transposable element

the berks are doing another round of posts, each member answering the so-called proust questionnaire. i hope i can find the time to answer the whole lot myself, but let me start with this one: what is your greatest fear?

like many, i fear death. not as much as my own, but of the people i love, the people around me. whatever will i do without my husband? will the sun shine as bright without jan? and mia– i get nightmares just thinking about SIDS and other accidents that may befall such a vulnerable infant.

the logical side of me says death is as natural as life itself. it’s inevitable. it happens to everyone, it’s just the manner in which it happens that varies. if one’s lucky, you can prepare for it to a certain extent. compare life insurance quotes and get it all sorted out. a memorial plan and a will makes it easier for those left behind to deal with financial issues, too.

but what about the emotional loss? could you help others to cope with the grief of losing you? i suppose there’s only one thing you can do to make death easier to accept: live life meaningfully.

when i hear someone say she’d love to just be stay at home mom if she could, i often find myself thinking that if she really did feel that way, she would. so why doesn’t she? if one delves deep enough, i suspect many (not all, of course) women choose to not to stay at home not because they can’t, but because they don’t want to.

and that’s fine.

don’t want to be tied at home, tending to the household and kids 24/7. don’t want to give up the second income. don’t want to lose out on career opportunities. don’t want to lose the sense of self they’ve built over several years. don’t want to be intellectually stagnant. don’t want to be considered less productive. don’t want to lose self-worth. don’t want to be financially dependent on spouse. don’t want exchange the glamour for the hausfrau lifestyle.

sure, i know, because over the last years, i’ve felt all those at some point or another, too. being a sahm is definitely not an option for everyone. for me, it resonates with my priorities and values. it’s the option that feels right (whether it actually is, isn’t important. afterall, i think there are no absolute rights and wrongs in such issues).

what i have learned over the past 6 years, though, is that deciding to be a sahm need not be cast in stone. children grow up, the family needs vary in time, a person’s priorities change, too. before mia came into our lives, i was nearly ready to go back to work. no, not build a career, but just find a job. but now that mia’s here, that has got to be shelved once more. do i regret it? honestly, yes, a bit. but i know that if i don’t give mia the kind of attention and environment i was able to provide jan, i will regret it even more.

there will always be jobs out there. there will always be opportunities (Wilmington real estate, anyone? — hehe, wala akong commision dyan) . but these precious years when my kids need me most, that happens only once.

i’ve nothing to wear. isn’t that the classic complaint you hear from all women? i rarely say it myself (my husband will probably disagree), but this time i mean it. i can’t possibly wear my maternity clothes and my pre-pregnancy stuff still seems to belong to a person whose figure i can’t believe was once mine. arrrgh. as long as i stay home, i’m fine. i can run around in my stretchy tanks which are most convenient for nursing anyway, but if i have to get out, that’s when i run into a block. damn these hips, what the heck am i gonna wear?

trivia: according to this country’s laws against “nudity visible to the public eye”, it is a public offense to walk around naked, even in your own home. i wonder how they monitor that– do they have ademco cameras installed everywhere?

all these talk about passports and travel makes the sols of my feet itch. and the knowledge that i can’t, not until mia is a bit tougher, make the longing to go places all the more acute.

strange, but now that we’re in asia, am longing to see europe again. i guess i’ve not yet had enough of it after all. i know jan wouldn’t mind going to mallorca again. our vacation two years ago really made an impression on him, he still talks about it til today. and i don’t mind spending a summer week in prerow, probably germany’s equivalent to north carolina’s Outer Banks. yes, the water’s going to be cold, and the gusts of wind from the north sea will make my skin tingle. but considering the permanent sauna-weather we’ve been having here, i’m craving for a long walk on a long beach, letting gusts of crisp, cold wind tousle my hair, shivering a little, making a nice hot cup of coffee and a piece of cake in the afternoon all the more delectable.

ahh… why do we always long for what we don’t have?

i think i was 24 when i got a passport and only because i needed to travel abroad for work. during that time, there were no budget airlines, and airfares are prohibitively expensive such that to travel abroad for holidays was something only rich people did. never in my wildest dreams did i imagine that i would be traveling this much in my lifetime.

my children, though, by virtue of having relatives on opposite sides of the world, are destined to be voyagers from the start. jan was about 8 or 9 months when he got his passport and in the last five years, has probably clocked in more air miles than the average adult. and mia? she now has a passport, too, at the age of 3 weeks! no, no plans of traveling this early, but it’s a requirement for her residence permit here in singapore.

although both jan and mia are also pinoys by descent (jan was registered at the philippine embassy, then in bonn, and mia will be registered here in singapore as soon as i figure out how to prepare her footprint), they only have german passports. well, it’s the pragmatic choice, for travel convenience reasons, but recently, we were told that by law, they should be using a philippine passport when they enter the philippines. strange, as jan has always used his german one to enter the philippines and we never encountered problems at the immigration. and i am sure we aren’t the only ones. i can’t imagine american-born and thus american-passport holding pinoy kids use philippine passports to enter pinas, if they even have one at all!

how old were you when you got your passport? if you have a pinoy passport, what’s the color of your passport– brown, green, or black?

when we were in germany, i always complained about the weather. particularly during the cold and dark days of winter. now that we’re in singapore, i’m still complaining, this time, about the heat and humidity. when i was pregnant, it was almost unbearable. i used to take cool (nearly cold) showers, turn on the aircon, and then stand in front of an electric fan for a few minutes of reprieve from the heat. the worst would be during meals, as we don’t have an ac in the living/dining rooms. we even thought of changing the lamp above the dining table to one of those small chandeliers that double as ceiling fans.

now that mia is here, you’d think coping with the heat would be easier. but no, someone turned the temperature control a notch higher the last few days, i think. and the way mia clings to me during the day, arrgh, we’re sweating buckets!

if there’s one seaside destination i wish i could see before i die, it would be seychelles. maldives comes second, although somehow, maldives does not seem as elusive a dream as seychelles. until we can scrape up the enough dough for such a dream holiday (when will that be? when the kids are done with college?!), there are other options. not as fantabulous and extravagant, but well, good enough for the meantime.

for those in the states, there’s hilton head south carolina, for example. Hilton Head Island offers a peaceful getaway and great resort accommodations, vacation homes, golf and tennis courses and clubs that are ranked among the top in the world. if that is your kind of holiday, hilton head may just be the right island getaway for you.

if money was no object, where in the world would you spend your dream holiday of a lifetime?

i went for a post-natal check a few days ago, and everything was pronounced well by the doc. except for an elevated blood pressure. which was pretty weird, because all through out the pregnancy, i never had problems with my bp, and it’s pretty ironic that it starts just when the baby’s already out. i wrote it off to lack of sleep.

the truth is, i can’t say i really lack sleep. so far, mia’s being an angel during nighttime (it’s a different story during daytime, though). but since mid last week, jan’s kindergarten has been closed due to an outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease, an illness that seems to have reached epidemic levels in china and singapore. so jan is forced to stay home and the poor guy is simply bored to death. the first day was a riot here at home, but so far, we’re coping well. hubby adjusted his work schedule and jan has continuously surprised me with his creativity and maturity. he would happily watch tv the whole day, sure, but when forced to turn it off, he’d come up with amazingly creative ways to keep himself busy.

but the stress! another week of this to go. let’s see how stress resistant i am. maybe i should start reading up on beta blockers. or looking for best acne treatment options.

how about you? how does your body react to stress?

time to pack your Louis Vuittons and Zero Halliburtons (bought from greenhills, hehe): it’s travel time! take advantage of the “free” seats from cebu pacific and airasia! that’s if you feel inclined to book your tickets NOW for travel 6 months to a year down the road. i’ve checked the whole month of june and july, but never found a zero airfare for mnl-singapore on cebpac. and of course, it’s not really free, as you still have to pay the taxes, etc. talk about false advertising.

one can only guess how much busier the domestic air traffic has gotten the last few years in the philippines since the local airlines started to offer affordable airfares. i think the domestic airport has never had to handle so many passengers ever. one would think that with the exponential growth in their revenues from the airport taxes they are collecting, they would be able to upgrade the airport. the last time we were there in feb, it looked, felt, and sounded worse than bus terminal!

what every mother wishes for her child.