Diary of Pain

Inquirer newsroom on the 3rd floor. Chino Roces. 2017.

I have decided to embark on a project--or a journey--whatever you may want to call it, to expunge this very bad thing that is bothering me. The first thing that I will do is to download some of the photographs that have been clogging my icloud for a very long time and talk about them to expunge their power. Stop them from bothering me. Leave them behind in a place where they should be: that is, in a limbo where they could not exert power over me.

But a voice within me warns: Not in limbo! That place could be tricky, shadowy, those demons could assume many dimensions and could come back to you in another form!

So, I will bring all of them into the light!  So that I could look and examine them and see them for what they are! 

For example, that particular shot where a dark chair outside framed an illuminated newsroom. That's where I waited for the call that never came many years ago. It was maybe, past 8 p.m. or was it almost 9, I was already done with the work at the newsroom and was preparing to go home. But I sat there waiting for the call. It never came. I looked at the shining metal frames of the glass windows surrounding me and felt their efficient coldness; rendering work in the newsroom was sheer efficiency. I long for the warmth of that call that never came. The warmth of home.

Then, I realised that no one was helping me. No one was taking my side, no one was backing me up.  That photograph was taken five years ago. 

Last night, I talked to my sister. I rarely visited them now because doing so would distress me so bad it would take me days and months to recover. But I went there prepared. I thought I could shield myself from whatever distressing things that they might have to say.

Then slowly it came, innocently, and right in the middle of the conversation. I was telling her how before, in my twenties and in the midst of the circumstances I was facing, I had given up pursuing a particular path. Then, she cut in and said, "Had you become a lawyer, you would already have had so many enemies by now." She laughed a long, hard laugh that scrunched her face, made her look very ugly. 

I could not understand why she said it, where such unfair and wrong notion came. I did not know how to answer. Stunned, I merely stared at her. 

Now it dawns on me. They always view me as a troublemaker.  This is a badge of honor as a journalist, but if you hear your sisters telling you that in a totally misconstrued and negative way, I wonder what would you feel? I should lessen my contact with them as much as possible.