journal

Figuring Out the Logistics of Loss While Inside the Coffee Shop

As I wait for that last P2P bus going to the Bicol International Airport, I re-read my most recent blog about figuring our the logistics of loss. Here is a recap of sorts:

a. Kazakhstan is cancelled for 2026. I rechanneled the funds to a local travel with my family and for tanking another “Death Plan”

b. Taiwan alpine hike is at 50-50, meaning, I am still undecided on tanking the credit card bills for three months worth, just to take a difficult trail (because the body and mental health needed it)

c. I did the KiudKad – the last resort this week, to have a rest, to hike the mini-peak of Daldagon, to play mobile legends, to read novels and poems… and totally forgotten to ugly cry.

As of this moment, I do not have the capacity or the space to do the ugly dramas of grieving; I just received a message from Mama that the GSIS is yet requiring another document to submit when I get back to Manila. Another set of “burden of proof”, another subset of Remedial Law that I read in my younger years, another count of the two-to-three-weeks before them saying, “Mrs. Betos is entitled to the Surviving Spouse benefit. Please proceed to the Landbank Account Opening on the Pensioner’s Lounge.”

The last time I ugly cried was three years ago, when I was asked, “Why are you really here?” and my response was the tears of hope and a possibility of a parallel timeline of a Tax Accountant’s wife, disintegrated before my very eyes. Moreoften than then I think about things, and no matter how polished a death plan is, the life is indeed fleeting and I still feel like rushing on the moments when I should be still.

Does ugly crying become a personal tick box that I long to check, making sure that my sagacity is earned with emotional maturity?

What if I tell you, that I forgot to grieve the moment I left my eight-year-old American tourister in the middle of the Eminent luggage store in Taichung HSR, while rushing for the bullet train bound for Taipei?

Will I still be that person that you seek wisdom for?

Corporate Actions

Business need is:
Avoid taxes by splitting the price
or splitting the shares.
It definitely split my time
for focus work, for things
that should only take
15-30 minutes ETA of
“Are we Green?” email.

But these Stock Splits, Reverse Splits,
Mergers and Spinoffs
have robbed me of my sleep,
keeping me out of my hobby.
While these shares—
keeping me count other’s money.

With all of the time and energy
wasted or spent,
Can I even have my taxes saved?

Or was it spent again
By politicos and nepos,
reverse splitting their wares?

Poetics: These ridiculous daily BAU at #TheBank since the last week ebb away the lutheal phase and left me with positional vertigo and high levels of cortisol.

Hormonal Whaling

14 January 2026. 4:30 AM. Pasig City.

Waning Nights and Luteal Phases: these are some of the aggravators of the loneliness resurfacing from the depths of my mind.

Symptoms started upon him ghosting. Cold turkey. I sincerly disclosed my huge mortgage and its debt servicing until 2037, together with most of my siblings out of the country. I also told him about my generational trauma and opting to be childfree. In this hour, my mind was shouting,

“I’m too broken to be fixed, too expensive to be compensated.”

Too big to brag, or even drag along. Too cute to be a friend. Too innocent to be a girlfriend. A perfect BEBU: bembang buddy.

Funny.

But to keep that in your head throughout the commute from the family home is really taxing. When I was supposed to summon the conscious mind and focus on the next task of putting away these newly-cleaned clothes, the hindsight was internalizing Bon Jovi’s I’LL-BE-THERE-FOR-YOU-THESE-FIVE-WORDS-I-SWEAR-TO-YOU blasting inside kuya grab’s Vios, battling the sleepiness hours before the dawn.

I just wanted a company until I am older and retired from the Corporate ladder. I wish to message him again. Tell him, “Hey. It’s okay that you won’t pick me. I get it. But I still want to be a friend.”

I still crave for a single man as a friend. A man who will make me feel safe, even though his english sounds like a cut and paste from Chatgpt.

And yet, the luteal phase still wins. Justin Bieber’s “I’d settle for the ghost of you” reverberates this posporo condo, its annual association dues recently settled, bearing a smaller amount to pay the remaining balance of my Taiwan travel and hike.

On good days, we are the art. On bad days, we create the art.

-Alan Navarra, Falling Apart by Design

Huh. Perhaps a small win in this agonizing season is this diary entry. A little life (update) of sorts. I cannot wait for the day of my period where all of these will be washed away. But for now, I grieve.

18 January 2026. 5:00AM. UP Los Baños.

Second day of period today.

Not exactly a mental health break, but yesterday was a great detox from the busy city life. Expensive though. To go to the Aliw falls, we have to pay 300 per person, drove around Caliraya and Cavinti and Luisiana towns and witness a natural resource being gentrified. Hello, there’s a helicopter and a pyramid on top of a hill! NUGAGAWEN?! Sigh. Para talaga sa mga jejemon eh.

Charles and I caught up on things: his Think Tank and Teaching gigs, the co-parenting and its exit strategy out of Pinas for an NZ citizenship, his “Persondi” the law student 6 years his junior; In exchange, my reliving travel moments with dok as a potato princess, my sentiments in the Bible “as the only good book”, Cognitive Behavior Therapy, and the fucken Peranakan who ghosted me and costed me a hormonal breakdown.

Told him the same, “I’m too broken to be fixed, too expensive to be compensated, Charles.” He suddenly answered—

“And you are! And yet, you are thriving!”

Ang layo na sa sinabi niya noong, “Nai-insecure ako sa achievements mo!” in our big quarrel (which was a reason for breakup, btw). That must have altered my brain chemistry.

Siguro at this point, I just want to take everything with grace and not assume things. I do crave those organic encounters, not gonna lie. Hopeful pa rin ako sa marriage. I just wanted a life partner who is okay with me being childfree, and who accepts me for all that I am. Super bonus points na yung exuding effeminate energy and hindi forever golden source ang self-help sa pagbabasa.

Speaking of reading, I was too comfortable with Charles driving me around and too tired from puyat, I took a nap upon checking in SEARCA Hotel (inside UPLB). Good thing this guy has reserved a room for me. The hotel amenities are very much comfortable. Clean toilet and hot shower! I am amazed that this was built from the 70s and still being used for conferences. Pwede na ito for team building or writing workshop activities!!!

I must dedicate some morning moments to at least read. Buti na lang masarap yung tirang adobong itik from Las Cadias Wellness Resort. A bit expensive though.