Karma

That moment when you realize that the things you've done are happening to you.

Downfall

Today I was given anti-depressants and anti-anxiety pills. And no, not by a psychiatrist. Just my neurologist.

When taking pills, I would usually want to know the mechanism of action, but right now I'm just too tired and apathetic. I've lost lots of weight in the past 5 weighings (55 kg, 52 kg, 50 kg, 48 kg, 47 kg, 44 kg), and that downslope is not good for my immune system, says my neurologist.

I don't want to go to the psychiatrist. Please haul me out.

Aguidao, aguidao!

Tacloban has been quite uneventful. I have no friends and experience the longest days ever. But it's okay, my mom bakes me cookies, and although the social disconnect's quite saddening, I get by. I can't even read books. I don't have space for new series so it's such a struggle thinking of what to do. It's just me and myself. Can't seem to rediscover myself because I realized I am not that interesting when sick. I can't even sing. I can, but after a few notes my body tries to want to puke. It's disgusting really. The battle is against my throat, my tummy, my tongue. I don't know. All these things, when irked, lead to vomiting.

This phase has convinced me of how human I am. Now I know I'm not extraterrestrial. Now I know my parents are real and that they're not secret agents pretending to live a normal life. Now I know how hard it is to feel pain constantly. Physical pain is much worse than any other pain. It really is. Sure other pains affect you probably longer, but when physical pain lingers, it's a struggle every moment. Time dilates for you. It's not "it too shall pass" but "please let's get this over with" every single time. Mind you, it's not that easy. I have never seen wellness and normality as something to cherish. Never really desired wellness. It was just taken for granted. Now I'm not trying to be inspirational here. Just being real. Surely, you don't want to be sick for a year of your young life. Never really thought that in a snap of a finger, the jumpy, lively, energetic I would have to lie down in bed for most of the day.

I can feel my bones crackle. I don't know if that's the healing process, but sometimes I feel muscular jerks from my back. Like it's healing or trying to heal. The jerks don't hurt, so it's probably good for me. I hope. I hope the spasms are a way of the body to combat these abscesses. And I hope they're successful.

Just a quick log of my drugs:
Streptomycin (8/40 shots)
Rifampicin + Isoniazid (2 months out of a year by Dec 6)
Pyrazinamide (Oct 6-Dec 6, yey it's near!)
Ethambutol (2 months out of 3 by Dec 6)
Dexamethasone (Nov 8 until Dec 7)

Daily Routine

I usually wake up at around lunch or a little after lunch. The latest recently was 2:30.
And that's because, during the night before, I would not have something to look forward to: no play to rehearse, no song I will need to prepare, no party to celebrate, no book or series that I am so engrossed with to read or watch.

I've probably wasted two weeks' worth of my parents' money on groceries and meals. My bed reeks of fatigue, from supporting my tiredness and laziness most of the day. And my body, slim and sloppy, is so exhausted from the inactivity: my muscles are worn out, my bones are aching from the diversity of fetal positions I have learned to learn in the past two weeks, and my toes have nails longer than my hair. I am so worn out that it feels like I have been trapped on a deserted island, helplessly struggling with my day.

Allow me to narrate my day:
I wake up to shower and to eat my brunch.
I go back to my room.
I brush my teeth, and either play with my phone, read and watch something from the Internet, try to fix my desk or pretend to lengthen my list of to-do's.
Maybe, I call the laundry shop.
I eat dinner, and then drink some milk and nutritious foods I've convinced myself to prioritize.
I brush and wash up.
I browse the Internet some more, before calling my parents and falling asleep.

That's basically it. It's a long list of things that I do, yes, but it always involves being in my room, or in the vicinity.

Get me out of my box.

Lost

It had never occurred that finally being done with school and actually doing nothing puts me in a box, until I realized that shooting home videos of myself screams boredom. Ironically and sadly, being free to do anything I want drains me. Every single day of insignificant eventfulness wears out the youth in me. Probably since the day I had finished with Rizal X (a professional play I had busied myself with for the past three months) until now I cannot remember a single moment of significant activity (except for the mascot-making, which counts as negligible when it comes to progressing my life as a scientist)--a timespan I can cross off my life calendar were I given the chance.

My life sucks. I can't even contribute to society. It's like being a kid again, playing board games, reading fairy tales, running around sweaty and not caring at all, except that now, there's a scarcity of verbs. I never thought that choosing to veer off from the scientific track for a bit could take forever, and now I'm running out of ideas.

Making long checklists of things to do and organizing with my planner were never this difficult. No wait, I take it back. I'm not running out of ideas. I'm running out of realized ideas: it's actually the profusion that holds me back. Too many arrows, can't find the right path.

FIND ME A DAMN JOB. SOMETHING. GIVE ME ANYTHING. And yes, I'm choosy, so if that's joining performing arts groups without getting monetary compensation, then I'm not going for it.

Backlog

It conquers me.
The pain,
Flows through my alveoli

It takes my soul.
My spunk, my appetite.
Gone with every momentary headache

It wants me to hide
From the rest of the world.
My left lung burdened
By the heaviness in my heart
Or from my heart--

As it is inflammed
With B cells and T cells and antibodies

That's why there wasn't a lot in my urine.

It conquers me. And I am defeated.

Perilous Proclivities

There are three things I learned from tonight's turn of events:

that childishness begets happiness. But along with it are immaturity and the danger of losing control of emotion. A child's happiness is as shallow as a pond, and as he ages it deepens into an ocean. But childish instances of the mature occur from time to time, and such times incur momentary happiness that will later on become guilt by virtue of playful actions. A child can be so impish that he can do anything out of impulse.

that cautious action may come from grave sadness. Prudence is dismissed once someone becomes mired down with the hypnotic happiness. And consequences start to fall on him like Tetris bricks--quick and to a certain degree, uncontrollable.

that getting used to certain personalities too much garners the risk of fitting in other different personalities to the ones one is so used to. It's like there is a particular premise to which he patterns what he perceives so his perception is affected by the preconceived notion, just like words that have all the letters in between the first and last jumbled, yet a reader still understands. But, heed must be taken because what may be fitting for one may be repulsive for another.

Tonight's turn of events has been an essential wake-up call for someone so insouciant when it comes to inflicting physical pain, someone so lured in with the rewards of happiness, someone too lax with his relationships with friends he's in good terms with.