My December so far

It’s just nine days till Christmas and my body is already on “Holiday mode”. This is the time when I wish I could just spend the days leading to Christmas lounging around and just taking it easy, but I already had a week-long leave earlier in the month.

I was out of office for a total of 10 days (that’s with the leaves and the weekend) from December 2-12— the longest I’ve ever been this year. I don’t actually have any plans for those days, just wanting to escape the added stress of work even for the meantime. As I’ve been saying, this year, especially the latter part of it, was brutal because of my mommy’s several health scares.

I don’t have that many get-togethers to talk about either. On the eve of my birthday, my team had our little meet-up at a restaurant in Ayala Malls Circuit, coinciding the company’s Holiday Party that is also happening on the event grounds. 

I enjoyed our team get-together more than the company party. It’s so nice seeing everyone outside MS Teams and just having a nice chat over pizza, salad and pasta. And boy, did we have a lot of it!

We had our exchange gift after a very filling lunch

PRST - Projects Morning girls. It’s so nice not to talk shop for once.

Birthday song and cheers from the whole team for me.

A gratuitous groufie with the team because we’d probably not see each other in months after this

After our lunch we all went to Globe Circuit Event Grounds where the Holiday party is being held. It was just a short walk from the mall but a bit difficult for me because I was carrying a big bag of gifts and was wearing a girly pair of sandals on a grassy lot.

We had to register to get inside and I was handed out this ticket and a candy cane.

Actually I just went there to register so I could be included in the raffle but really had no plans to stay. Not when there’s too many people and not enough tables and chairs for everyone. We also have to visit each stalls to get food and snacks but I wasn’t hungry at that point. 

I looked for kuya and his friend Albert and we all left together within 15-20 minutes of me being there. Call me KJ but I’m just not that comfortable around large crowds anymore. Crowd anxiety, y’all!

Too crowded

The next day was my 46^th  birthday, just went out for some Starbucks brunch while waiting for the 12nn mass at Greenbelt Chapel. It was particularly quiet—just me replying to birthday messages. I went home after the mass and spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping. 

On the 7th, with nothing to do feeling bored at home, I went to see “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” after a month of its release. That only goes to show that after “Avengers Endgame”, I’m not that big on MCU anymore. The movies that were released after 2019 didn’t give me the same thrill of the movies of Phases One to Three. No wonder, the movies and series released after were all belly flops—at least in comparison to the earlier MCU films. But I’ll save this discussion for another post.

On the 9th, Friday, I had a buffet lunch with the family and a friend and then went straight to check-in at Holiday Inn & Suites for a two-night stay because that’s how the kids wanted to celebrate my birthday. Yes, pala-desisyon sila.

I get asked many times why, when I’m always at the mall every weekend, I still choose Holiday Inn & Suites - Glorietta for my staycation. For that, ask my nephews because they will choose it over the bigger rooms of Holiday Inn - Manila Galleria or other hotels for that matter. I guess we feel right at home there. If we want to get something, we can simply go out to the mall that we’re all familiar with. The kids knew Glorietta like the back of their hands. It’s also easier for mommy to go home (she insists on going home and not stay for the night) or get things we forgot at home that we needed for our stay. 

Room 620 for this stay

My bros goofing around

Not blowing 46 candles inside the room as it might trigger the sprinklers. LOL.

Cousin Chi was there and brought me a cake.

We checked-in at 2PM of Friday and checked-out by 1PM of Sunday. It was short but it was okay. At least I got to spend some birthday downtime. For a moment we have escaped the infernal December heat (which is weird because the weather should be nippy by now). Sure I’m still baby-sitting my two nephews most of the time but I had much-needed rest and relaxation still. I’m not gonna complain.

Hello, December `22

And just like that, it’s already December. In a few days I’ll be blowing candles again.

Last week I had a self-photoshoot at Stills Studio in Makati. I don’t know why it was something that I wanted to do a few days before my birthday, but I went on with it even while nursing a bad headache and came out enjoying every minute of it. 

I’m well-aware that some people are secretly sneering at this thing which they think is nothing but a middle-aged woman’s unnecessary expression of vanity, but that’s one of the reasons why I did it. It’s a statement on how I stopped giving a D at what other people think. As long as I have the support of my family who all thought it was a good idea—those who have something to say about it can zip it. 

My motivation was simple — I’m not getting any younger, so while I can strike a pose then I guess there’s nothing to it, as that `90s Madonna song goes. 

One day you’ll just wake up and the younglings are no longer calling you “ate” but “tita”. You’ll see lines in your face that weren’t there before. One day you’ll wake up old. It will hit you ominously that age has crept in. There will always be that palpable ache. How you look now, won’t be the look you’ll have forever. 

So while I still can smile on the camera, please indulge me.

As always, I took good pictures and had bad ones too. Some of the shots emphasized my set of eyebags (that sort of reminded me of the Goodyear blimp), or that constant photobomber that is my double chin, or that not-so-yummy muffin top that magically appears when I’m seated. 

But it also captured my winningest smile and my deep set of big eyes—both my saving grace for not being as pretty as most girls. It’s also the two things I want people to remember me by, even after many more birthdays I hope.

So, hello, December. Let’s all pray that this will be the most wonderful month of my rather stressful year.

My Rest

Headache, neck pains and dizziness are getting to be a recurring thing for me the past few months. I knew, after I have gone through a series of tests and finding that all results are negative, that all these are just probably due to stress. Wednesday last week I suddenly had a bad dizzy spell that I never had before I had to stop work and lie down. The following day, I was down with a really bad headache that Paracetamol or Mefenamic Acid can’t remedy. That ear-splitting headache went on until Friday, but I went on with all my plans that day, including a self-photoshoot in time for my birthday next week.

Last Saturday was our annual wishlist reveal. This is a yearly thing that my close friends and I do right before Christmas for more than a decade now. I was pretty excited about it because we did the past two years online due to the pandemic, which is not quite the same doing it in person. The night before that I was already worried that I might have those bad headaches and nausea which would be so bad of a timing considering we’ll meet at an all-you-can-eat Japanese buffet—Ogetsu Hime, in Megamall.   

That morning, Tin said she won’t be able to make it because she had to rush her daughter Yen to the ER because of severe stomach pain. Sayang—but we totally understand. That leaves me, Tetay (with her daughter and my godchild, Pretzel) and Jen.

I got to Megamall at around 11AM, with Tetay and Pretzel already there waiting for our reservation. Jen followed shortly, just as we’re about to eat. 

Albeit not a big Japanese food fan, with no dexterity to speak of when it comes to using the chopsticks, I enjoyed that lunch buffet with friends. Over sushi, sashimi, Angus beef, tempura, gyoza, and all other Japanese dishes I can’t even pronounce, we didn’t seem to run out of stories to tell. 

We were at Ogetsu until its lunch cut-off at 2:30PM, then transferred to Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf to continue our catching up. We sure did a lot of it, as we didn’t realize it’s already almost 8PM the next time we checked the time!

That’s the thing about being with your closest, most trusted friends. You don’t realize the passing of time. You get so comfortable sharing things to them with almost no filter (We had to remind ourselves we’re around a minor, and that’s the only time we’ll stop ourselves from talking about mature topics and rated 18 stuff). I know that whatever it is I share to them, I will not be judged. It was refreshing after months of just getting coffee all by myself and being left alone with my thoughts.

I am very thankful for having low-maintenance friends like the Cuatro Amigas. We all know for a fact that life happens, so there isn’t that expectation to talk to them everyday or see them so many times in a month. We usually get to see each other only during our yearly wishlist reveal, but even that is okay. Nothing changes. We simply pick up where we left off.  

The beauty of it is that I know for a fact that I can count on them. When things are getting hard to bear, especially lately when I was having really stressful moments worrying about my mommy’s condition, I run to them on the group chat and just let it all out. They do the same thing; if they are going through something difficult, they go to the group chat and after unloading our pent-up energies and frustrations, everything feels okay.

I went home that night walking from SM Megamall Atrium to Shaw Boulevard Station of the MRT with its notoriously steep 80+ steps staircase they call "Mount Shaw Boulevard" — and was so recharged I didn’t even bother taking the elevator and went to conquer the infamous stairs instead. I got off Ayala Station, walked my way to the Park Square to the jeepney stop. All while carrying gift boxes and my cavernous tita bag with me.

And that’s when it dawned on me: I wasn’t tired. I didn’t even feel the slightest headache or tensed neck. No weariness. I was actually feeling great even if I was up early that day. Even if commuting to-and-fro Megamall wasn’t easy at all under the unforgiving November 32-degree-Celsius weather, somehow I feel fine. I slept soundly that night.

I realized, my friends are my rest. They recharge me. A day spent with them zapped out months and months of stress, anxiety and exhaustion. It is just what I needed. 

I will always be thankful for having them.

Coffee talk with people who mattered that went from 2:30PM to past-8PM.