We write the 13th of June, my 30th birthday. First Edit: Actually, we write the 16th of June, 3 days after my birthday… 3 days after my initial thought of writing about these thoughts that I have on my mind. Second Edit: We write the 21st of June! The day I’m finally getting to finish this article and publish it.
All of my life I have been counting up. Counting the years as they piled up on my age. During some birthdays, I would feel that I have become wiser and have done better than the year before… In others, I feel like I have regressed. With my second birthday amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, I experienced some kind of a mixed bag.
The year that has been was one full of mixed emotions, success stories, and shortcomings alike. Career wise, I might have excelled, but interpersonally, even with myself, I do feel that I have regressed a little. One could say that I have lost touch doing the things that I truly love. Sure, I do love me some Mobile Legends or Fifa or other form of video games… but none of these things have given me joy in the truest sense. Perhaps it’s just the pandemic that’s talking and taking a toll on me, but nonetheless, I do feel extremely out of touch with my inner self.
This is something that is very much reflected especially in the last couple of weeks.
Before I do get ahead of myself, let’s take a quick flash back, step by step.
So, in July of last year, I have decided to apply for a more “formal” kind of a job, along with my friend who’s living here at the same compound. I did have some “German” kind of job along the way as well, but it just wasn’t paying enough for my needs nor was it as stimulating as I needed it to be as well. But that’s mostly on me, I knew the job description prior naman.
At any rate, after joining this Outsourcing company, I managed to get promoted immediately to the Team Leader position. I want to say that I led my team fairly competently and that they have been happy with how I’ve led them. The OG Georlogs team lasted until November of 2019 when I received another promotion in the form of becoming the Training Supervisor of the said company.
I suppose my extra hours of helping people here and there – even though I don’t need to have paid off. Though personal relationships have somewhat taken a toll because I was a bit too engrossed in my work and was doing seriously some OTTY work every now and then.
Becoming the Training Supervisor didn’t change much in that regard, I still helped people where and whenever I could. I also had a lot of extra work on my plate, more than I have initially expected. I was told that the whole department that I would be leading was all set in place and that I’ll just manage people… but boy that was definitely not the case. I pretty much had to led the department from scratch.
I took a lot of slack for changes that management had issued. People just needed a local target because they couldn’t really hit on foreign management people, I guess. For whatever change that was implemented in the company, like moving of people, policy changes, yours truly, TL Georg Kevin would be the scapegoat, 9 times out of 10.
It reached a point in March when I just had enough and I couldn’t bear with the situation anymore. I loved my job, the people that I was directly reporting to, and the people that were directly reporting to me… but I just couldn’t stand the stress that other people in the company gave me.
Picture this: Even though I have long departed the company, sometime around early May, people were still blaming me for the changes that took place.
But of course, the work stress was not the only trigger that made me decide to leave. My mother had an unfortunate accident in late February, 2021. She couldn’t work anymore due to it… After being bed ridden for over a month, she finally decided to have the surgery she needed early in April. My dayjob and my mother’s need for attention overnight plus the work related triggers all jampacked together was what eventually pushed me over the edge and had me decide to quit.
Luckily, my mother’s health has progressed for the better as of late, as she’s already been able to go back upstairs to her room on the second floor of the main building here.
Other misc. things that happened:
• My sister, Pearl, is now living with us here at the Germansion.
• the mother-in-law of my cousin, An, died earlier this year (I think it was in April?)
• Soon after, unfortunately, her nephew, Jay died as well. He was just 20 years young at the time of passing.
• Not just that though, the father of the one who recently passed away is severely sick at this point in time… It’s really a lot to take in what’s happening to some of my relatives right now.
Aside from my mom and my relatives, I also have my own health struggles… and I’m a bit ashamed to point them out because if you think about it, they don’t really compare to all the things that they are going through.
On top of my one year struggle with GERD, I am now suffering from Tinnitus as well. Sure, tinnitus is a symptom and not the actual disease, so there’s something else that might have been triggering it, but nonetheless, it is not a pleasant experience at all.
It did get worse after a few days when I started experiencing it and even until now, I haven’t fully adjusted to life with it. It lessened a bit when I started pranic healing and chraniosacral therapy courtesy of some of my acquaintances. It’s amazing what alternative healing can do for cases where traditional science just gives up on.
There’s still some noise present, but I am very positive that I can either have it disappear or lessen to the extent that it won’t become noticeable in my day to day.
With all these things that happened, I’ve really come to question a lot of things. Why we do what we do, for what we do it for… And what it means to be happy and to live a life to the fullest. In case of my nephew Jay, everyone in his family was trying to preserve him and safety him from everyday harm that most teenagers get exposed to from his age… Yet now he hasn’t been able to live life to the fullest with his early demise.
Take his father, whose case doctors have indirectly considered as an insurmountable mountain to climb medically speaking with barely half a year on his clock left… What does it mean to live, really?
I’ve been over thinking so much lately, to the point that that’s been my everyday life in the last couple of weeks. I’ve barely worked. I’ve barely even played any games or done anything that I truly enjoy. Heck, my last post dates months and months back.
At one point, I thought I would find the answer to a lot of my questions in my journey to Manila. A journey that I haven’t even been able to take because of the worsening situation of the pandemic in manila and my mother’s plea to stay put.
Everything was in place for my “rebirth” in Manila, but I just couldn’t get myself to board the plane with her request not to ringing on my ear and me feeling like I was eventually saying goodbye to something or someone.
Anyways… my 29th year on planet earth provided me with many ups and downs. Wins and losses… Joys and sorrows… and at the end of the day, I can only say that despite my ailments that I experience at the moment, despite the loss among my relatives… I am blessed to still be standing, to still be able to influence the people around me positively and to still be able to work, tinnitus withstanding, to some degree.
It’s going to be an uphill battle now, though I have reached the peak of my years. The countdown begins. Another 30 years to come. I hope.
PS: Forgive me if this post is somewhat all over the place. I was working on this on 3 or 4 different instances.
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