Outgoing Mail

Jeroen, been working hard since last week: late nights in front of the computer, swamped by survey papers, and all that jazz. I had it all coming. No worries, I’ll get over the worst that things could get around here.


I miss reading your e-mails; I know you are very busy too. Doctors weren’t made to be couch potatoes. I really appreciate the one sentence birthday greeting you dropped for me yesterday. Thank you. When is your birthday, by the way? So I may have the chance to return your kindness.


Your fratello is now 23. That leaves me with 57 years to work on really living Life and winging it. You see, I have a gut feeling I’ll live no further than 80. And some would argue that even that is wishful thinking. Whatever. I wish I’d live to be a ‘full 80 someday.’


Take care of yourself, wherever you may be. I’m hanging on here too, as most people in this tired world do. My writing has somehow run out for the time being. I can’t bleed words all the time fratello. It hurts me so.

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Dear Jamie, it’s 1:39 AM here. Still have some more work to do. Usual bane of researchers: quantitative data encoding. I have a long tube of Pond’s Clear Solutions in front of me. It has seen me fuss and sigh every other minute for the last 3 hours that I’ve been working. Time for a break. A sandwich. Green tea with honey. A facial wash.


The point is: I’m somehow lonely. To think that it was my birthday just two hours and forty-four minutes ago. My nails somehow badly need a trim. I need to get the dirt and wax off my hair. I need days off. I need.


Tell you what, Little One, hope. Go on and hope. Kakapoy mag indi mag-hope. Take kuya’s word for it. Love, Kuya.

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Tin, wish you were here. Pipit and I went to SM this afternoon. Window shopped, ate fast food. Talked. We agreed we both miss you so. Guess you’ll make it home for Christmas, no?


So much has happened to me these last couple of months. I call it ‘cooking a revolution of Love.’ Long story. Something to do with my joining the Focolare [a catholic-intiated ecumenical spiritual movement about ‘unity in love.’]


Speaking of love, the object of my affections gets me feeling a little black and bleak. But we’ve talked about this countless of times before, right? And each time I kept hearing myself, ‘it’s a no-win situation right from the start anyway.’ Nevertheless, I’m feeling my way around it. Processing. Processing. Is it a good-bad thing? Take your pick: diminishing marginal utility or dependency/addiction.


I go through my days hoping the nights would cease to be black and full of stars. I can’t take all this wonder anymore. It makes me want to burst when the most I could do is shrink.


I know you’d get past the melancholia, Kuya.

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Kimee, new e-mail ko ‘to. You know naman me, may issue with ‘permanence.’ Musta?