Human, all too human
I just got here, and already I’m tired.
I’m supposed to be editing contribution-stories today, but none have come in yet, and for the most part I’ve finished my own articles (except for one, and I’m not particularly excited about it. I’ll write it probably tomorrow afternoon during one tremendous burst of energy that’s the immediate effect of downing a Berocca tablet). I can’t read books here (will explain later why not), and I can’t simply walk off and leave because it’s too early in the day.
I’ve been thinking about Jim Paredes, his family and their moving to Australia.
I admit that when I read the article a few days ago in the Inquirer I was a little shocked; but as I read it, I fully empathized. I understand how it is to be so drained and to wish for a little space between myself and the horrors of living in my country. Back home before I went bonkers and had to fly here, I had wanted to do so many things for work, but the because of so many things that happened all at once (personal, professional, chemical imbalance, bad nutrition, my anguished reaction to activists being killed, etc), I had to GET OUT OF THERE.
Jim Paredes and his family are pretty well-off, and they’re sheltered and protecte from all the gut problems that affect the most Filipino families (namely hunger and extreme deprivation); but it’s not surprising that they, that Mr. Paredes, would be eaten up by disillusionment and exhaustion. He has done his share, he has exerted effort, and he has tried his best to make a difference in his own way; and he got mentally and maybe even emotionally tired because of how slow the changes he wanted to happen were in coming.
There.
Actually, it’s never as if the struggle for genuine change and social justice can ever be hopeless or invalid. It is never as if fighting for causes larger than one’s self can ever be passe or useless. It is people who get tired.
It’s how one interprets this exhaustion that’s crucial, now.
I have never given up on my country, and I have never given up on the Kilusan.
I have, however, given up a little on myself and how I am. I could simply dismiss many of my shortcomings as an inevitable class trait (madaling mapagod ang mga burgis; madalas padalos-dalos at nagmamadali; nauupos parang kandila sa harap ng matinding hangin ng mga hamon ng magulong panahon); and the argument would not be wrong; but I prefer to understand myself and what I’ve gone through a little deeper.
I admit my weaknesses and my limitations, and I acknowledged months back before I left that I have to recuperate and get my strength back if I had any intentions of being a fully-functioning activist again.
It was that or die.
I send my husband postcards every week (vintage cat postcards. Cats photographed in the old backstreets of Hong Kong back in the 80s), and with every postcard I tell him I grateful I am that he let me leave; that he made this sacrifice with me. Leaving my country hurt because not only did it mean leaving my family and friends behind; it meant leaving the work that means so much to me, the work that defines the best part of me and my being. I simply had to go because my brain didn’t work right; my heart was too emotional; and my body was weakened by the former and latter brawling all the time.
Now, eight months later, I feel a little stronger. I’ve learned a lot about myself and the way I am and why I am the way I am. I’ve learned how to walk again, and to see other colors again, no longer blinded by the white stressful light of wanting to do so many things but being unable to because of various limitations.
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This is why I can’t read books here:
