Pretty Lonely

 I dunno if it's the pandemic or whether it's about aging = having more years spent on this earthly life - but the word lonely has cropped up in chat convoes with peers. While theirs could be about grieving for a loved one or a love lost or just plain life as it is on some days or months, mine is about post-PhD life.

After completing my dissertation and program during the pandemic, I was really excited to get back to work and 'be with' my colleagues. But the busyness, the stress and some of them not being exactly around made me quite sad. Here I was excited about ideas here and there but with no co-facs to see face to face and bounce off ideas with, let alone celebrate my finish. But I still made good use of my energy to work on pet projects and this time with the  RAs/Staff willing to join and support such initiatives to make productive use of our time because doing otherwise would make us all feel hopeless with this pandemic and the manner by which it has taken a toll on our families and practically our lives.

The pet project on Research Journeys brought a bit of life to our daily/weekly and weekend-ly emails. With that was also me trying to forge ties with a bunch of women - Affiliate Program Chairs from the LB Campus who took on the roles of regular faculty members who are now on study leave. They put up with my blah blahs on another pet project on Short Courses in meetings with the Boss Dean and accorded me that space to explore my new found role FacSec (ahem, Fac-maypagka-alipin > the wrong person for the job BUT the right person to take it during this pandemic, as I thrive in chaos, haha). After a year of having a sense of normalcy with these women,  all of a sudden their appointments were no longer renewed upon orders of their mother unit.  The news came at a time when I just bounced back from 3 weeks of sinking underwater. That felt pretty much seeing my sandcastle being hit by the tides -  a castle I built with my playmates now all gone - washed away - and with it was my small happy space with UPOU.  This pandemic life experience in the Phils has been largely just like that - you have a go of trying to build things and the process has been a mix of joy and frustration - but you still still keep at it because otherwise, I really don't know how else to cope.

Though the one ever reliable thing to lean on  in this pandemic is my family, (and thank God for reminding me about that), my work (=play) has always been the alternate space to become create and feel a sense of worthiness and solidarity with others. But then yes, I now admit - it's getting pretty much lonely when you realize, people just come and go in your life. I did survive those as the years went by and moving from one job to the next = forging the connection then just disconnecting. In fact, I've moved on quite well. I am the type to BE there at the moment and relish the experience then when it's time to pack up and go, I move forward. 

Post PhD, the first pack up and go was saying goodbye to my small school - it was a gradual, quiet goodbye from my end. At the onset of my PhD, I was still volunteering to do a few more things with the school parents and children. But with the completion of my PhD, my K-12 quests have likewise reached its end - or felt more like a dead end. And end it was with an exclamation point of a PhD thesis on K-12 Blended Learning. 

BUT I  think what gets me pretty lonely post-PhD is that I really have no OU co-fac/colleague to turn to at my unive on my new found research interests. I find myself forcing to engage in undergrad program concerns as this was the space I grew into in my  initial years as a faculty member. My responses however were mostly administrative not entirely creative nor researchey. On the other hand, my current research projects, though still into VLCs,  have taken a different form or turn as it pulled towards research journeys, research writing  and now with a new PhD program proposal on a scratch paper and a collab research grant proposal as a spin off from Research Journeys webinar. My inner speeches and daydreams on research identities, research journeys and research collaborations are simmering for quite some time - and so talking to myself= isn't THAT pretty lonely!!!

And maybe that IS why I've kept other spaces outside of my Unive close to me - it makes this 'pretty lonely' realization liveable and bearable because there are other sandbox possibilities out there = the USQ RWL, the PGECR symposium, dyadic collab work with DE....then now, getting quite nervous about IDERN. I'm a bit excited because I hope to draw inspiration from the team so I could be brave enough to propose a PhD by R and PhD by P at UPOU. It's literally 'growing' a program.

For every death comes birth

Kamatayan, kaliwa, kanan...saan ka pa! Leche...#Dutertepalpak. These days feel like the Angel of Death Passover, but instead of passing over, it's lingering with a deathlist of sorts.

I've been following New Amsterdam for quite a while, more to escape or a way to deal with this thing called death. Then came this one episode - was it Sharpe, Bloom or Giselle who died?...Not the baby please.

Like yuh yuh, I believe in God and afterlife, and that death is the only way to get to that new life.  Like ok, Jesus resurrection is what we Christians hold on to, but did God really "feel' what it means to have a loved one die? He isn't totally human, so does he actually have feelings. And if we are to live our lives to follow his will or become his likeness or even to glorify him, to whose gain? Doesn't that make him a selfish God.

So really, the idea of death at this time of Covid 19 either makes angry or sad. There have been numbing days, cynic days and wanting-to-deactivate-FB entirely-days. Angrier even that we simply have to settle with FB to send our condolences amidst people posting on food, fashion, outdoor travels and all sorts of memes. People just don't shut up. 

And Death is such a cheat, I'd say. It's cheated on me my 4x my side of the family; 3x my side of friends. Among my tight circle of UPOU colleagues, I'm the only left with 2 'live' parents. The deaths are a combie of Covid-19 and other sicknesses. My generation has now reached that stage of dealing with actual deaths of aging loved ones AND sudden deaths due to this pandemic. 

After that major zoom hosting for my aunt from May - June 2020, I no longer want to join zoom funerals. It's really just not my way of consoling others and myself too. While my husbandry simply turns to his rosary prayers and FB anti-Dutz postings, these months, I just numb myself through lots of work to do.  Then there are cheerie days when I just 'Like' or try to be happy for my sister's garden, somebody else' plants, some webinar,  our pets etcetera, etcetera. 

And I guess, I can only to turn to research and writing to cope. I must be still riding on the wave of finishing my PhD, and just gotta keep on swimming. Maybe once I stop research and writing, that will be the death of me. Then my physicality will deteriorate eventually, perhaps at age 60 or so. Not unless I get a stroke. So yes, I've thought about my eventual death. 

While I can still see and feel glimpses of positivity, I write. What's good about writing as an escape is that I can go on and go on with it. So may as well use it to mark these deaths cuz death AND MY WRITING are just here to stay.

Jotting down these milestones and dedicating these to real names of real people. I have no flowers to offer, nor presence so here, I lay at your feet my writings around the time of your death, perhaps as a way to hold on to dear life while you folks have transitioned well to your afterlife.

Pandemic Year 2020

> Thesis submission 1 - Tita Ely

> Faculty Grant proposal - Uncle Vic

> Revised thesis submission - Sol's Dad

Pandemic Year 2021

Q1

> IRRODL Paper reject - Kat's Manny

> Springer Book Proposal Grant - Cousin Monina

> Teaching Presence in K-12 BL - Sir Lex Librero

FED Continuing Education Concept Paper + 3 Short Course Proposals -  Anj's Dad

Q2

So who is next? 

> Paper for ETS - Intersections of the CoI

> Paper for JOLR/AJODL - BL Philippines

Q3-Q4

> Developing an SR Instrument to Measure EB of LSTs and LAs -

> PhD by Independent Study Proposal

For every death comes the birth of some kind of writing which I don't even know what all these will amount to. I'll hold on to the USQ RWL as comrades-in-writing to help me through. Perhaps it'll be a hopeful way I can see this through. 

And with prayers, I'd really just have to beg from God-- please, not MY Victor, Manolo, Julieta nor Benjamin yet. That'll be heartbreaking...I'm not quite ready to say goodbye yet. Imagine what that can do to a 17-year old man-a-be, boy interrupted. 

Dear 18 year old

 Dear 18-year old,

I'm writing this to help you remember, that around the same time last year, on your birthday week/month, a lot has happened. And I mean a lot, from all ends, your life included.

Perhaps by this time that you are reading this, it's highly possible that:

> there are more unexpected deaths in our family and among friends

> your school is still closed for f2f classes

> your academic load hasn't eased up

> we are still doing WFH

> you are grappling with this and that in your mind

>you still have questions

>we have been finally vaccinated vs Covid19

And yet,  your sister and I would be seated together at our dinner table and recalling another year of our lives and how our experiences have turned from bad to worse. Your sister could be cracking a joke in an effort to avoid getting 'unhinged' (her words not mine). And you will be seated with us simply listening and absorbing it all. 

But since you are now 18, you know better.

A parent would always want a better world for their children and I really am sorry to see that this ain't forthcoming yet. And, I am sorry for having passed on something else to you. I guess, there's not much I can do to 'protect' you from all these, son. It is what it is. 

But this I remember well. During OUR very tough and trying times, you have kept to who you are. When I thought I was missing pieces of you, or even thought hard that if I were to lose those pieces of you, I know what I will hold dear about you in my heart, and that piece of you will forever remain, that is -  you held my hand and you pat my shoulder and you listened when I asked you to PROMISE ME that you will be well.  And yes you have become well.  In those days after, you bring to the table some fond memory :)

Then 7 weeks after that, things became bleak. I tore up and told God, eee-nough! Only because I could not imagine - gumuho ba bigla mga panaginip mo sa buhay? So paminsan, iniisip ko, paano ko ba pwedeng gawing sapat ang mga pangyayari sa buhay mo.  I'm really not the best person to even tell you what 'well' means. Cuz when I look back to my years, it's been a journey of 'unwellness' and yet I have such great memories of people, adventures and heavenly moments which have made those unwell years very much liveable... and loveable.

Now that you are 18, it really is your life to live and your world to make something out of. And that as your mother, I won't be one to promise you that life will be better. YOU KNOW life ain't a bed of roses. That life can be bad news on certain days. (And yet once in a while you will always pull out a fond memory or two...of Builders, of life at Hardin, of Java and Mikasa, of Cavite, of Lola Juliet.) And still it can be back to feeling just as worse in a span of 3-5 days or even a 2-week all time low.

But I am one who will give you that space to feel what needs to be felt, until things get numb. I will be the one to pray in those times when you believe otherwise. I will be the one to try to listen even if deep inside me, I feel I am just about to cry and fall apart, and appear not to fall apart cuz I need to pay attention and listen. I will do my best to keep quiet and see you through it, until a smile pops up. And that it is ok, if that is just for a moment or two.

I am no superwoman, nor a supermom, but I'm just here while I still CAN BE here, BE still and KNOW you are well.