morning commute
hello! it’s been a while since anything at all. june wasn’t uneventful or anything (quite the opposite, really!). i was just lost for words and it’s taken me some time to find them again – life lately has felt like a lot, when it really shouldn’t have been.
i’ve finally started a new job after my month-long vacation in europe. i’m still working in design, which is still not really my ideal (even if my high-school self was convinced it was)1. either way, it’s fun and i like it better than my previous one.
my last job was 100% remote. (they were changing this policy just as i was leaving though). i enjoyed having so much free time, of course. the commute in the philippines eats away up to 4 hours of your day, if you’re lucky. that’s not including time you spend getting ready, or time spent settling down though. what i think i disliked most was the fact that i had never met any of my coworkers. we had worked together for more than a year, and i hadn’t really formed any personal connection with any of them. it makes you realize how tangible physical presence can really be, i think.
only towards the end of my stay there did i meet one of my team members during a mandatory training at the office. i had been required to attend, even if i had already given my 30 days notice. we ate lunch together at 3pm.2 she told me about the marathon she’s been training for. i haven’t spoken to her since. i sometimes find myself wondering if she managed to run the full stretch, but i’m also not the sort of person to reach out and ask. i’m sure she did though.
so it’s taken some time to get used to visiting an office and being around people. this is mostly because 1) it’s so fucking far away and 2) i haven’t really had to speak to “strangers” in that sort of setting since the pandemic started. my social skills were already bad before the 2+ year quarantine. i’m just lucky to already be working with my best friend! i think having them around made the whole acclimating process much easier.
commuting to the office though is a wholly individual affair. i was spoiled my whole life and never had to take our local public transportation. it’s been jarring to learn, especially here of all places. my mom braved the summer heat and rush hour traffic to teach me,3 but even with her guidance the first two times, it’s nerve-wracking alone. i avoid it however much i can, relying on the goodwill of the people who love me to let me carpool with them. i don’t think i’ll ever love it, but sooner or later, i'm sure it’ll just be a familiar routine. for now, i will just try to enjoy the way the newness of it makes me feel, even if i'm crammed into a jeepney with 26 other people, driver not included.4
i turned 23 last month. i am lucky to be so young and so old and still be able to experience things for the first time. wonder is just another muscle to exercise. i'm afraid of who i will become if i let it atrophy.
also, this is wildly unedited. i'll try to write more often if i can (i'd really like to) but if i make a habit of re-reading my work, i'll get nowhere. please accept this as it is because i can't do any better right now. it is less mawkish than usual (which is good) but i think reads more like a diary than usual too (maybe bad). in the end, i guess any post here is largely for future me. so it is all okay.
my gripes with the creative industry come another day i think, but tl;dr i struggle to see myself as a person with any originality or individuality. makes the nature of my job much harder, i think.↩
it was my first meal of the day. i got sick afterwards and had to miss the next day of training because i was in bed with a fever. that is also neither here nor there though. i have a chronically bad eating schedule because i struggle to feel hunger until it is too late.↩
when she loves me i feel guilty for hating her. i wish it could be more simple, but family rarely ever is, maybe.↩
my legs are cramped. the man sitting in the middle of the aisle is sweating through his camo tee shirt, and i can feel the dampness through my skirt. it sucks. but i watch as the lady across from me smudges her lipstick wiping the sweat from her face. i watch as the man next to her hunches over, going through facebook on his phone. i watch as he heart reacts the post of a friend who recently got married. he scrolls through their wedding photos and reads the comments of congratulations. to his side, i watch as another girl stops fanning herself in favor of trying to fall asleep. we’re speeding down the expressway now and i watch as their hair is lifted by the wind. it catches the morning sun and their heads are set alight, like candles. i wonder if i have been watched the same way.↩