Hey, 2023.

And just like that, holidays are over. We are thrown back to our normal routine prior to the happy, jolly Christmas revelry. I am currently nursing a cold, fever and a slight cough—reeking of Tiger Balm all over—but otherwise I’m okay.

New Year’s Eve salubong was just alright, a little less fun compared to the previous ones. In the last three years, we have had several deaths in the family, but we try to carry on with our tradition to stay awake until midnight and just wait for the changing of the year. 

A residential area like ours can be big when it comes to firecrackers and cacophony of loud noises (motorcycle revving is what I absolutely hate), but I noticed that fireworks display this year are not that many. I say inflation hits even the usual holiday celebration. 

At least in our family, we were never big on the Noche Buena and Media Noche eversince. We don’t really have a feast like other households even if my mom cooks a lot of food enough to clog our arteries for a whole week. We just don’t do a big table set-up and have our pictures taken like other families. It was never our tradition to eat together during the holidays. Most of the time, we just do the salubong, then help ourselves with whatever it is we want to eat, then go to sleep.

I have no New Year’s resolution this year, judging my history of failing to fulfill most of it. But I will continue to hold that hope that this year will be better for me and my loved-ones, especially health-wise.   

I tried catching some z’s the next day, January 1, having no other plans in the morning. My nephews had to leave to be with their mother’s side of the family in Binangonan, so it’ll just be me, mom, and my brothers at home for two days. 

By noon, I’m already preparing to go to mass as it’s the First Sunday of the year. After that I went to the mall but forgot that most of the stores are closed on New Year’s Day. I don’t think I can go on a shopping extravaganza anyway when I’m broke since Christmas (painfully waiting for next payday), so as usual I just treated myself a plate of pasta, dropped by a nearby drugstore to buy my personal essentials and go straight home. 

In the previous years, my cousins and I would go bowling during New Year’s Day but not for this year. Everyone seems to have their own plans so nothing had panned out. We have to accept that succeeding holidays will be like this so it’s best to plan things within the family without having to involve others. Besides, if I may be candid about it, the past year’s holidays became a wake-up call for me and my older brother. In many instances this year, purposely or not, our family was left out on some gatherings and events. But instead of ruminating what we did wrong, we just didn’t mind it that much anymore. 

January 2nd was declared a holiday so I jumped on that chance to go to RCBC Plaza to drop off the calendars to a friend and do some window shopping after. I have no leaves for the whole month after this because the office made some revisions where leave credits will be earned at the end instead of the beginning of the month. I am saving my carry-over leaves from 2022 for the leave encashment on the 25th (unused leaves of the previous year will be converted to cash) so my next leave won’t be until February. 

By this time, I already felt that I was coming down with something so I spent the rest of the day in bed. Hopefully this isn’t COVID, but I don’t think it is because my symptoms are mild compared to when I had it also at the beginning of last year. 

I hope this is not a sneak preview of my 2023. Oh, hell no.  

 

...and so this was Christmas

Christmas 2022 went by as fast as it came and with it are some adult thoughts and realizations:

• Christmas is only a holiday enjoyed by kids. Even with the long preparation and merriment weeks leading to it, come the 25th it’s just an ordinary day to adults.

• Some people will not hesitate to ruin Christmas for you. Whether they intentionally leave you out of their plans or sabotage your plans, they just don’t have the consideration not to do it on the supposed most wonderful day of the year. Sometimes you’ll just wonder if they purposely chose this very day to suck the fun out of you.

I managed to get a discounted, employee-rate booking the last minute for Christmas Day, considering the high occupancy. I made plans for the family to spend Christmas there since we weren’t expecting any visitors or relatives coming over (it had been that way for about three years now, since most of the elders passed away). The last minute my mom threw a tantrum and said she will not be coming and would rather go straight home after visiting Daddy at the columbarium. We knew she had no plans to stay overnight, but not coming at all? That hurts because I was the one who planned it.

Then come at night, my younger brother who was supposed to follow was told by mom to just stay home because she’s all alone and, “wala akong kasama”. That is, even if my younger brother was also looking forward for some R&R with his kids at the hotel. This ticked me off bigtime, because if she came, we’ll all spend Christmas together and no one will be left behind. It’s just a night stay, for crying out loud, not even a full 24-hours.

So yeah, no Christmas family picture for us this year.

• It is a season for giving, I know, but sometimes adults go absolutely broke and the realization of this bitter truth sinks immediately the day after (Boxing Day). Some people (family members included) also think this day is all about spending money and that it’s normal to go for broke and worry about it some other time. For the breadwinners, it’s that one day you’ll resent being one because the spending was non-stop. If you complain about spending the slightest, you are being a Christmas Grinch devoid of generosity.

• Do not buy Christmas gifts online if you don’t want to experience the same aggravation I had. Due to high order volume during their holiday campaigns, many of my Shopee orders didn’t make it on time for Christmas. My packages spent weeks in their delivery hub, then on the day when it was supposed to be delivered, their system showed it as “Out for delivery” but delivery failed due to “Insufficient time”. I seriously think they didn’t make any attempt at all to deliver on the day they said so, they just wanted to show that there was movement in the tracking. I followed-up days after Christmas, and their Customer Service sent me an e-mail saying that one of my orders was declared lost and the other had to be returned to seller. 

• There will be moments you’ll realize that if not for the compulsory exchange gifts/Secret Santa, you’ll get no gift for Christmas. 

• Re-gifting is a common practice more than we ever realize. While one may appreciate the thought, sometimes one just have no space for another knick-knack, bric-a-brac, or a lotion and body wash set you’ll never use (and would sit in your dresser till next year). I’ve received some gifts which I think wasn’t really bought for me but the giver probably just regifted it to me because if the giver knew me, they’ll know I don’t use strong-scented lotions. 

I’m not offended getting a regift—because I’d do the same without any guilt. I’d rather give the gift to someone who I think would appreciate it more than I do. 

• And just because I carry myself well, it doesn’t mean I don’t need a cash gift. Duh. 

You still have until the New Year to send cash my way, though. LOL.

• That there is always that one VIP on every Christmas family reunion that everyone gives special treatment and attention to. Most of the time, it’s the one who’s well-off or the one vacationing from abroad. For the rest of us, who are deemed not as important, they can certainly do away without us being present in family gatherings.

Don't get me wrong though, even with all these realizations, Christmas is still, and will always be, my favorite time of the year and will continue looking forward to it. I should just learn how to manage some of my expectations and not to count too much on the Christmas spirit next time.

My space

Last weekend, I woke up from a very nice, restful sleep and read a reply on a tweet I posted a few days ago. It was me talking to myself (which is what I usually do in Twitter anyways) and saying that I don’t find feminine features in a man attractive. I actually said so after having a conversation with a friend about preferences and it kinda stuck in my head long enough for me to tweet about it.

That morning I saw this reply to that harmless tweet:

Since he used the acronym IMO on me, it would only be fair me to say that personally as well, I don’t appreciate this reply and it did hit a nerve. Call me touchy but I don’t think we should normalize calling out people on their own post, on their own space and more so when talking about one’s preference.

Point me to that rule that I should not be talking about my preferences online. Especially when I did not post this as a reply to another person’s post for him to conveniently preach that I shouldn’t be volunteering this information. 

Firstly, it didn’t have any antagonistic intent. It was not meant to insult the group of people I was describing. If some people find that tweet insensitive then that is overreaching. I usually say things not with the objective to appease or upset people. How they take it is their problem, but since this is Twitter, I say people should just chill. This is nothing but a void. You take what you like, ignore what you don’t. Jeez, if I get offended by every little thing I see online then I shouldn’t be on it. I see a lot of things there everyday that I don’t necessarily agree with, but I don’t call each and every people out.

What’s weird is that while I know this person, we are not following each other on Twitter. How he ended up on my Twitter profile and then singled-out this tweet baffles me. I also find it funny how he used the word “logic” when what I said does not require logic because I certainly was not giving a statement that is true for everyone else. As what I said to him in reply, if I read a tweet stating dislike on a feature I have—I will not be bothered by it all. 

And I wonder, if I said something he agrees to, will he call me out on behalf of the other people who might feel bad about what I said? I don’t think so. 

But let me say that he was right at one thing: It is my space. Quit telling people to stop posting something you don’t necessarily agree with especially when you can simply ignore, mute, unfollow or unfriend.