October 2008

I was 16. My aunt and I just came from our regular grocery shopping in Unimart and we were walking back to our condo.

I don’t remember what we were talking about. I just remember opening up to her for the first time. I told her “I have no feelings. I know what I should be feeling at any given situation, but I don’t know what I really feel.”

I knew then that it wasn’t normal. My friends in high school were all high strung and very emotional. They cried when their crushes became involved with other people, they became giddy with happiness when these crushes glanced at them. Meanwhile, I couldn’t even develop a crush.

I’ve changed a lot since then. I can feel now…honest. I still don’t feel things as passionately as other people, but I do feel things. I was lucky enough to have a mother who willingly paid for therapy…Ruy who took me to most of these sessions and Ruy who patiently endured my mood swings as I learned how to moderate the emotions I was feeling for the first time.

10 years after that confession however, I am still curious about my lack of emotions at that time. I couldn’t understand what made me different from other people. Was I just weird?

I am so happy I came across a certain book that offered me an explanation which really made sense. What I had at that time was the Good Girl Syndrome. Okay the term is something I made up but it basically means that I have repressed all of my emotions. Why would I do that? This usually happens when kids realized that only their positive emotions are rewarded and accepted. I am only a good girl when I don’t cry, I’m only a good girl if I don’t argue, I’m only a good girl when I don’t get mad.

The child then learns to repress these negative emotions. The problem with emotions however is that it’s practically all or nothing. You can’t repress one and not the others. I was then able to repress all my emotions.

The psych major in me is reeling from this discovery. Finally I have an answer. One question down…a million to go.

You are The Star

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Star is one of the great cards of faith, dreams realised

The Star is a card that looks to the future. It does not predict any immediate or powerful change, but it does predict hope and healing. This card suggests clarity of vision, spiritual insight. And, most importantly, that unexpected help will be coming, with water to quench your thirst, with a guiding light to the future. They might say you’re a dreamer, but you’re not the only one.

What Tarot Card are You?Take the Test to Find Out.

Ruy and I had a very busy weekend. Saturday was probably our busiest weekend this quarter. Yes we did have fun but my goodness were we stressed out of our minds. 

Andrea had her second  Jollibee birthday party and she had the time of her life. This is actually her first time to see a live Jollibee mascot and boy did she work that mascot. She was hugging the mascot, touching the butt of jollibee, kicking jollibee, trying to climb the poor mascot. You name it, she tried it. 

Mommy was of course trying to capture each and every moment of this and was extremely happy that she got a 4GB memory stick to make sure she has enough space for every single moment. Imagine my chagrin when I realized that the card I bought was faulty. I had so many beautiful shots which disappeared. The person I bought memory stick from suggests formatting the card. I will try to do this tonight. I hope it will work. 

Here’s one shot from last weekend’s party.

Times are hard. I think this is something we really can’t deny. When you have a country filing for bankruptcy…you know rock bottom isn’t too far away. Times are scary that’s true and I just try to look at the small blessings I have.

I know it sounds simple but sometimes looking for small blessings can be sooo hard. So here are my small blessings for the day:

1. Ruy (I realized yesterday what a genuinely nice guy he is)

2. Andrea

3. Gas prices (the gas station near our house sells unleaded gas for 46.9, that’s 12 peso less than around 8 months ago)

4.  group health insurance rates I was able to get courtesy of my company.

5. My job

6. A family who really dotes on my daughter.

7. A team I adore.

I’ll leave it at 7 for now, that should be enough for the week. =)

It’s been a while since I last posted pictures of Andrea. I went trigger happy over the weekend so be prepared for a whole lot of pictures.

Andrea’s at this stage where all she wants to do is pick flowers and leaves. The plants of her lola and of our neighbors are suffering.  Look at the joy in her eye as she shows off her latest pick:

Here she is doing a quick survey of the area trying to find her next victim…err plant of choice.

Here she is doing a bit of community work. She’s weeding out other people’s gardens. 

She then got bored and decided to play with one of her grocery carts (she has three). She was trying to push this particular one…

…but it was too small. So she decided to carry it instead.

She then decided that the best place to pretend to eat is right in the middle of the road. So she ate her corn and carrots there:

What is a mother to do? This evil mother thought it would be funny to grab the cart and run away with it. Andrea didn’t find it funny:

She eventually got her cart back…while using force and verbal threats (I think those were threats, I didn’t really understand the language she was using)

And then she pouted some more:

THE END!

I officially accomplished my new year’s resolution last Sept. I was able to read 12 books. Well, the count would have been 14 if I included all the free audio books I got from friends. I decided to count only the actual books printed on paper for this resolution though.

I am now on my 15th book and I can’t help but wonder if I set the bar too low for my resolution. It lead me to question where else am I setting the bar too low in my life? Hmmmm

Do you remember that commercial about not having handles? There was this old lady trying to chop veggies with a knife which has no handle and only has a blade? Well I got to experience this first hand in my grandmother’s house. The shower fixture somehow fell and we were left with a screw and a tube. Imagine trying to turn off the shower with that!

So now we’re on the lookout for quality fixtures. I know Delta faucets are good but I have no idea where I can get this in the Philippines. Any ideas?

You hardly hear me talking about my husband. Some people tease me that he’s not being given enough air time here in my blog. I would have to say that my husband is not very comfortable with this kind of attention. He doesn’t like having people talk about him or people reading about him.

I will now go against my husband’s wishes by talking about him…just a tiny bit.

Ruy is trying hard to be healthier by being more involved in sports. He has basketball on Mondays and bowling on Fridays. It often frustrates me to see him playing basketball because he ALWAYS ends up limping home. He has Plantar Fasciitis and the normal basketball shoes don’t support his heel enough.

I couldn’t understand why he would subject himself to that kind of torture every single week. Luckily he found a gel cushion to be placed inside his basketball shoes which alleviates some of the discomfort.

Ruy claims that he needs this exercise to be healthy. I personally think he needs it for the socialization, I think he needs time away from his wife and 1 year old daughter.

I have been feeling out of sorts for the past couple of days. I think it must be the stress and tension brought about by the last couple of months. I have been trying to make sure I won’t snap and that I manage everything I should be managing. I think now that it’s over my body and mind really really need a break.

The stress is showing on my face too. My skin is not clear and I’m beginning to break out. My pimples are not bad enough to warrant acne treatment but they are very much visible.

I was lucky enough to be given a half day leave today and hopefully that would give me enough time to sort things out and to be back in top shape by tomorrow.

YEAH RIGHT.

I am the living proof that this doesn’t work. I have been doing nothing for 3 years and I just keep on gaining weight. I think it’s time I change my game plan don’t you think? A little alli and a whole lot of exercise should do the trick.

The only problem is trying to get my lazy ass off this chair.

A lot of people say that Ruy and I are so lucky to have a house which everyone thinks is an asset. Robert Kiyosaki would disagree though, and I think I’m on his side. We have yet to move into our home and yet the amount of money we’re pouring into it is incredible.

The paint which we spent a lot on is beginning to chip. The ball lock pins used for the french doors magically disappeared. Aaaargggh. So many things to spend on.

I found the name of the therapist I was talking about in my previous post. His name is Dr. Harville Hendrix. He wrote the book “Getting the Love You Want.” THere I feel better now.

I have at one point confessed through this blog that I am addicted to Oprah. It’s not Oprah herself that I love, it’s her guests and the wealth of wisdom they bring. I think of Oprah as a buffet of insights and ideas. I just pick the ones which tickle my fancy and ignore the rest.

The Oprah Buffet stuffed me with relationship insight last night.

The show I watched was a follow up show on a couple who wanted to quit smoking. During the first show, the couple gave their sides of the story on why they smoke why they cannot quit, etc. You can see from their dynamics that the addiction to smoking was the symptom of something bigger. Oprah and the Dr. Oz saw that too. They called a marriage therapist and yesterday’s show revolved around that.

The therapist (I feel so bad about forgetting his name) really gave me so much to think about. He started out by saying that we are in relationships to heal all our past issues. This is why relationships are hard. You have two people with two lifetime’s worth of issues trying to heal at the same time. The most difficult part is the fact that more often than not, these people don’t even know that they have issues or that they need to heal. They just feel themselved becoming offended, hurt, slighted by things which trigger past issues. 

This therapist goes on to label the first three parts of a relationship. He starts with the honeymoon stage or the romantic stage. This is usually the only thing we see in movies. This is why so many people are disillusioned when they reach the other stages. He goes on to describe this part as the anaesthesia we need in order to prepare ourselves for the other parts.

The second part is the power struggle.  Unfortunately Andrea woke up at this point and I missed the detailed explanation. I would think though that it’s that point when you try to establish the dynamics of the relationship. Which person’s brand of butter do we really buy? (Ruy and I used different brands for practically everything and reaching an agreement was not easy).  How do we decide what to do over the weekend. Who plays which role in rearing our child? Etc, etc, etc.  I think Ruy and I got here last year and I think we’re slowly establishing our roles and getting ready to go to the next stage.

The most difficult and probably the longest stage is the healing part. This is where we try to resolve our childhood hurts, our issues. Do you know the saying you marry your mother or your father…this is apparently the reason. You marry someone like them in order for you to resolve issues you’ve had. The therapist pointed out that we end up marrying people who somehow manage to bring out 95% of our issues. You know those traits in your husbands you find annoying? Try to figure out which issue you have with yourself mirrors that.

The therapist said that before even beginning the healing we need to ask ourselves and our partners: What does a perfect marriage look like to you. Such a simple question yet I know how powerful it can be. Most of our frustrations come from our personal expectations….our expectations which our partners might not share. It’s extremely important to know what the other person is looking for. 

I texted the question to Ruy last night and he promised to talk to me today about his answers. I better begin to think of my answer as well cause I honestly don’t know.