Just keep...slime-ing!

Lately, the phrase one day at a time has taken a whole new meaning for me. I have forgotten how many times I've said this to friends, relatives, acquaintances, patients, and even myself, to try to encourage, yet at this moment, I feel like everything seems like empty words.

To take care of my mental health, I've done quite a few things to be mindful, grateful and at peace: meditation in the mornings, a set routine, limiting social media, playing some games, writing, reading books, and coloring. So di pala sya few. Parang kulang nalang magchant ako ng some Buddhist meditation songs like my mom used to do when I was younger (with a cassette tape! haha).  I still feel though like I've been sent to spin inside a washing machine na may setting na pinakamataas.

I feel mostly at peace and in the present  when I start coloring these black and white pictures with set colors I click on per number. It gives me a bit of a thrill to see what kind of colors will appear and how the picture looks after you've colored it. Oftentimes it isn't what I imagined it to be. I click on landscapes with a tree and mountains and think of sunrise in summer only to reveal that the picture is that of a tree in the mountains at sunset. As I look on the finished product, I can't help but still think that it is beautiful even if it wasn't the one I imagined it to be.

Picture taken from Oil Painting Color by Number App

Thus comes the snail. I accidentally clicked on this picture as I was browsing through the app's animal selection. Then I realized how the snail, as slow as it may seem,  keeps moving forward, even if it doesn't seem to be doing so...dahil sa bonggang kabagalan. Naisip ko din, parang wala naman atang snail na pabalik gumalaw. Haha. What a timely reminder. I hope that when I feel stuck, I remember that any step forward is a step in a new direction. Just keep walking...just keep swimming.

Dekada.

10 years ago, I was pushing hospital stretchers and monitoring vital signs q5 and q15 with glee! WITH GLEE! For the day was April 30, and what was probably the most awaited time of anyone in medical school at that time...for it meant only one thing...the end is near, of internship I mean. OMG! after this, no more monitoring machinery. No more intern this and intern that go do scutwork and the like. On to more exciting things! Like sunugan...and the thought that you have earned your degree finally!  Hahaha.

Now, ten years after, I am looking forward to today as well, for today is the end of my 14 day self-quarantine. Looking back, these moments of joyful waiting would be the only time waiting would be considered....joyful. Ahahahaha! If you look at it, these are actually, not endings but beginnings.

The past weeks...errr months have been plagued by many new words, some of which I think will be considered words of the year: COVID, quarantine, social distancing, extended enhanced quarantine, face masks, N95, "new normal". It has been a very trying year, at hindi pa tayo umaabot sa kalahati ng taon. I have faced and re-faced old issues, new issues, privacy issues and used up so many tissues. I have gone through so many emotions I feel like I am drowning in them all. I have realized how truly hard it is to be in our profession. I have seen how life is unfair but it is what it is. I have learned what it truly means to go high when they go low. I learned the hard way that intentions, no matter how good, can always be misconstrued...that in this world, there are truly evil people. I have once again been reminded that usually I am my own worst enemy. Yet, I have also never felt more loved and supported.

10 years ago, I was confronted with a May 1 of a sudden shift of responsibilities. No waking up early, no monitoring, no procedures, an end of a 5 year era that made me who I am today...but as I realized 10 years ago, life goes on. Tomorrow is a different May 1, I do not know what it will bring, but I hope that like 10 years ago, I will begin the day with the same elation, wonderment and child-like giddiness, which the end of medical school brought to me before.

Picture from Oil Painting App for Ipad (Colored digitally of course by your full fledged Tita, BOTD)