Tag: roadtrip

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?

Puso and Moment-moment

Published in the Literary Tuesdays of Mountain Beacon

Code Blue

My beloved is loving again. 
Not with my letters. 
Not with my pictures.
But with that Emergency Room. 

Again.

SLEX

I do not know how to drive. But that night, I have found out two things: (1) You hear the need to change oil by the engine hum; and (2) In this expressway we overtake on the left. After being alone for years, you let those cars passed, while I sit with this stillness, letting the roaring cars deafen our stable hum. At that moment, we have created our own little bubble floating in its own pace. Inside are two overaged high schoolers feeling nervous and giddy when they clasped each other’s hands for the first time.

Eyes are on the road while our ears are seizing the all these details: hums, roars, honks… and our beating hearts.

Talking Stage

What constitutes a good conversation? Up to what extent should a talk be THE TALK? Are scheduled questions enough? Are daily updates sufficient?
Should we engage in outpouring our sentiments EVERY DAY?

It is what it is — a routine. A breakout from banality of being Corporate Slaves (capitalized, because CAPITALISM). We do not have to be hipsters and expound the question of:
“Kumain ka na ba?”

Come on! Yes, we do crave connections, but what if the other side is not as eloquent as you? Do you demand an answer in a form of:
“I see a couple focused on their phones as they eat and drink, seeking connections from faraway distances, rather than focusing on what’s 5 inches beyond the handheld.”

Tita na ako kaya HUWAG KANG OA.
“Mamaya” is good enough.