The Re-emergence of Unstable Mable

I need help.

It is Monday. I write this while I dry my thick hair in front of the fan. It is the last week of the five-week-long midyear term and I am not okay. Late last week, I changed my entire study. I start this week, again in the pre-empirical phase of my research. Next week, my (graduating) class presents the first drafts of our theses. So yes, I am academically screwed.

I feel the pressure, but I am not panicking as much as I think I should be. This is bad, but here’s something good: looking back, four weeks ago, I thought I wouldn’t be able to graduate, that I would have to re-enroll this coming semester. I thought I needed to re-do my internship because of problems with my records. Thankfully, people at the university were able to locate the evaluation my supervisor submitted, and I was able to start with my thesis (I couldn’t do both the internship and my research in the same term).

Here’s a recap of everything that’s been going on the last month.

Week 1

• Revised and submitted the files I failed to submit the same semester I did my internship. My evaluation could not be located. Called people up. Got yelled at. Was able to remove the grade of INC (incomplete) I was initially given. This took loooooong.
• Requested a change of adviser, as my former adviser was attending a conference abroad and I was running out of time. My new adviser and I talked about my study and how far along I was in it. I told her I was further along than I really was.
• Found a statistician who could assist me in this project.
• Thought everything was going to go well.

Week 2

• Drafted letters to the colleges in the university, requesting information relevant to my study.
• Brought the letters (on a Tuesday) to a relevant unit/office in the university, requesting for their endorsement. I was told the director would be back that Thursday. I was unable to meet him the entire week. (That happens.)
• I e-mailed him, explaining my study and its significance, and sent him a copy of the letter I left in their office.

Week 3

• No response. I was advised to address the letters to a different officer. They were signed after a day.
• Delivered the letters to the colleges.
• Three colleges disapproved my request because of the Data Privacy Act. Three colleges approved (two gave me the info I needed and one said they needed time). Never heard back from the rest.
• Wrote a letter to the registrar requesting the same information. My request was denied.
• I was running out of time. We were halfway through the midyear term. I consulted with my adviser and asked if I could change my study.

Week 4

• Began on a new study, a content analysis of the materials produced by this relevant unit/office. I could still use parts of my existing research proposal.
• Bam! This unit/office’s materials were not sufficient. There was no way I could possibly conduct a valid study using the materials they had at the time.
• The only way to graduate was to change my study for the last time.

Week 5

• I have this one week left and it is Monday and I am dying.

I am trying my best not crash. I do not feel the panic, but I do notice I find it impossible to focus and actually start writing. At times, I find it difficult to get out of bed. It’s happening again.

I bought aloe vera gel. It helps relieve stress and makes me feel like everything is going well. I make it a point to take vitamin C every day. I have fruits in the fridge. I’ve been including vegetables in my daily diet. If you knew me in real life, you would know how big of a deal this is. I have been trying to cut back on caffeine. I hope I succeed.

I have not consulted with my new adviser regarding this second change of study. When she gets back on Thursday (she is currently abroad), she is going to skin me alive. But I need to finish this. I have to be ready with at least 60% of my paper by Thursday. Also, who needs skin, really?

I’m going to end with this, because I have to work on my review of related literature. I’m working with a new theory and a new framework, and a methodology which is very new to me.

If you know of any spells that can help me, let me know. Haha. Kidding?

If you ask me, we’re all in the same boat. And it’s leaking.

– Bruno, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

I have just finished one of the seven books I bought last month. Immediately, two more were added to my pile of unread books when my dorm mate lent me Paul Tremblay’s The Little Sleep and I wanted to finish John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas just so I can convince myself I am being responsible and productive with my time. I cannot believe I have been putting off reading this book for years. To have come across it again at this point in the world’s history is quite heartbreaking, to say the least.

I am currently halfway through and Bruno’s innocence is making my heart ache.

Anyway, I have to get back to my book, as it is already 1:11 AM. We do not need to discuss the fact that I am trying to finish reading as many novels as I can when I only have to weeks left to finish writing my thesis. No, no, no.

What Do You Do When You Need a Way Out?

This photo offers some clues. Photo by Craig Adderley

It was 4:18 PM last Thursday, around an hour before I had to be at work. A few minutes prior, I decided to take a quick nap before working on an article I was writing for school. I lay down with my left foot tucked under my right thigh and my right foot on the floor. These days, I didn’t take naps. I fell into comas. I tried to combat this by resting in uncomfortable positions.

I clasped my hands and rested them on my stomach. I closed my eyes. Something felt different. My hands, lying on my belly like that, were suspicious. “Is this really you?” they asked. I understood. They felt like they were resting on someone else’s tummy. This tummy was too…plump. The skin was somewhat stretched and felt like velvet.

These past months, I have been turning to food for comfort. Whether I was stressed, sad, feeling empty, happy, or just bored, I would whip up a snack and munch away. I ate while I completed projects, anxiously watched Netflix, read a book, or ignored tasks. I ate while I sulked. I ate right before falling into one of my comas.

My boyfriend L said my arms looked the same size, but he didn’t know that the bands of my bras have been drawing a raspberry-colored line below my breasts and across my back. The waistband of my pants have followed suit, nibbling on my tummy and my brand new love handles. Many parts of me now felt squishy or jiggle like jelly. (But I still don’t have the goddamn boobs!)

These days, I feel a false sense of peace. Like the calm before the storm. Photo by Josh Sorenson

My eyes shot open and realized it was not only the food. And the too-long naps. Here are some of the things I have been doing and feeling these past few days. I write these today while the demons are away (I think).

1. I have become more withdrawn than usual. How many plans—with other people and for myself—have I cancelled? My planner is currently full of plans that remain just plans. I also did not make it to a life-changing event in a friend’s life. Yes, I knew he was going to propose to his girlfriend last weekend. But I’m that trash friend who just couldn’t come “for personal reasons”. I also have not seen L for  11 days now, even though we live in the same town and he works in the university I study in.
2. Too often, I have been feeling nothing. And the past days seemed to pass by without me being able to do anything of significance except survive, despite all the deadlines. Nope, I don’t even feel panic nowadays.
3. I forget tasks and have become unsatisfactory at work. The training evaluation I was supposed to send my boss last Friday? I submitted that today (Monday). I was prohibited from claiming more tasks at my other job because I have been submitting outputs that contained a number of errors.
4. And yes, my supposed last semester in university, I’m failing all five units. (I’m still working on them, but the last day for the submission of grades is this Thursday and so far, I have handed in one out of a hundred requirements.)

 

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. But I know that if I noticed these things in any of my friends, I would be alarmed.

So tomorrow afternoon, I’m going to the doctor. For the first time, I’m going to follow the advice I give others.

I’ve always feared going to the doctor. I have always felt that no outcome would offer me comfort. If I am suffering from something, why me? If I’m not, then wow, I must just be a shitty person then.

Is there a way out of this? Or am I doomed forever?

So This is What It’s Like Outside my Comfort Zone (It’s Refreshing, But It’s a Mess)

“I hope these sketches–and I–improve over time.”

In June 2018, I ended a post using these very words. The post was about a quick sketch that I had to do at 2 AM because my demons grew too noisy and I couldn’t sleep. (They whisper, but they do so so loudly at times because they are many and they don’t know how whispers work but I am emotionally attached to them, so this happens a lot.) The drawing was of a woman who couldn’t sleep because I am not as creative as I would like to think I am.

“The dreaming has to be backed up by the doing.” -Carrie Wilkerson (Photo by Ady April)

Eight months later, L surprised me with a Wacom tablet. To be more accurate, he tried, to the best of his ability, but he wasn’t sneaky and I already knew of his plans even before they were put into motion.

Nonetheless, I loved the gift and used it right away. The very first thing I did with it was digitize a two-panel comic strip which I drew in 2016. Probably because of excitement, I shared this project on Facebook and Instagram despite my proclivity for growling at people who want to see my work. Not surprisingly, sharing my drawings online–and with people I personally know–was one of the most exhilarating and stressful moments of my clearly uneventful life.

After publishing my black-and-white comic (whoa there. Big words), I wanted right away to play with colors. I wanted to illustrate something challenging and close to my heart. An animal paw seemed like the perfect subject.

Is he injured? Behold! My first practice piece. Experimenting with brushes was the anxiety-inducing kind of fun. I am also excited about the possibility of discovering my own style some time in the future (or is it naive of me to think that? Does that never happen to some people? Oh my gawd).

 

The finished product was a bit messy, but it turned out better than I had expected it to, given my rookie standing in the digital arts. These days, I feel hopeful and more inspired to draw. I hope to share more of my work here soon, but don’t expect too much of me, as I live to disappoint.

While typing this, I made the mistake of looking at the time and I must end this post awkwardly now because good gawd, it’s 3:33 AM.

Did I write this post or was it the demons?

I guess we’ll never know. 🙂

====================

Fine. We all wrote it together.

“Pap, pap, pap,” Went the Corn-Flakes-Scented Feet

People whose loving pets have passed on probably wish the same thing: to be once more in the company of their departed companions. I shared the same wish until it happened some days ago–I had a dream about Goliath.

In the dream, I was in a class in which I wanted to enrol this semester. I, along with the rest of the class, was waiting for the professor. Goliath was quietly seated on the chair beside mine. Without looking at me, he leaned on my thigh and rested his head on my lap. I remember feeling security. Comfort. That was the end of the dream.

When I woke up, I didn’t cry. Instead, I was paralyzed. I remained motionless in bed for I don’t know how long and then spent two (maybe more) hours on my phone. I didn’t get up until my stomach has made a grumbling sound for the tenth time, after which I had enough of my own shit. I angrily got myself out of bed. It was morning when I woke up and around 1 PM when I finally managed to drag myself into the kitchen. I missed the 9 AM class I wanted to take, the one in my dream.

I don’t talk about Goliath this much with my friends as an attempt to dial down the crazy and I think it’s working. I can no longer recall his face without looking at photos. That’s good, right?

I know that’s for the best, but it fucking hurts. Haha.

In the second week of January, I bought a planner with a minimalist design. Aside from the word “date” and three-letter abbreviations of the days, the pages were basically blank. So I drew on the pages I’ve used. That week’s drawing was of this pup. I terribly miss having the company of friends whose feet smell like corn flakes (all. The. Time. WHY??).

Coffee Does Nothing

Apparently, I wrote this back in June 2017.

 

I am at work, where I yawn every five seconds or so. When I run to get coffee, I get refreshed for two minutes (by the run), but the coffee doesn’t do anything anymore. And I know why.

These days, my boyfriend, L, often invites me to sleep in his apartment. I know he’s afraid to leave me alone. I am afraid to be alone, too, so I go. The comfort his arms offer is sometimes enough, but there are still times when I feel the need to roll away, sit up, and stare into space at 4 AM. Sometimes, this wakes him up and he sits up to hug me and tell me everything’s going to be okay. If he’s too tired a

 

The draft ends there.

However, I feel like a similar chapter of our lives is about to begin again.

Wish us luck.

The Reverse Andrew

Every once in a while, some of us are consumed by the overwhelming urge to create, may these creations be stories, songs, or crafts.

These past few days, much of my time was spent in that pit of which creation is the only way out. Everything I make produces in turn a nail, a hammer, a piece of wood, some fortitude: things I need to create a ladder with which to climb out of the pit.

Each new piece, seemingly incorporeal, appears in a variety of blinding, dancing colors. I dare not touch it lest it sucks me in and flings me into a different dimension. It stays that way until a new piece appears. Once I have made a new piece, the old piece turns ordinary, concrete. With the tools that materialize, I measure. I hammer. I stack. Yet I remain on the floor of the pit.

So I keep creating.

So far, I have managed to
– draw two comic strips (to be digitally enhanced when I finally realize and accept that most of my work is derivative an is, in fact, garbage)
– make spaghetti
– paint all my nails an alternating Hematoma Purple and Sludge Green (not their actual colors); and
– write crap nobody in their right mind would read.

In adition, I made this humanoid creep I named Andrew.

Andrew is around 15 cm long and was designed to hang from bags and alongside keys or to provide you something to untangle every few hours (for when your day is going a little too well and you want to change that).

This Andrew is actually already a Reverse Andrew. The first Andrew I made for my boyfriend, L, had black limbs and a red jacket. I told him–my boyfriend, not Andrew. Haha. Why would you think that? Hahaha. Oh, y-you didn’t?–to carefully singe the ends of the thread to keep the first Andrew’s form. L failed to do so and the first Andrew ended up with limbs of different lengths. It was a mess.

When I handed L the first Andrew, I had expected him to keep it in one of his bag’s many pockets. I was about to advise him to wrap it around something to keep it from getting tangled, but then he started just fastening it onto a zipper and my first thoughts were, “Um… Wow. Okay. I love you more now,” but I didn’t say anything. I’m sure, however, that my eyes began sparkling.

After I have given L this reverse Andrew, my mind has had many different ideas as to what to create next. Sadly, I’ve never had any real motivation to do any of them. Classes in the university begin TODAY and I have to work on my thesis now.

I hope my manuscript does the trick and finally gets me out of this friggin’ pit.

Congratulations, Graduates!

Last night, at a little past 11 PM, a vehicle stopped in front of the dorm. There was a bit of shouting, the ecstatic kind, I could tell, even with my earphones in. Moments later, I heard my name being called in a high-pitched yet soft voice I would recognize anywhere. It was my roommate. She was poking her head through the door, wearing a white dress, white heels, and a full face of makeup. Tonight was her–supposedly ‘our’–graduation. Finally, she can leave the dorm and the campus, which both nurtured and challenged her. She can now begin to take on new adventures.

When she arrived, I was sitting on my bed, watching Parks and Recreation, not anticipating any new adventures in the foreseeable future.

Two male dormmates gathered at the door, teasing, offering to help carry things, and pressuring my roommate to hurry (in jest, of course). I paused the show, leaving Leslie with her mouth agape and eyes mid-blink, to help my roommate collect her things.

Everything happened quite fast. Aside from her shoes, her only remaining things were on her bed, in her locker, and on the extra bed nobody uses. In addition, that afternoon, I rounded up the things on the extra bed and kept them in one of the lockers as we were expecting transients that night.

In less than 20 minutes, we were done. The guys had taken the bags and boxes to the van. My roommate had said goodbye. The guys were still teasing, saying we no longer have someone to watch over when her roommates aren’t around. There was no longer anyone to babysit.

After the remark, my roommate ran back to hug me. Being someone who hates hugs, I remained crouched on the floor in front of the shoe rack while she hugged me from behind.

A second later, the vehicle had left and the guys had returned to their building. I went back inside, where the older roommate was, and screamed silently in the bathroom. Afterward, I told myself everything was fine, washed my face, and went out to get a glass of water.

One of the guys was outside. He asked why I was sniffling. I told him it was the dust and then made snorting sounds that made him grimace.

The rest of the night (and a great portion of this afternoon) was spent quietly weeping and distracting myself from my own tears. During rare moments when I possessed clarity of thought, I worked on a drawing which was a product of gloomy thoughts from even before graduation. I might upload the thing soon.

I am exhausted. Not just from the overnight moping. And not just today.

I’m exhausted all the time.

Maybe when I graduate, things will get better? Anyway, congratulations to the graduates!

The Short Walk Home

My toenails, fiery tangerine,
betray my intent to lie low, remain unnoticed.
Cats, bright against the moist ground;
eyes closed tight, perfectly unbothered.
A girl, in her school shoes, jumps in the puddles,
these same puddles I avoid.
The sun lets us know it is here, nearby,
but not for us;
the music of the universe is its only master.
Women cling to the arms that hold
umbrellas quivering in the wind.
“How c-cold!” a voice shakes
at 2 in the afternoon.
Tropical trees play maracas with their leaves
and I long for the warmth of home.
But this is it.

Pictured above: My country’s two seasons overlapping to inconvenience everyone.

Yes.

Lately, I stay awake at the wrong hours so much so that the statements “I’m always awake” and “I’m never awake” are both correct to a certain degree.

There are problems at home. I have problems here, too.

I’m breaking out everywhere. My chest is pale and is sprinkled with red spots.

When I tell people I’m not really comfortable being touched, they hold me and shake me or tap on my shoulder repeatedly. This is sometimes accompanied by random shouting/gibberish.

My right knee ached while I walked a while ago, causing me to slow down and make “slowly…it’s okay” motions with my hands and mouth out in the middle of the streets. The people walked by, eyeing my Geisha-like performance.

It’s 5:23 AM. My boyfriend is asleep. It is raining. I have run out of coffee. I have to work, but my mind is blank.

One guy commented on the circles around my eyes two nights ago. Yesterday, a girl I was classmates with told me I lost weight.

I work with one girl who always wants things her way. There are times I want to fucking punch her in the face for being so fucking spoiled (but is that really her fault?).

Tonight, in the check-out line, a girl I knew back in 2011 asked me if I’ve finally graduated. I answered with a laugh and she understood. There was no judgment. She’s still in the university, too.

Every single time my family texts me, I know it would be about money.

I want to hold my dog so bad, but he’s with my family. There was one time I stopped attending school and I spent one morning crying. Goliath kept barking in syllables and seemed kind of mad at me.

It is now 5:44 AM. I should go back to work.

I don’t think I’m sad. I think I’m happy. Or have I just been distracting myself too well?

It’s still raining.