I wish I could say that I am okay. I wish I could be the bearer of today’s good vibes. I wish this is another piece where you can read another inspiring story of coping amid the pandemic. But spoiler alert: This is not.
This year started for me as about achieving dreams. On March 13, I woke up to the arrival of my admissions letter from my dream school in the United States, with a generous grant to boot. Have you ever dreamed of something so hard that you consistently prayed for it every night?
The prospects of moving to my dream city seemed within reach. I checked out apartments in Manhattan, chatted with my fellow admitted students in our WhatsApp group, and met my prospective professors via Zoom calls. “We are very excited to finally meet you in person in the fall!” they said.
The coronavirus was just something happening in my periphery then, even when it was already all over the news. I guess I was in denial that something so major could hinder me from attending my dream school in my dream city this year. “Nope, I am still going.” I was unstoppable.
And then the outbreak turned into a global pandemic. The world entered the worst economic recession in recent history. My mother lost her job. I had just resigned from my five-year media job. I left my Manila life and moved in temporarily to my parents’ house in Laguna. My best friend had to cancel his wedding, and my other best friend had to give up a job offer from an international NGO (his longtime dream). Some of my friends and relatives would eventually get COVID-19, and one of them would die. We were in a dystopian world. Terrible things just started to pour in like water gushing from a broken faucet.
Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months, and months turned into quarters. What I thought was going to be a few weeks of Mawawala rin ‘yang virus at matutuloy rin ang mga plano ko became a major phase in my life where I would lose so much. I am not being overly dramatic, although I wish I just am. Not only did I lose my job and source of income, I also ended up deciding that moving to the US this year was not a good idea. I had to give up my dream.
I was at peace with that decision. But not with what came after.
Since then, it has always been so hard waking up every day knowing that my parents are seeing me with nothing. Their 28-year-old firstborn has no job, no money, no source of income, and no sense of identity and purpose anymore. Who is he? What is he going to do?
Where do I draw strength from, when I know even my family and friends are struggling with their own battles?
Yesterday, I made the stupid mistake of opening again our WhatsApp group after weeks of muting it, and I saw the members’ messages about their flights to New York, class registrations, and moving in to their apartments, among others. I would be lying if I say it did not sting a bit. Of course it did. I should have been in their position, too.
I hate that I am typing this for the nation to read, but I have developed an insane amount of insecurity and anxiety these past few months. I simply lost my drive. Where do I draw strength from, when I know even my family and friends are struggling with their own battles?
I recently started new hobbies that I never had the time to do before, such as biking, listening to podcasts, playing video games, working out, watching all episodes of Gray’s Anatomy, and taking care of plants. I wish I could say these are enough for me to think that the pandemic has had good results for me somehow, but I can’t. While I recently became a Champion in Pokemon Sword & Shield after having obtained all Gym Badges (the main objective of the game), when I go back to bed after another day of doing these fun hobbies, I am still doomed by the thought of nothingness: “No, Juju, you are not a champion.”
And then I sleep. And then I get bad dreams. And then I wake up not wanting to go out of my bedroom because, dear Lord, I am praying to you, this cannot be another day when my parents would see me doing stupid hobbies. It is already painful.
This year, which started out for me as achieving my dreams, has turned out to be a year of trying to find a more meaningful purpose. Because if there is any takeaway from all of this, it is the thought that a person can lose everything—everything—and all that’s going to be left is his purpose, whatever that is.
If you ask me, my purpose has always been to teach and inform, which I believe I have done so in my previous career in journalism. I am about to enroll in a Professional Teaching Certification program because I hope to get a professional teaching license next year. I am also applying for a new job in teaching and humanitarian work—the two career fields I have always wanted to pursue outside journalism.
I would like to believe that I am not alone; many of you are also probably not yet recovering from your individual defeats. There may not be a manual that would tell us how to go about these trying times, but let us be reminded that it is perfectly valid to feel down and miserable. After all, we are living in a not-okay world at this point. The government is not saying it, but I am saying it: This is not okay. Our fate this year is not okay.
