Christmas Eve

“Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”
~ Clement Clarke Moore, Twas the Night Before Christmas

It is Christmas Eve, in the year of our Lord 2021.

I was able to fly home to the Philippines to finally see my parents whom I have not seen since before the pandemic in 2019.

Travelling here was no small feat.

Last Sunday, I made an appointment to get an RT-PCR test at 12:00 noon. I arrived at the testing site at 11:40 a.m. thinking that I would be about fifteen minutes early and be done by 12:03 as the place had promised. “Appointments are 3 minutes or less.”

But when I arrived there, it turned out that about fifty other people also had a 12:00 noon appointment, and there were only five testing personnel.

We all ended up waiting outside in the bitter cold for almost an hour. The actual swabbing test itself did take less than 3 minutes. A cotton swab swirl in one nostril, a swish in the other nostril, boom, bam, done.

I paid $175.00 for guaranteed results in 24 hours or less. I figured that was plenty of time for my early morning Tuesday flight. I did not have to be at the airport until about 23:00 on Monday night. However, as Monday afternoon turned into Monday evening and the time was getting close for me to start to worry, I suddenly started feeling sick, mostly with anxiety that (a) I would not receive my results in time, and (b) that I actually tested positive since I had been in the same vicinity as people in my office who had tested positive earlier in the week.

It was not until about 20:00 that I finally received my negative results.

Off to the airport I go. Once I arrived to check into my flight, the agent told me that the Philippines was only accepting passengers that were current Filipino passport holders or former Filipinos with proof of birth in the country.

“Please produce a copy of your Philippine birth certificate, or you will be denied boarding on the flight.”

Wait, what?

I thought I had read the travel requirements carefully, but apparently I had missed that requirement. I was thinking to myself how the f*ck was I going to be able to produce my birth certificate at that very moment. I definitely did not have enough time to go home and come back.

And then I had remembered Google docs. I had scanned a bunch of important documents and saved them onto my Google docs account. I logged into my account from my phone and there I was at the airport, sweating and praying that I had scanned my birth certificate.

There it was. I had scanned my birth certificate and saved it on my account sometime in 2011.

Crisis averted. I produced a copy of my birth certificate, boarded the plane, and settled into my seat. The flight was nearly eighteen hours long, but the sheer stress of the last thirty-six hours exhausted me to the point that I had slept through about ten hours during the flight.

When we landed on Philippine soil, we were immediately escorted to this large area that had the Philippine coast guard there. We were approached by guards who checked our papers and asked us a series of questions regarding our health. We were then instructed to complete an application for a OneHealth pass that you would have to carry for the duration of your time in the country. I had completed the application days in advance, but it was never approved because they had sent a follow-up email to me asking if I was pregnant, but I did not see that email because I had been on a plane for the last eighteen hours.

After about three more health station checks, I was escorted to the baggage area to claim my luggage, and after that, I was immediately taken outside to the official government taxi stand and then whisked off to my hotel where I am now to undergo a mandatory six day quarantine period (swabbing on the fifth day, plus one day to receive the results).

I am to be here until Monday, December 27. I will be spending Christmas locked in a hotel room.

Progress

“In this world, there is a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we’ve left behind, and dreaming ahead.” ~ Tony Kushner, Perestroika

The move to my new apartment this past July was really difficult for me. Firstly, I did everything by myself. While I did have movers to lift and transport the heavy stuff, I did all the packing and unpacking and rearranging on my own.

The idea of cleaning out my old apartment felt good at first. I had felt like I was shedding dead parts and growing into a new and improved version of myself. I called a junk removal service and scheduled a day for them to come and take away all those items that I no longer needed or wanted to bring into my new space. But when that day came, I panicked and I ended up directing them to take away far less than I had originally planned. As a result, I was still stuck with an apartment full of items and furniture that needed to be discarded. The stress of having wasted time and money on the failed removal project started to weigh heavily on me and I felt as though I could not continue. All I wanted to do was to go to sleep and never wake up as the task of completely cleaning out my old apartment felt too monumental for me to accomplish.

Somehow, I was able to pick myself up and just get it done. The next step was to unpack at my new place. The excitement of moving into a brand new space did not last long as the unpacking process was a brutal reminder of how alone I really was in this world. With the pandemic and health safety concerns, I really did not feel like asking for any help and instead unpacked and set up the entire apartment all by myself. I cried on many nights, drowning in self-pity that I had no one to help me with putting away things on high shelves or to help me lift heavy stuff like the mattress. The moving process made me miss the convenience of having someone like my ex who was very house-handy, and that led to me pining for him, even though I knew it was not really him that I missed. I just missed having a body around to help me. Mostly I just wished for someone to just be there.

After a lot of tears and sweat, I managed to get it all done.

It came along, slowly, but I did it.

I now look forward to spending cozy warm nights in my new home.

Parents’ Nightmare

“Through the blur, I wondered if I was alone or if other parents felt the same way I did – that everything involving our children was painful in some way. The emotions, whether they were joy, sorrow, love or pride, were so deep and sharp that in the end they left you raw, exposed and yes, in pain. The human heart was not designed to beat outside the human body and yet, each child represented just that – a parent’s heart bared, beating forever outside its chest.” ~ Debra Ginsberg, R aising Blaze: Bringing Up an Extraordinary Son in an Ordinary World

The last few months have been difficult. I wrote about it in my last post. It is quite probably the lowest point for me this year: my relationship with my daughter.

I know that most teenage daughters start to hate their mothers during puberty. I don’t know why that is, and I try to think back to when I was a teenager. Did I hate my mother then? Probably? If I am remembering correctly, what I hated the most about my mom was that she never stood up for me against my father who was a tyrant and who never let us out after 5:00 p.m. My parents were old-school, strict Asian parents who never let us talk during dinner, never let us express our feelings or opinions, and who treated my siblings and me like little toy soldiers who had to follow the general (my father), or suffer punishment that included slaps and beatings.

When I was younger, I felt as though my childhood was not all that bad. After all, my father had a good job that afforded us a large home in the suburbs, and we generally lived a cushy life, not wanting for any material things.

But if you dug below the surface, my siblings and I lived a very stressful childhood. We were constantly under a microscope by my parents, and it seemed like we lived our whole young lives just trying to please my father. Nothing was ever good enough in my his eyes, and I grew up always feeling like I was never enough. My top grades in school, my school graduations, my earning a black belt in martial arts – none of those landmark events in my life meant anything to him. In fact, he never attended any of my graduation ceremonies.

The only attention I received from him was when I did something “bad” – if I came home late, if I brought home a bad grade, or if I expressed an opinion that differed from his. Only then would he pay attention to me, and of course that attention was never pretty. I would get slapped and berated, sometimes for hours, and my mom would just sit there. She would not say anything. I hated her for that.

When I became a parent, I tried to be the opposite of my father. I always celebrated my daughter’s successes and tried to encourage her whenever things did not go well. She and I had always been close, but something changed this year, and now I have no idea who she is.

It started out small. Lying about where she went. Coming home later and later. Then it built up to wanting to sleep at friends’ houses more and more frequently. Until one night, she decided not to come home at all and she would not answer her phone. She came home the next morning and said she had stayed at her friend’s house. When I asked her why she did that, she flatly responded, “I just want to have fun.”

She sometimes sneaks out at night and her bed would be empty in the morning. She is defiant and hardheaded, and lies about every single little thing.

I talk to her calmly and without anger, and we have even made agreements that I thought were peaceful and compromising to both our sides, but she is not complying with the terms. She still breaks curfew and last night she said, “I want to live on my own.”

She is fourteen.

Post-Pandemic

“How much does your life have to suck to want the Apocalypse?” ~ Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke & Bone

The pandemic lasted 457 days in New York City, with the Covid restrictions ending on June 15, 2021.

Post-pandemic life has been a series of highs and lows.

Highs:

May: I went to Miami, for the first time ever, and loved it. I met my high school and long time friend there to celebrate our landmark birthdays.

June: One day after the lifting of restrictions, I went to Cape Cod. I got to see the famous lighthouses and eat fantastic seafood.

July: I moved to a great location in the city, right on the East River. These are views from my apartment.

September: I was able to participate in the Tunnel to Towers Run to honor and pay respect to the thousands of lives that perished on 9/11. It’s surreal to me that this year was the 20th anniversary.

Lows:

My cousin went into cardiac arrest in July, just two short months after I last saw him in May. He had looked to be healthy and on the mend from a recent medical procedure. He fell into a coma and never fully regained consciousness. He passed away in early October. Even worse, I found out about his passing through Instagram when one of his sons posted a note about his passing. I loved my cousin and am hurt that his family never even bothered to inform me. People (especially family) are freakin’ weird.

Another low this year is the sudden character regression of my daughter. I had posted in March about how proud I was of her seemingly becoming more mature, and sometime between March and during the summer, she transformed into a lying, sneaky, and unreliable little jerk. I know she’s my daughter and I should not refer to her disparagingly, but I call it how I see it. She had three sessions with a therapist, and those sessions went well. I have encouraged her to continue, but she refuses to go, instead choosing to be rebellious and defiant of house rules. I am nearly at my wit’s end with her, and am running out of patience.

Looking Ahead

It is now December and God willing, I will fly out in two weeks to see my family in the Philippines. The clock is ticking faster these days, it feels like, and I am anxious to see them, especially after this long pandemic that does not seem to end. Hopefully I will get to spend my Christmas and New Year with them. In the meantime, I am enjoying the festive decorations here in the city. It is such a welcome sight, made much more appreciated after having missed it last year with the city on lockdown.