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?
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