Hello, Lia.
This story begins at the overpass
in Bocaue, where traffic is always monstrous, and patience always
short. In another bus adjacent to ours, office workers languidly clutched the overhead rails, tightly squeezed against each other. I thought about people who come to work from Bulacan
to Manila and back every day and how difficult it is to maintain jobs
when the time you spend going to and from work is the same amount of
time you spend in the office.
You see, I was once in that position. I
worked in a marketing company in BGC, where I clocked in at 9 am and
logged out at 6 pm. When we had meetings, I will stay in the office
till 7 or 8. I will come home at 10 pm the earliest, and wake up at 4:30
am.
Two months after I started working in
that company, I found out I was pregnant.
I loved my job, but spending all that
time in motion was hell. The morning sickness, which actually lasted
all day, made me nauseous, weak, and dizzy all the time- even more
so while walking 20 minutes from the office to the highway in
Guadalupe. Depending on the circumstances, I will take the more
comfortable option of sitting on a bus for three hours or the
horrendous option of braving the 30-minute MRT ride.
Either way,
my tummy felt as if it was being shredded to
pieces. Sometimes it felt like you were going to slip right out of me. I
cupped my belly, thinking maybe my hands can save you if you let yourself out.
They say it is normal to have these
pains, but they frightened me. I cried for long hours in buses. It’s
either I quit my job and keep you or the other way around. Both were
impossible choices.
By the third month, I mustered enough
courage to tell my bosses. I handed them my resignation. I started doing freelance work, writing at night and taking care of you during the day. All these are necessary sacrifices.
I chose you. Because you are priceless.
There have been many difficult choices
like this. Each and every time, I choose you. And there are no regrets, nor will there ever be. Life has been good. We may be always trying to make too many ends meet, but we live a life where we have each other in all these little journeys, on the road or elsewhere. That’s what taking the hard road afforded me. Us.
In the future, when you are also faced
with hopeless circumstances, I hope you will remember this story.
Always be reminded that journeys in life are designed to be long and
difficult. Embrace those difficulties. Make the
impossible choices. Be impervious to fear. Live and strive for happiness each and every day.
Choose what is right and what your heart really wants, no matter how impossible the circumstance is. Only when we do can we truly enjoy a
life without regrets, a life of peace.
Grateful every day,
Mama
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