hiccups, of coursse, easily attached as we are, but she's doing quite well and even thriving with owning her femininity and womanhood.

aI was very happy for her, but I also confided in her that I was thinking about how I've realized that maybe it's less a quest for love than it is a quest not to be lonely. That perhaps all I need is someone who can give me enough affection and hug me sometimes. "I don't have to be loved," I'd said.

Recently, I've also thought about how different love and like are, how it's possible to love someone and not like them. My ex would scoff at me before whenever I said that because, to him, it was impossible. It was an interesting claim because I felt that the most from him, that he loved me theoretically but didn't like me as a person. There were fundamental parts of me that were intollerable for him because he had a very, very short emotional bandwidth while mine felt endless.

I think this phenomenon is something we learn at home. For most, our parents give us unconditional love and there's no doubt about it. But, at the same time, it's easy to feel like you're not liked, especially when you don't fulfill their expectations and are sometimes punished for things you caan't control. The way our parents show us love and what they show us about their relationship as a couple ultimately form our expectations of love as adults. We learn early on that there will always be parts of us that will be intolerable for the people we love and we just have to accept that. That they love us but don't like us.

In a podcast a friend recommended to me, the guest had talked about how, one time when he was very young, he asked his mother if she loved him more than his stepdad. His mother was tough on him growing up, but it still broke his heart when she replied, "Of course I love my husband more. I choose to love him every day. With you, I'm forced to. It's an obligation." It's not uncommon for parents to feel that way, but it does seem like many don't realize the impact that kind of mindset has on a child.

As a result, many never learn to articulate how they want to be loved, but setting these expectations is a recognition that we are deserving of love, which is important to overall well-being.

At the same time, we would be setting ourselves up for disappointment if we expect unconditional love outside of our families. But a lot of people find it hard to overcome that. I'm honestly not sure if it's at all possible to find that kind of love outside of family, though I do consider the fact that maybe I just haven't lived long enough, haven't met enough people. Regardless, as it stands, I don't see the evidence.

Our friends are not obligated to love us unconditionally, but it's easy to think that a person can't ever accept or tolerate the intolerable parts of us unless they were obligated to do so.

My friend's insight on this is that sometimes we just need to find our people. He said that there will be people who can provide us the emotional capacity we need so we don't feel like too much. I had never considered that before because I thought every person was the same that way. It's part of why I stayed with my ex for so long despite my needs not being met, because I sincerely believed he just needed time.

When my friend mentioned emotional capacity, I remembered something another friend shared to me. One of her closest friends ended his friendship with her for this reason. He felt like a burden because she could handle so much.

I also remembered that time my friend broke up with his boyfriend because they didn't love each other with the same intensity. Love became suffocating for one of them.

And I think about the way I was in previous relationships, how I'm capable of loving someone with every intensity. How this has created a fundamental misunderstanding of my relationships.

I think I might prefer to just be liked if I ever date again. It's getting tiring to constantly reach for the stars, to shoot for love. I think I might need consistency more than anything. A constant affection.

I know it sounds jaded, but this is where I'm at in my life right now. Someone I had a turbulent romantic past with and who is now a friend recently asked me, "Jaded na ka, Claire?" and I thought, "I probably am."

It's hard to tell sometimes because I believe in love and I celebrate it. All my friends are changing and becoming happier now that they've found love.

Romantic love is not the only marker for happiness, of course, but maybe, for me, the closest thing to happiness is safety, security, and consistency. All before love.

In Waitress: The Musical, Jenna asks Cal, "Are you happy?" and he says, "I'm happy enough."

And maybe that's okay.

***

Note: This was written entirely using the on-screen 6-dot Braille keyboard on my phone and I didn't ask a friend to check for errors this time to prove to myself that I could edit it. It was painstaking and I miss the ease of a regular keyboard, but I think I'm getting better.

***I dedicate this to Meg D., who will be turning 27 this January 19. She's the friend I mentioned in the beginning.

Meg, I know I said all that about needing just enough affection, but I always sincerely hope you find a glorious, wonderful love deserving of the boundlessness of your heart. Happy birthday ❤️

Photo credit: Danica A. She doesn’t know who this guy is because she was focusing on the view. Sorry @guy 😭

Read on Medium

[un-sink]

You Gave My Soul a Home

If you ever find out, know that it isn't your fault. It isn't mine either. Too many things in life are simply out of our control and this is one of them. We're both big advocates of agency, of being masters of our fates, but I suppose we've had to defer to the wisdom of the universe for this one.

I know you well enough to know that this truth will hurt yoo, not because of any sort of resentment towards me but because you feel a deep helplessness whenever you find out your friends are or were hurting. You are a fundamentally good person that way.

You cannot heal everyone's pain. Desperation will not grant you the powers to do so either. Neither will perseverance or persistence. Not everything can be solved by tenacity, no matter how much we wish it would.

Loneliness is as familiar to me as my own name. It has been my constant companion from childhood' and in the years that followed as I sought to prove my independence, which, for a very long time, I had equated to strength. I have grown used to this yawning pit in my stomach. I carry it with me everywhere I go.

But you taught me there is strength in letting go of the reins for awhile. To lean against somebody else and just be held. To trust someone enough to let them carry the burden with you. A declaration of frailty, an expansion of the self. A power in being vulnerable with somebody else, an act ultimately born out of love.

You didn't cure my loneliness, but you did something far greater: you gave my soul a home—not in any permanent sense but a resting place for the weary traveler between journeys, a place to bake cookies and have tea.

I've never felt lonely with you.

But one person isn't the cure-all, isn't the cure at all. The strength to be independent, to meet the person that I am when I am by myself without letting the yawning pit swallow me whole, has to come from within me. It's something I have to fight to build for myself. I know that with certainty by now.

Still, you showed me that, even then, we don't have to fight alone,

We have done so much good for one another. And that would have to be enough.

And perhaps you might ask me why I never told you. This is what I think:

I was never an option because you're not a gambler. At that time, you needed certainty, something absolute and undeniable like an anchor, and you couldn't get that from me, recovering as I was, with a future more uncertain than anyone else's. You were diving headlong into new waters and you needed someone to swim with. I couldn't leave the shore.

Our timelines diverged instead, the threads now unraveling.

This is the graceless longing they write songs and poems about. This is my declaration of frailty; I am dedicating it to you.

On Medium

[un-sink]

I Am a Terrible Friend

I've been thinking about my friendships a lot lately. It began when I finally started to process my breakup with my ex, whom I had dated for five years.

We broke up over two years ago and I didn't give myself the chance to really sit with the breakup because, after four months, I found out that he had started talking to someone else, and this triggered me into finding people to talk to as well. It is not a coping mechanism that I am proud of and it only led to more heartbreak for me. I talk about this a little bit in an older blog post.

Then I got very sick in the second half of 2023 and spent most of that time in the hospital. I had more pressing matters to attend to. I survived meningitis, but I was still blind, partially deaf, and undergoing physical therapy in order to walk again. When I got out of the hospital in February this year, I began to really think about it, partly because I got an audiobook subscription and had the chance to read a lot of romance novels. In many of them, they explore the intricacies of a romantic relationship that I would not have been able to see in my own relationship.

It was very difficult at first, just letting the anger settle in. He could've done better by me but chose not to. I thought that I had gotten over it because I was preoccupied with other people, but while I did love those people in some insane way, I didn’t actually grieve the relationship.

Throughout this period, my friends had endless patience and compassion for me. They always listened to me even when it felt like I had been repeating the same things over and over again, the same hurt taking up space in our conversations. Still, they listened and were never callous about how they responded to me. They understood that I had certain sensibilities that they might not have. Though recently, some of my friends decided to just be frank with me if I ever end up in a relationship where I am emotionally neglected again. They recognize that I often have trouble noticing when bad things are happening to me.

But the thing is, it's hard to believe that I deserve this much compassion from them when, throughout the five years of my relationship, I had basically neglected them. There was an incident in our senior year of high school that made me feel like they had abandoned me and, as a result, I lashed out by staying in the fringes of the friend group, never really participating in many things or taking note of everyone's milestones in life. Recently, I wrote in an essay that, because I have to stay at home and recover for an indefinite period, I will always mourn all the milestones that my friends reach that I can't celebrate with them. But in reality, I didn't even try to celebrate it with them when I had the chance.

At that time, I latched on to my highschool boyfriend and sought comfort in the relationship, even though it wasn't the best, and we constantly hurt each other. We were 16, and I know now that we just didn't know any better. Still, I abandoned the consistency of my friends for the instability of my relationship because I was angry.

For the next eight years (and another boyfriend later), I built resentment for my friends. I dug deep wells of anger for people that I actually and sincerely loved.

I had isolated myself with my college boyfriend, believing that it was me and him against the world, and I stopped showing up for my friends. I think the thing that really makes me terrible is that after my ex and I broke up, I came back to them. I didn't want to be that person who ignored her friends when she was dating somebody and only came back to them when shit hit the fan. But I still became that person.

I only realized this this year when I finally found the courage to look at my five-year relationship from the perspective of my friends. And I did not like what I saw.

———

I also realized that I am an emotionally high-maintenance friend pretending to be low-maintenance so that I wouldn't bother anyone with my needs. I already have lupus—that's already as high maintenance as high maintenance can get—and I believed that I shouldn't ask anything of anyone because of that. Even when all the signs pointed to the fact that everyone in my life was willing to help me if I just asked.

I had confided in my friend once about feeling like I was being kicked out of the organization that I had worked so hard to help rebuild for 4 years just because I was recovering and unable to attend to my tasks. She told me that it was OK to assert my place.

I realized then that even after 8 years of organizing in the mass movement where assertiveness is a necessary skill, I never developed assertiveness in my own relationships.

This is what happened with my ex-boyfriend. I never demanded anything of him even though I wanted him to text me good morning and good night every day, that I wanted him to think about me first thing, that I wanted him to remember me throughout his day. Instead, there were many times where he would only remember to text me in the late afternoon, like an afterthought. I wasn't the first person he called during a day off—it was almost always a willing friend to drink with—and I still remained a doormat, letting him have free rein because he just "wasn't a vid call guy." I thought that was what love meant, understanding your partner's needs and putting them before your own. I realized too late that I was part of the equation, too.

I remember only ever asking him explicitly for one thing: for him to tell me when he was going out and not just when he already got there. He never honored this. For me, this was really important because we were both activists, and it was a security issue. Additionally, I believed that you are your partner's keeper, that if somebody were to look for them, they could ask you and you would know. But I almost never knew where he was at any given time of the day. It made me feel insecure whenever our comrades would ask "where's ___?" because I never knew the answer.

There had even been a time when I had just finished up a meeting at the university. It was late into the evening, and I was hoping to buy something at a 7-Eleven before heading home. As I walked there, I saw a group of students drinking outside a sari-sari store by the side of the road. My ex was sitting there, laughing and drinking. I was so surprised to see him, because I thought he still had classes at law school. It turned out that his classes had ended early, and he had decided to go to UP, where he had friends ready to drink with him. He never told me that he was coming. He knew that I had a meeting at the school, but it was more important for him to show up for his friends than inform his girlfriend that he was nearby. If I hadn't decided to walk towards 7-Eleven, I wouldn't have ever known.

He will have his own side of the story, I cannot deny him that because I wasn't a perfect girlfriend either, and we're now past the point of comparing what really went wrong because it's never just one thing. Last year, when I was dying in the hospital, he and his family donated to the donation drive my friends and comrades had set up for me. He and his band also played at the benefit gig, all things I can appreciate now that time has eroded some of the pain. Forgiveness is still a long while away, but I can now at least acknowledge that he just couldn't meet my emotional needs and I couldn't become comfortable with the specific sexual intimacy he wanted from me.

I try not to demonize him in any way in public, much to the dismay of my friends, because I always imagine what he would say if he read these things that I'm writing on a very public blog. Even after two years, he still has this hold on me. But I am slowly, very slowly, getting myself out of the lightless room I had imprisoned myself in. Because this is my truth, too.

I never told my friends any of this, how I was struggling with the relationship, because I wanted to "protect" him. I didn't want them to think badly of him because I always tried to see the good that he had done for me. Admittedly, there were plenty, but it just couldn't outshine the bad.

There had been an incident that I still can't call by its actual name, so all I will say is that I had said no. I really did. The fact that a person I trusted didn't respect this nearly broke me. This was the incident that really took off the rose-colored glasses. I became disillusioned with the relationship. Despite this, I still kept the incident to myself for the next three years. I spent all that time trying to understand if it was a normal thing in a romantic relationship and that maybe I had overreacted. I know better now but, at that time, I didn't tell anyone about it because I wanted to "protect" him.

But really, I just didn't trust my friends enough to bear this burden with me. I had been so deep in my depression that I had stopped trusting even the people who have always been consistent with me. The people who had loved me through moody teenage angst, braces, and a boy-crazy tendency. Even in high school, I had attempted to let go of them, to "free" them, because of my insecurities.

I had subscribed to the thinking that my friends were better off without me, even though they had never said or showed this. There were just moments where I felt like I was ignored, but this wasn't because they were actually ignoring me. I only thought that way because I was projecting my own shortcomings on them even at 14. Because the truth is that I was self-absorbed.

I don't have a lot of regrets in life. I don't really believe in the concept of it because every decision I make is calculated and always with the mindset that I won't regret this later. This doesn't always end up being the case, but if I am ever asked to name one regret in life, it would be not spending more time with my friends. It's being so self-absorbed, so egotistic, and so arrogant that I have grown distant from my friends over the course of eight years.

They deserve my love, not my inconsistency.

———

I recently reconnected with a friend from college, and she had shared with me this beautiful essay she wrote about grieving a friendship break up. We had great conversations around the topic, sharing insights and experiences. She wrote it better, but in the essay, she said that she had neglected her friends' needs and because of this, he couldn't continue being her friend anymore.

And this made me think of my own friendships, how I have neglected my friends' needs to tend to mine when these two are not mutually exclusive.

I had consistently failed to communicate my needs to them as well and, for a very long time, my friends were fumbling around in the dark, not understanding what I needed from them but still feeling like I demanded a lot from them. When I broke up with my ex, he told me that I was difficult to be with, and I thought about that constantly over the last two years. I'm not only a difficult partner to be with, but I'm also a difficult friend.

I am emotional and sensitive. I make mountains out of molehills. I cry at the smallest sign of rejection. I need reassurance for most everything yet I am the first to attempt self-isolation during confrontation. Despite knowingly distancing myself, I still mourn the fact that my friends have changed, that I don't know them as well as I used to, and that breaks my heart more than anything in the world. All my breakups combined could never match up to the pain of realizing that your closest friends, the people who know you best, are almost strangers.

But I am trying now to get to know them again as adults, and I've found that, at their core, they're still the kids I grew up with, running around all sweaty along the school hallways. The same people I sat with outside of our classrooms, jamming with a guitar during the lunch hour or at the pentagon after class, enjoying the breeze and listening to the bustle of foot traffic against cement. These are the people who were there before the glow-ups, the first loves, and first heartbreaks.

I had another friend remind me recently about that time in junior year of high school when a lot of us were class officers. Every year, the school organizes a leadership training seminar for all the class officers of each year level. We had gone to Family Park in Talamban where there was a playground. We basically turned the seminar into our own group outing, and I only just remembered how much fun we all had at that time.

This year, I had endeavored to reconnect with my high school friends, a group that I became distant from because I had been jealous of them for a long time. As a teenager, my stability depended on the presence of my best friends, so when a new group was formed, I was deeply, painfully, envious of the connection that they formed with my best friends that I somehow lost. At first, when I was 16, I had blamed this on them, that they had abandoned me, but the reality is that I had abandoned them just as much.

We have remained friends to this day. I will always be grateful for that because, even though I had not been present for a long time, they still thought of me. I am only sorry that it took me almost dying to realize this. I had villainized them in my head for so long despite them always showing that they care for me, even through time and distance.

I also recently reconnected with another friend whom I had last spoken to in 2015 after he moved abroad. Nine years later, we discovered that we are so alike in so many ways. When I told him about all of this, he told me that it seemed like I was dismissive of my own feelings. He said he's sure I had my reasons, no matter how irrational they seemed. I think this is mostly true, but I don't know where to put all my guilt. I've never had practice doing that. I just carry it with me like a chain around my neck, pulling me down to the ground every time it snags onto something.

But he also reminded me that if I really valued the relationship, I would communicate with my friends. I would be open with them and open up to them.

Another friend had also told me recently, as a reminder, that healing is relational. We need our friends to remind us constantly of the things that are easy to forget in the face of self-doubt.

To quote another friend, "We have time. We can learn together."

———

Some weeks ago, I came across a video on Instagram where the person was talking about how trust is built when you ask for help. This is something I don't have a lot of practice with either. I don't believe that it is pride. I think it is an insecurity that stems from becoming independent at a very young age, something I cannot change.

Something that I can change, however, is my present. I've been reading Conversations on Love by Natasha Lunn and I learned that, to become a better friend, I have to be my real self with my friends. I have to dig deep into myself and recognize that I am someone who deserves love, not someone who is a burden. I have to strive to be someone who believes that my friends love me for the person that I am, no matter how difficult I can be. Someone who believes that, when I need help, I can count on them to show up for me as much as possible. Someone who believes that her friends trust her to figure out her own problems, and when she can't, they will be there to hold her, as they have throughout the last 15 years.

Someone who will finally love herself in all her damaged glory.*

At a recent Christmas party, I had asked for my friends to call me so I could join virtually along with our other friend who was in a different country. They had forgotten to call me back because the party got really busy, and I had missed the entire party. I cried the whole night because I was thinking that they had forgotten about me, had promised something that they didn't fulfill. I felt 16 again, regressing into that child who villainized her own friends. And it was deeply unfair, not only to my friends but also to myself.

I didn't sleep all night, but the next day, I had the realization that I couldn't make the same mistakes I made when I was 16, just bottling up my troubles and not communicating it with them. I decided that I would talk to them about it because I valued our friendship and them as people. And I didn't want to lose them.

When I spoke to them about this, to one of my best friends that I actually had a falling out with in the past, we ended up talking about what happened and how I don't know what to do with my guilt. She told me that, at some point, I will have to learn to forgive myself as she forgives me.

I hope they'll still remember me as that same girl who wore a panda hat to school and shared her books in class like she was a dealer. Ultimately, someone harmless, who really tries to be kind.

I hope that this vulnerability and sensitivity is something they can accept, something that they're still willing to live with in exchange for my friendship, because I am far from perfect. But perfect is not the goal anyway and I hope they know that I really am trying my best to be a better friend.

There is still so much work to do. I just hope my friends will still be along for the ride.

————

*Apologies to Raphael Bob-Waksberg

Note: this post was written entirely using dictation with only the braille screen input for minor edits. It is a little scattered, but I also see it as a testament to my time writing as a blind person. Thank you to Des for some line editing, to Brynch for some copyediting, to Kirk for general feedback, and to Danica for nodding along and listening to me cry about this exact thing over the phone while she read through this. all mistakes are my own. This year, I have really had to learn to show people my first drafts in all its imperfections. But that is another essay entirely.

[un-sink]



Happy fourth birthday Nico! 🎂

Outside of my check ups and hospitalizations, today, December 8, is the first time in over a year that I've willingly gone out of the house.

My relatives have been trying to convince me to go out for months, even just to visit our other relatives. But I refused every time because it was depressing to imagine myself at a beach or some other beautiful place in Ormoc and not be able to see or smell it . I would not even be able to smell the ocean breeze. I would just be haunted by having something so near yet so out of reach.

But I decided to come out for Nico's birthday because, if nothing else, I should at least show up for my nephew.

I've been here before. Recovery can be treacherous, burdening you with the knowledge that yes, you're alive, but you're not living. You miss everyone's birthdays, every gathering, every art and music event, every protest march.

But somehow, after every near-death experience, I still always find myself almost instinctively holding on to life, to faith in my own mental strength, to a "fall seven times, stand up eight "attitude, like it's just the next logical step in the process. It might be the problem solver in me But perhaps it's also all the art and music that I've absorbed over the years.

Even as a teenager, I've always gravitated towards art that portray the indomitable human spirit. Songs like Take Your Time Coming Home by fun., Ruby by Foster the People, Swim by Jack's Mannequin, and Unsinkable Ships by Meg and Dia. Books like Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly and City of Thieves by David Benioff, a book that remains my all-time favorite to this day.

And when I was organized into the mass movement, I learned to take strength from Marxist philosophy, particularly dialectical materialism, and from the different people in different marginalized communities that I've had the chance to work with and fight alongside.

I take strength from the knowledge that there is no greater endeavor than the struggle for genuine liberation, and, as unusual as it may sound, this has been instrumental in helping me accept my auto immune illness.(I swear I will write an essay about this soon.)

And I take the most strength from the fulfillment I feel with my relationships, my social support, my communities. It is a beautiful and wondrous thing to recognize how much our lives are intertwined with each other. I've realized recently that so much of the way I appreciate art and music is shaped by the people who enjoyed these pieces of media with me, sharing in the joy of it. I think, amid the hustle of life, it is easy to forget how much this togetherness seeps into our subconscious and informs our way of life.

I recently decided to get over my fear of reading books with disabled protagonists, but I found a happy medium in romance novels because one thing that a romance novel will guarantee is a happy or optimistic ending.

In one of these books, the female protagonist has autism and rheumatoid arthritis, which is coincidentally the same one I have, and she has a conversation with the male protagonist's father, who had to get a prosthetic leg because of a bad injury.

She asks him, "How are you?" and he responds with, "always healing."

This gave me much needed perspective because the bitter truth is that I would not have contracted that specific kind of meningitis, lost 3 of my senses including sight, and had to learn to walk again if I did not have lupus.

But instead of thinking, "I will never stop being angry about the lupus, "I will now make the effort to recognize that I am always healing.

Some days will be worse than others. But I can rest easy in my own tenacity for life, in my revolutionary optimism to Help build a world where peace is based on justice, My faith in the people who love and care for me, and the knowledge and certainty that I still have more tomorrows, that each sunrise is a chance to struggle bravely, proudly, and tenaciously.

We have a world to win.

📸 Nico's mama

[un-sink]

As we await the results of the 2024 Philippine Bar Exams, I want to tell you all about a friend, comrade, and lawyer-revolutionary Hannah "Ka Maya" Cesista. She had passed the 2022 Bar Exams but didn't take oath and chose to serve the masses in the countrysides instead.

In anticipation of the 2024 bar exam results, I want to tell you all about a lawyer-revolutionary comrade, and friend Hannah Cesista.

I met Ate Hannah when we were students at UP Cebu. She was in the year above me as a political science major. Ours is a very small campus and we were both in the College of Social Sciences. Our classrooms really only occupied two floors of the already-small AS building. So I always saw her around, and every time I did, she always had a bright smile for me and I always felt that she was happy to see me, even if it was just in the hallways. It was a good marker of the genuine kindness that she carried with her. She had an aura that drew people in—open, kind, and believing in the good of humanity.

With this mindset, she became one of the most tenacious organizers in the human rights sector. Her quiet tenacity made her instrumental in establishing the NUPL Law Students arm in Cebu while she was a law student at the University of San Carlos.

She was also a dedicated paralegal and human rights worker of Karapatan-Central Visayas. She always found herself in urban poor communities, often providing paralegal training or just simply joining community members in such discussions. You could find her among the workers during strikes and campouts even during the most dangerous times of a labor case. You could also find her working and assisting with cases involving our fellow activists being unjustly persecuted by the state, human rights workers like herself being charged with false charges. She did this while battling the crazy schedule of a law student.

I remember a time when we had organized a protest at Colon Street. I was surprised to see her there because I knew that law school classes usually started at 5 or 6 PM and the protest was scheduled for 5 PM. I would later find out that her class was at 6 PM that day, and still, she took the time to show up because she knew the importance of registering our dissent against the fascist Duterte regime.

More than that, she was always among the people in the communities, those forgotten by the law and cheated by the justice system. She spent a lot of time learning their stories and listening to them and fighting alongside them, recognizing that our justice system has never served the marginalized. In fact, it has only served to further push them into the margins.

She had seen urban poor communities scramble to rebuild their lives and their houses after an illegal demolition that displaced them. She had witnessed how workers were exploited in their place of work—forced to work 12 to 16 hours a day, 6 days a week, for more than 10 years—without ever being regularized. She had seen how brutally the state silences dissenters and activists for exposing state neglect disguised as mere incompetence.

These experiences, combined with her efforts to pursue legal reforms for the masses she deeply cared about, ultimately shaped her decision to pursue the highest form of struggle. It's not hard to imagine that, as somebody who knew the law, she felt that it was not enough for the change we need to dismantle an oppressive system.

And what better way to put her law degree into practice than to go where Filipinos don't have access to electricity, let alone legal recourse? Where injustice is the norm and the sight of the military harassing farmers is a daily occurrence? Where the Geneva convention and the international humanitarian law are merely scraps of paper because of all the human rights violations committed by state forces? Where ordinary citizens are constantly fighting for their lives against a lack of basic social services? Where the most far-flung communities have never had access to schools, and sometimes even water?

She went where she was needed the most.

I had worked with her for many years from when she was organized as a college student to when she became a law student. I often wrote for Karapatan in the region and she was in charge of reaching media organizations, trying to get word out about human rights violations. We spent many hours in our Messenger chat talking about the best ways to represent the struggles of the marginalized in the written word. We were writing constantly, and whenever she would be too busy because of law school, she would reach out to me for assistance and I would do the same whenever I needed help.

She was the bravest of us. Frankly, the best lawyer I know.

She had passed her bar exams in 2022 but didn't take oath and chose to serve the masses in the countrysides instead. This year, as we welcome a new batch of lawyers, it is my hope that they may be encouraged to follow in her footsteps, to find themselves among the marginalized sectors of society, to sit with the people, learn their lives under this exploitative system, to recognize that injustice is their everyday reality. And to one day struggle alongside them, to fight for genuine liberation.

She was killed in an alleged encounter on February 23, 2024 in Bilar, Bohol along with 4 others. There are eyewitness accounts that the Bilar 5 had surrendered to the military but had undergone torture instead and were eventually killed.

It is all the more reason why we must pursue the resumption of the peace talks between the Philippine government and the CPP-NPA-NDF in order to address the roots of armed conflict, such as landlessness and the rampant militarization of the countrysides, and for both parties to agree on a resolution where peace is based on justice. The government must recognize that it is the state's refusal to address the lack of basic social services and its brutal repression of its citizens that push farmers, workers, journalists, artists, and lawyers alike to lose faith in the legal system and choose to take up arms instead. Having to constantly face the barrel of a gun whenever the people have legitimate demands like wage increase and agrarian reform makes democracy merely fictional in this country.

I miss and grieve you always, Ate Hannah. It never gets easier to lose comrades no matter where they are in the country and the world but even more painful to lose someone who was also a friend.

To quote another comrade, I will grieve for the rest of my life. Rest in power, Ka Maya ✊🏼

***

I had a photo of her from November 2019. We were volunteers assisting the AMA Sugbo-KMU General Assembly. It was a beautiful photo and I looked everywhere. I had initially thought that I sent it to her in our chat But I couldn't find it there. I remember her face in that photo so clearly, smiling brightly at the camera. It was my only photo of her.

(thank you to my friends Astrid and Michelle, who write an edit for a living, for editing this for me. Writing as a blind person means that I have had to learn to rely on the kindness of my friends to create something good.)

on Medium

[un-sink]

Life update: I want to be unbreakable

This was originally a Facebook post that I posted on October 18, 2024. I wanted to post this here as well on the off chance that someone is keeping up with this blog. My friend Astrid checked this over for me because I'm only using dictation, and it creates a lot of punctuation and grammatical errors. Anyway, here's the link to the Facebook post:

Hi. I know I've been quiet for more than a year now, but I wanted to come back to say thank you and to maybe update you all about how I've been doing post meningitis. I wish I could tell you all the full story right now. But I am still blind, and right now, I am relying on the dictation function of the keyboard and Braille. I promise I will definitely tell this story as soon as I can, and I promise it will be a full five-page essay 😀

In case some of you didn't know, I contracted cryptococcal meningitis last year, which caused me to lose my eyesight, hearing, and sense of smell, and I had to learn to walk again. That's just the tip of the iceberg because I was in the ICU for almost a month and then had to stay in the hospital for another month. And a lot of things happened in between.

I got to rest at home for around two months before I relapsed in December, and the meningitis came back with a vengeance - so much so that I ended up having to get a VP shunt surgery. Now I have a tube that goes from a ventricle in my brain to drain excess cerebral spinal fluid into the peritoneum in my abdomen. I have a valve and everything. I tell my friends I am a robot now. 🤖

That's a total of 59 lumbar punctures, and I was awake for 42 of them. I had 21 while I was in the ICU and 38 almost every single day during my relapse. I am not a fan of it ☹️

I was released from the hospital on February 1, 2024, and since then, I've just been doing my best to look for ways to entertain myself while I am unable to work, unable to truly write, and unable to live my life the way I want to. But it hasn't been all bad. I decided to get an audible subscription so I could listen to audiobooks, and now my most active social media is Goodreads. I figured out a way to use the built-in iPhone screen reader to the fullest, though many apps are not compatible with it, especially META apps. Honestly, the app with the best accessibility is Twitter/X.

I've kept in contact with most of my friends and family. I've made it a point to do so because having a near death experience really makes you realize some things. Life is much too precarious to spend it not building or rebuilding bridges with people you've created distances with, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Besides, what is the point of all these advances in technology if we don't use them to maintain our communities?

I have mostly been spending time on a private Instagram account with a few of my friends as followers. I post a lot of Instagram stories just talking about literally anything that comes to mind. I'm also learning how to navigate the app even with a screen reader, and I've managed to do a lot of things that I used to do before I went blind, which I think makes me super awesome 😀 But seriously, I've been learning to post videos and photos on the account, and my friends are gracious enough to humor me with likes.

I’ve even learned to edit videos. Well, “edit” is an overstatement, but I did manage to stitch two clips together using CapCut, which was a struggle because CapCut is not good with a screen reader. I’ve even learned to put text on photos, and I've made just one meme so far of my nephew Anri. Videos of him and my other nephew, Oliver, are what make up the bulk of this Instagram account.

One day, when I am able to see again, I will review these videos in full color, hopefully. Right now, only my right eye can “see” shadows and light, but it is improving. Even though I can only see in black-and-white, I’m now able to recognize my nephews’ features on the camera during video calls.

I've also learned to brush my own teeth, take my own medicine, fold my own blanket, and sometimes plug in my own phone charger with some safety precautions. I can even take a bath by myself under the watchful eye of my mother, just in case I slip and fall. I can eat on my own now, though I do have to use my hands. My parents would do anything for me, of course, but I wanted to unburden them from these little tasks I have to do to be a functional human being. So I learned and learned and learned and learned.

I was prompted to finally write this post because this week, I was able to write 3000 words of a short story. It's a very bad first draft with a lot of punctuation and grammatical errors, but it's 3000 WORDS almost fully using dictation. I had to use the built-in iPhone Braille keyboard whenever I erased words. A few months ago, I taught myself to learn Braille using the iPhone braille keyboard. It's actually an excellent piece of technology and it works best with Apple apps. But you do need some form of hearing to use it because the phone reads out the letter you’re typing. I'm not as fast as other braille users but I think I'm getting there.

Writing a short story felt like such an achievement that I want to tell literally everyone about it 😀 And I will be riding this wave for a long time. Life is a little different when you have to live in literal darkness and just watch your life and the world go by without you. I don't want to be just a spectator in this world, I want to be a participant, but I know that in order to do that, I have to rest well, take care of my body, take care of my relationships, and just wait for the right time.

I've had to struggle a lot with the fact that everyone my age, all my friends, are moving forward with their lives, while I've been set back. I still struggle with it sometimes, having to watch them and feel envy. But mostly, I feel very, very proud of all of them. I don't even have the time to feel envious anymore whenever I remember all the things they've overcome to get to where they are. I try my best not to feel pressured and accept that this is just the hand I've been dealt with in life and I just have to keep playing.

I have to watch my nephews grow up without me, hopefully just for now, and I miss them and my siblings terribly. So I am doing my best to be good to myself so I can see them again much sooner than expected.

I am staying sane with books, music, video calls with friends and family, voice messages, Instagram reels, and YouTube shorts, even though I have to sometimes ask my friends to explain them to me. I also spend quite a lot of time singing at home, bothering the birds and the ants and the neighbors with it. I’ve also learned to rap the Chance the Rapper parts in the song Sunday Candy. (Please support my new career as Claire the Rapper.)

Mostly, I spend a lot of time doing my best to be grateful. I’m grateful for my family, who kept the faith that I would always come home to them even during those days when some doctors thought I wouldn't make it and that even if I did, my mind would regress into that of a child. But I didn't. I suppose my most consistent hobby is defying my odds 😀

I'm also so very grateful for everyone who helped out. My relatives here and abroad, my friends and comrades, organizations I am a member of, those I've interacted with, my blood donors, all the artist and writers who shared their talents to help in the fundraising, All my classmates from high school and college; all the doctors and nurses who took care of me in the hospitals; all the priests, nuns, and religious groups who prayed for me; and everyone who has prayed for me or donated or gave even just a single passing thought about my well-being. There is no way to measure my gratitude for all of you, and as soon as I get better, I will do my best to thank each of you for everything you've done for me and my family.

There was a time when I was under a comatose-like state in the ICU where my brain gave me a different reality: I was lying down on a circular bed with white bedsheets that was going around in an elliptical. From above, there was a cliff on the left side and the entrance to a hotel lobby on the right side, and I would pass by these two with every rotation . This was around the time I had become unresponsive in the hospital. I was under a lot of stress, worrying about the fact that this was a problem I couldn't solve. At some point, I heard my sister's voice, and she appeared looking unearthly, beautiful. Looking back, I now realize that that wasn't really my sister because she doesn't remember saying, "Hi Kay. Ganina ra ko nangita nimo." I think that I was at some kind of pre-afterlife point and that entity was perhaps an angel trying to comfort me. I'm usually a skeptic, but after my mind created an entirely different reality for me while I was in the ICU to shield me from most of the pain, I think I am a believer of the wonders of the human brain now. Well, I suppose I always was, being a psychology major and all. But this felt a little more supernatural.

I know now that I was given a choice between life and death, and I chose life and survived death. Things are hard financially right now because of all the hospital bills and my continued treatment for lupus and CKD, but you know what? I'm alive right now. I beat meningitis, despite my odds, and despite the difficulty in treatment because of the lupus.

When I get better, I don't want to be just the unsinkable ship that floats listlessly in the ocean. I want to be the sails that steer the ship toward the sunrise, even against huge waves and storms. I won't just be unsinkable. I want to be unbreakable.

I'm going to need that unbreakable spirit for all that I want to do in life. Be the best Auntie Kakay to my nephews, for one. Continue my work in the struggle for genuine liberation. Fight, always fight. Learn first aid, sign language, and how to throw a punch. I might even go on and learn how to sing, just to annoy everyone. I might publish a book or four or zero. Maybe go back to writing poetry. Perhaps I could finish my masters in clinical psychology or maybe not. Bake a lot more pastries, and finally conquer baking bread and macarons and baked goods I find difficult because I have an irrational fear of yeast and egg whites. Learn to cook every single dish I want, especially now that food is not so restricted. But mostly, I'm going to build and rebuild a life for myself, against all odds.

Meningitis ra ka, si Claire Obejas ko. 😭 ✊🏼

***

This photo is from my 26th birthday last August. A big improvement because I spent my birthday in the ICU last year. Yes, I miss my long hair 😔

Also, if any of you want recommendations for audio, dramas, romance, science fiction, historical fiction, nonfiction, some speculative fiction, and fantasy, I am your girl. (Wait, maybe not. That's way too much pressure 😔 but if you want to know anyway and won't get mad at me if it's bad, I can be contacted through voice messages, but also I am mostly fluent in Siri Bisaya now. And if you have books you want to recommend and you have the EPUB file, I am happy to receive 😀)

[un-sink]

A quest(?) to love and be loved

I often imagine myself telling my nephews and nieces stories of my relationships from when I was younger (assuming that, by this time, I will be something like 50 years old). Not in the joking way that my parents often do—”ex mani nimo diba? Di uy, wa intawn koy lain uyab nga di ikaw”—but in a gentle and sincere retelling of all the people I used to love.

Of course, this is a fantasy because I’m not sure my nephews and nieces would be interested. My nephew Anri is eight months old this month, and I can’t imagine this tiny guy being regaled with tales of Auntie Kakay’s failed attempts at love. Maybe when he needs advice, but I doubt I’ll be helpful anyhow.

Well, regardless, I think about it often. I remember being so surprised that this, apparently, isn’t a tactic unique to me when I saw Princess Carolyn do the same with her great-great-great-granddaughter in the “Ruthie” episode.

I’ve gotten good at telling these stories. My mind requires organization to understand something, so every time I meet someone, and it inevitably ends for one reason or another, I have to think up a one-liner to describe the whole thing. It also makes for easier retelling when I go to see friends, and they ask, “What happened to ___?”

Since breaking up with my ex of five and a half years last August, I had tried to “meet” people. I wasn’t at all planning to, but this was an impulse decision after I found out my ex already had someone new four months after the breakup. It hurt me so bad I had to find someone to make new connections with, however shallow. I wasn’t looking to start a relationship with anyone, but I wanted to have somehow meaningful interactions. I wasn’t looking for love, but I wanted the reminder that I could be loved, even if none of that actually came to fruition.

In the process of trying to get over my ex, I got my heart broken twice, so now I have to learn to get over all three of these people at the same time. I won't talk about it in detail, but I believe a big part of each failed attempt is my fault. Could be my emotionality or a misunderstanding of the fundamentals of what constitutes these kinds of relationships or a general misconception of what I wanted in the first place. I’m very good at telling stories, and I guess that matches up with being very good at making bad decisions. Character development for the plot, or something.

But they weren’t terrible people. This was my first attempt at trying for casual relationships after years of only being in serious relationships, and I have had the great luck that I did not meet downright evil individuals who were looking to take advantage of me in the worst ways. 

Despite this relatively okay first experience, I don’t think I will try again.

All this has taught me is that even with “casual relationships,” I am incapable of detachment, that I will always cry when it’s time to say goodbye, that I should not start something I do not have the strength to leave behind.

I imagine telling my nephews and nieces this. I also imagine my future self looking back at me now and wonder how she would write about this or how she would tell this story in the unlikely scenario that somebody will ask (the nephews and nieces probably won’t, to be honest). I hope that my future self is better at making decisions, tells these stories with ease, and bears no weight in her chest the way I do now.

I imagine that my future self will look back at me now and maybe smile wistfully. Tells me, this quest to love, to be loved, is difficult and draining for people like us. She is probably going through the same thing in the future but handling it much more maturely.

I wasn’t looking for love when I tried to meet all those people, but I did discover all the ways love can unfold and the vast intensities it presents itself. I found all the ways I am capable of loving other people, no matter how painful the goodbyes.

I did not love these people in the way I loved my ex, but I think that when I am hurting this much, it must have been some kind of love all the same.

Always,

Claire

[un-sink]

Much has been said about grief

A lot has been said about grief, both in going through the motions of it and the fact that it really is just love with nowhere to go.

How does anger often come into that equation?

If you’ve come here looking for answers because you somehow found out I study clinical psychology (or used to…?), then I’m sorry to say I also don’t know the answer.

But I do know some science.

We’ve been told anger is part of the grieving process, that anger allows for catharsis, for realization, for progress. In feminist psychology, therapy, and theory, anger is encouraged because anger facilitates consciousness-raising — the process in which we realize our oppression by linking our experiences to the experiences of oppression of others who are exactly like us. Recognizing that the problem is, in fact, systemic and you are not suffering alone.

But, as a woman, it is unsightly to get angry. Anger is considered an “ugly” emotion, especially when it paints the “clean” and “innocent” face of women. We are often deprived of feeling this emotion as we grow up. It is ingrained in the way we are socialized and the way society regards us. 

When a little girl gets angry, she is immediately taught to stay calm and to be the “bigger person,” especially when the other party involved is a boy. Girls are made to mature early by learning to regulate their emotions at an early age while boys are allowed to be as rowdy and aggressive as possible to exert their “maleness.” This has negative consequences in adulthood for both that are almost never brought up.

This may or may not apply to you, that’s fine. But there is truth to it. 

There are plenty of women now who are, for a lack of a better word, emotionally constipated. We’ve grown up unable to process our own anger. We are not afforded those tools — only ever taught to keep it in. We’ve grown up holding in our “ugly” emotions. We’ve grown up expressing our anger in tears instead, because as little girls, the crying came first before the anger — crying because of the guilt for being angry. Because girls shouldn’t be angry.

For a lot of us, this means that we grow forgiving, but perhaps, too forgiving. When our partners hurt us in ways previously unimaginable, when our trust is broken and we are left unable to go back to the people we once were, there is a period of lull after the incident (or several incidents) where we end up thinking, “Oh, I shouldn’t get angry. I’m sure it was my fault. I have to be the bigger person. I have to be forgiving because I allowed it to happen, didn’t I? I’m sure I did something wrong for that to happen. I’m sure there was something I wasn’t doing right.”

This period can last hours, days, weeks, years. Three years. And in those three years, you’ll grow disillusioned without realizing it. You'd nursed a hurt you shouldn’t have been nursing for so long, that you’ve forgotten what your life is like without it. You look at the person who hurt you and remember that you love them so deeply and so genuinely, that you’ve convinced yourself your mind must have been playing tricks on you. They didn’t hurt you at all. They can’t, because they love you. They love you and you have to believe it because all this pain has to be worth something.

Then the hurtful thing that happened is shoved to the back burner, both in the effort to save the other person from what others might say and in the effort to keep things steady and going, because losing someone you spent half a decade with is probably worse than going after your own peace of mind. Right?

But you will never feel okay. Even when you muster up the strength to leave, you will continue to feel guilty because you allowed your anger over what happened to you to sever what was otherwise a perfect (?) relationship. 

And yet… you’re still running after somebody who didn’t value you enough to make amends with you. To face what they’d done to you. Now you feel pathetic for chasing someone again and again when they’d made it clear they weren’t interested in granting you the justice you deserve. Even when you’ve said so clearly and plainly that you’re willing to work through it. To forgive them.

In the end, all that a lot of us can do is grant forgiveness in lieu of being angry, because anger is fire and it will only hurt other people. 

Even to the end of your days, you will still be dousing this fire in the effort to protect other people. By then, there will be nothing left to say.

The other person is allowed to be bitter and angry, and allowed to blame you for leaving because of the hurt they caused you. You can’t do the same. You’re not afforded this emotion. You don’t get to have it.

All you get is the chance to write about it in vague, winding paragraphs in the hopes that this will reach the void and never return to plant another seed of hurt in you.

You don’t get peace or justice. You just get… this.

[un-sink]

Worry as Love

My family doesn’t mince words in reminding me how “precious” I am, so to speak.

I’m not saying this out of resentment or malice or whatever, just as I know they don’t say it out of malice, either — they’re just observations resulting from once again living in the same house after five years apart.

My parents and I flew to Vancouver to visit my siblings for six months (until December) because my sister is giving birth in September. This baby is our first in the immediate family. We knew we had to go, and being together again after five years has been quite the eye-opener and it hasn't even been a month. It's interesting to see how easily we fell into old routines, but, at the same time, we know that everything's changed. It's like that quote, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." But also the song "Everything Stays" from Adventure Time.

But I digress.

The other day, my mother reminded me of the stark difference in how my sister usually responded to her and to me. My sister usually speaks in her "Corps Commander" voice (see: loud) even with the echo of the basement suite. My mom recalled that when she (lightheartedly) scolded my sister about it, my sister merely dismissed her in a similar light tone, saying, "Di man gud kusog, Ma." 

But when I asked my sister to use her "inner voice" (again, in jest), my mom said that my sister had readily said sorry and said she didn't realize it. There was a shift when it came to me. 

This was all done lightly and with a laugh, but there was truth to it. There was a difference.

Again, a preface: I don't resent this, but neither do I revel in it.

It's sort of a running joke — for lack of a better word — in the family, especially when it came to my father. I am the youngest, so by the time I was born, I had an actual crib, a house (that we actually owned and not rented), and a car, things my two older siblings didn't have or had little of. Growing up, my brother didn't hesitate to exploit this special treatment: whenever he wanted something, small things like snacks, he'd tell my father that I had asked for it.

And it's not just the material things, really. I know depression can cloud my judgment and make me believe I cannot be loved, but I know my family loves me. I know it in the way I know they'd drop whatever they're doing if anything happened to me — with lupus, it's happened several times before. I know it in the way I'm allowed leeway for things my siblings weren't allowed before, and yet my siblings never resent me for it. Or if they do, it's eclipsed by their concern for me.

More often than not, I think I don't deserve it because I don't do nearly enough for them. I could spend entire lifetimes trying to equal all they've done for me, and I would never be able to hit the mark. When I think of them, it hurts, because I've been dead weight. I am the reason expenses are high, especially with my medication. I may have enjoyed free tuition for the last two years of college, but it was practically quits with the cost of the monthly rent for the unit I stayed at to be near school so that it would be convenient for me and a lesser burden on my illness. I may be low cost with my meals because I eat such small portions, but my medicine and trimonthly hospital examinations really tip the scales.

They have never said anything about it, partly because we can still afford it, but I know the monthly medication worth Php 6,000 adds creases to my mother's forehead whenever she checks the bill. 

It is hard to stop self-pitying when things are this way. I didn't choose to have lupus, but I do have it and I'll probably never be able to stop blaming myself for the grief it causes my family and my loved ones. I suppose the depression just comes with the package.

But my great (debilitating) dilemma comes in the choice between wanting to live my life and being a person that my family will love.

I don't doubt that they love me at all, but the thing that itches at my brain during depressive episodes is this: will they still be able to love me if I push it?

We don't talk about this — we have only mentioned this specific topic in heated arguments — but I have practically chosen a very different life path from what my family wants for me. It's not the conventionally successful life path but one of advocacy — one of little money. I know they don't approve partly because of the difference in politics but also because of genuine concern for my safety and security. 

I have lost many friends and colleagues under the fascist Duterte regime and I hate to say I am bracing myself for worse under the new Marcos-Duterte administration. I have already lost one barely a few weeks since the new president was inaugurated. I have grieved alone all this time, too, because it is difficult to open up this sort of pain to my family, because they don't approve of the work that I do and they would only end up worrying about me.

When they worry about me, I always feel like I have failed them. I know this is the wrong perspective to have, because what love does not come with worry? With heartbreak and sadness? But I also feel that way because I love them and I do not want them to worry about me.

But the work that I — that we — do is important and just, and I know that a part of them understands that and it's merely overpowered by the parts that are attuned to my well-being. They are hardwired to care about me, no matter how hard I try not to let them.

It is difficult to take on the painstaking task of helping our families understand the choices we make that are different from the wishes and dreams they have for our lives. I hope the crisis I am going through at present is merely part of the process. I've known for a long time what I've wanted to do in life — to be a full-time activist — and, more than anyone, I understand the risks that come with it and the unending worry I'll be bringing to my family. I understand their worry and I will always appreciate it — it is just how they love me. I'm grateful that their hard work has given me the privilege of choice — that I have never needed anything more than what I already have because they have always provided. But I am always going to go back to advocacy work, to work with the mass movement, no matter where I go or where I end up in. There is no other work more meaningful than the struggle for genuine liberation.

I don't want to say their concern for me is tying me down, because it is all up to me in the end, but as it stands, it is difficult to assert my choices in life when they do not believe that I have the capacity to be alright. 

But I want them to know that I will be alright (I cannot promise safety, only that I will do my best to stay safe) and I can only hope that someday, they will trust me.

Always, Claire

[un-sink]

Confronting My Ordinariness

I’m currently coming out of an intense depressive episode. It was really bad a few days ago. I can’t really say what the trigger for it was (or rather, I don’t want to share), but I was really down and really anxious all at once. I’m not formally diagnosed with anything, I only use “depressive episode” for brevity because there are very many similar symptoms. However, I am too self-aware to really deny them.

Central to my inner turmoil has been confronting the fact that despite instances in my life that I’ve been praised for things I do, I actually fall short in a lot of things. Simply put, I’m not really as amazing as people think. Or rather, I’m not really as amazing as I used to think I was. 

It all sounds very egotistic, but much of my childhood struggles stemmed from a lack of confidence and bad self-esteem, and upon realizing that, I took it upon myself to be more confident. To find confidence in what I do. This, in itself, was already a huge effort for me. I tried to look at myself objectively at every turn and tried to convince myself I wasn’t as bad as I thought I was.

Well, it turns out it’s all backfiring now. I haven’t exactly developed a stable sense of confidence, but it has significantly improved from my teen years. Since 2018, since almost dying and my brain rewiring itself, I have been some level of confident. Checks out, too, because that year I joined four creative writing workshops that ultimately resulted to my self-esteem being further shot to death. Haha. (But this isn’t really about that.)

Something happened a few days ago that really brought me back down to the fucking earth. I can’t go into detail about it, but I basically ended up comparing myself to other, more skilled people, especially when it came to writing. That day, I was also mulling over non-responses from certain people. I had a lot of anxiety ongoing and the comparison to other people ended up being the last straw.

(Boljoon, Cebu, sometime 2014)

I had a breakdown. It was a quiet type of breakdown. I knew because I reverted to my self-destructive ways, which, for a lupus patient, is eating food I’m not supposed to eat (Nissin’s Five Spice Beef instant ramen is really good). The want to isolate myself was strong, too, but I had important work I couldn’t ignore. Still, I couldn’t push myself to do most things. Everything felt like too much to do, even sleeping. I started sleeping late, when my sleep schedule had already returned to normal. I was doing fine, and then it took one snap to destroy it all.

But I guess one thing I can give myself praise for is my ability to pull myself out of my own head when I need to. So I gave myself a day to be sad and to mope around. (On that note, I also acknowledge the kind of privilege I have to be able to do that.)

Things started feeling lighter when I decided to talk to people about it, to people I trust. At first, I ran to a fandom-focused Discord server (for a fic exchange I joined) and asked how people deal with insecurity in their writing. It was fine at first, but I realized I couldn’t get comfort from a group I am basically detached from, because I don’t really know them, they don’t know me, and the one thing binding us together is the mutual love of fictional professional volleyball players, one a big fat jerk and the other a too-blunt jerk, getting together.

So I ran to my friends, who were gracious enough to let me yell. It helps that they’re also writers so they understood what I felt. My friend (friend-parent, really), Astrid, said that one thing that really helped them with their self-esteem was accepting that they’re not meant to be extraordinary, and it doesn’t have to mean failure.

I imagine it should be common sense, but reading that message really did help me bring myself out of my own head. I want to be smart and intelligent and super articulate, but I have to come to terms with the fact that I don’t really have to be. That I can just be a Claire in the most ordinary sense.

That I am a Claire in the most ordinary sense.

Because ordinary Claire is still somebody who runs this blog and makes these posts. Ordinary Claire is a labor advocate and a community journalist. She puts her best efforts in amplifying the struggles of the marginalized and has done so for a few years now. Ordinary Claire writes fanfic of stories she loves. Ordinary Claire has stories she wants to tell and only she can write them in the way she wants, even if she doesn’t have good technique. Ordinary Claire loves to read. Ordinary Claire runs multiple Twitter accounts because she loves so many things, she needs to be involved in them. Ordinary Claire tells her friends and family she loves them at every opportunity she gets. She doesn’t let herself miss any chances. Ordinary Claire is full of love.

Ordinary Claire, who has reached for extraordinariness for most of her life and almost always fell short, continues to be loved regardless.

It’s actually something that continues to astound me, that there are people around me capable of giving me (me!) love in ways I haven’t learned to give to myself. I’m always reminded by others that it’s not up to me to decide how much I deserve the love that people give to me, because they’ve already made that choice all on their own.

It is, admittedly, just hard to remember sometimes.

Much of this need to be validated comes from my petit bourgeois background and the petibs tendency to want to center the world around ourselves. I have spent a good part of the past five years trying to struggle against this tendency, but remolding is not an overnight process. I need to painstakingly do it everyday.

I wrote this in an emotional email to my college professor (I had emailed to ask for a recommendation and ended up writing a whole essay about my self-doubt) after explaining that a good reason why I got through college at all was because she believed in me—that I knew I would have to learn to have faith in myself somehow. To trust in my own worth.

I’m still not feeling well enough right now as I write this, but putting all this into words has made the process of confronting my ordinariness more tangible. More doable. 

I need to anchor myself back to earth and back to the communities I’ve committed to serve so that I can take a step back and see how minuscule this self-doubt is in the grand scheme of things.

Always, Claire

P.S. Since my last post was in December 2020, I feel I have not brought to light a very important health update.

In December, probably a few days after I made that last post, my doctor told me that the symptoms of the lupus are “moderately controlled” and I didn’t need to do chemo as long as I kept up my good lab results. This was really such good news for me. For the longest time, I thought I would be having chemo forever. I’ve been having chemo on and off since 2013. I was 15 years old when I started. It was a lot to take in as a young teen, but I managed to accept it along the way, so much so that I couldn’t imagine a possibility beyond it. 

But it’s July 2021 now. It’s been over a year since my last chemo session in March 2020. The lupus nephritis is also not in flare, according to my lab results last June. I am at my healthiest right now, even healthier than I was during diagnosis.

These past months, I’ve just been trying my best to keep my lab results the way they are, managing my diet, and ensuring that I don’t end up having another flare, mostly because treatment is even more expensive now. There were some close calls recently, but I’ve managed to get through it.