during senior moments

when I wake up and before I sleep, when the feeling of not being ok is most sharp.

From books to TV dramas, this topic of acknowledging your feeling of not feeling ok is becoming a cliché. The premise for this adage is that most of us are not honest about our feelings. As we move within our professional circles or communities, we tend to camouflage our feelings especially when we are supposed to lead the way, in mentoring persons or groups. Before friends, we tend to pretend in order to blend. We hide our true selves before our loved ones to avoid adding to their burdens. Acknowledging the feeling of not being ok is easier said than done. For if we can’t acknowledge it before others, then we have not acknowledged it at all.

talk to someone

Most TV dramas I’ve watched involve close friendships and buddy relationships. The teleplay will always craft a loyal, unassuming friend who listens and responds compassionately. This buddy and companion always gives their friends priority attention in times of need. It takes a long time to develop this kind of relationship. When a fall out happens, the misunderstanding leads to ghosting or erasure. All light and heavy conversations about anything with friends will cease. Lost is the privilege of talking to someone without fear of judgment. Gone is that lightness of being resulting from sharing. Then it will take a long time to find a new confidante.   

engage in self care

My niece told her mother about her boredom with house chores. She had to give up her work in advertising when she had a miscarriage. After that, even working from home presented too much risk. So she stopped working altogether. Eventually, she got depressed. My sister advised her to go window shopping. When she was a young single mother, she used to take her children to the mall, whenever she felt tired and lonely. Her daughter remembered those times in the mall. In those times of useless malling her Mom fitted shoes and clothes without buying, pleasing herself with a momentary new look now and then. My niece obeyed her mother’s advice and went window shopping. She came back home with an upbeat energy, having momentarily escaped that feeling of not being ok.

meditation in poetry

The poet Christian Wiman wrote, “Poetry arises out of absence, a deep internal sense of wrongness out of a mind that feels itself to be in some way cracked.” My ‘meditation’ happens on paper because writing is therapeutic. Poetry in particular is a way of thinking meditatively. In writing poetry, I pause at every line. I struggle with every word and phrase. The meaning of the poem becomes clear to me only when the poem has finally become a poem. Writing a poem is multiple rewriting of structured notes, similar to the endless revision of our lives as we discover some new ways of being. The very first poem I wrote is entitled

journal entry
©1987

Once I tried to weave a verse

for pages back I weaved

but couldn’t stitch more lines than one

and so I went to sleep

and dreamt of verses that are echoes

of life’s embittered cries

and words escaping from the ghettoes

of unfulfilled desires

verses sounding and resounding

rhythmic flowing replies

to question marks abounding

in sleep their wise disguise.

exercise

How not ok I feel could be expressed through aimless walking. Walking without a destination turns negative energy into exhaustion. This exercise cause my pale skin to turn red. I lose the zombie look and gets a halo.

creative expression

One thing that I had always done, collecting art materials and storing them in my old leather bag. I have always wanted to paint. However, I have not painted at all. Not ok with not having done a sketch of even one decent picture, I do an inventory of my paint colors and brushes now and then, to keep hoping. My last sketch was of my Mother when she was still with me. I can’t find this sketch immediately but its the widget at the bottom of Page a Writer that links to this Y.A. blog.

set small goals

I’ve always gotten ahead of myself, or counted chicks before the eggs have hatched. My mouth outpace my vision and I end up projecting but not delivering. But dreaming is a way of coping. When I am not ok, I review the dreams in my journals, highlighting what has been achieved however teeny-weeny.

keep the space clean

I am not ok with noise and a messy home.  I can feel clutter even if I don’t see it because my house is small. Every bag and basket in my home is for storage of basic and mundane things. When I am not ok, I destress by organizing those ‘bagged’ objects, ensuring that every thing I’m keeping away deserves the space. This relaxes me.

listen to music

I find walking with earphones, and listening to music while doing something else, tedious and stressful. Restaurants play background music too loudly-not at all music to my ears. Neighborhood karaoke singing assaults my ear drums. How do I cope in the midst of noise and mess? I leave that space for one that is quiet and orderly, where music adds to the ambiance. But almost always, this space is expensive.

maintain a routine

There is the routine bad habits and the routine that is productive. Routine bad habits include drinking expensive coffee every morning,  eating halo-halo or puto bumbong for dessert, risking a sugar spike, and binge watching on Netflix until very late in the evening. The routine that is productive involves the exact opposite of those three. But when not ok, meryenda and watching K-drama on Netflix is my default-not- ok normal.

seek professional help

My doctors are the following: An endocrinologist, a cardiologist, an EENT specialist, an ob-gynecologist, a breast cancer surgeon, a throat specialist, and an ophthalmologist. Aware of my mortality, I am ok only as far as ok can get. Indeed, my health card is proof of this.