Clary Diary

It has been 25 days after my birthday and as usual, adulthood has eaten me alive. I saw a post from a page asking "What would you like to tell to your younger self?" Instead of answering this long to the comment section, I decided to blog about it. Here it goes: Dear Younger Self, You should’ve finish your studies instead of engaging to premarital sex at the age of 16 and got pregnant at 18. Keep your promises to your parents no matter how hard it takes because you’re gonna feel guilty about it. Though you wouldn’t regret having 3 kids in the future, but you’re going to wish for a better and more comfortable life with a bigger house of your own, emergency money in the bank and an SUV. So, you gotta be thrifty. Spend your teenage years by trying a lot of adventures with your friends instead of working like a dog at an early age of 15. Well, I know the universe didn’t give you any choice. Anyways, expect yourself to be one badass woman when you grow older. You’ll be a s...

A child with special needs often attracts attention from the public. We always notice a side look, a stare of humiliation or whispers when they think we're not looking. I sometimes pick up a fight especially when we're in a public transportation. My husband said, "let's try to get use to it. Ganun talaga." But no, I don't think I would ever get used to it. Sometimes it gives me a lot of stress because it affects my mood. I get easily annoyed when their glance become a stare that lasted for more than 5 seconds. What more if I caught them talking inside their hands while looking at my son. I don't like to think what I'll probably do.  Joaqui looks like just a normal kid at first glance. His invisible disability gets noticed when he started to speak. He is speech delayed. He is already eleven years old but he talks like a four-year old boy. He sometimes get cranky when it's hot in the jeepney or when it's cramped. He will shout "Ouch...

There were good days and bad days. Times of celebration and frustration. Tears of joy and tears of sorrow. My life as a special needs mom is like a roller coster ride, exciting yet fulfilling, over flowing with emotions. Sometimes I feel like I'm hiking the most difficult terrain, not like most of the normal moms usually do. Looking around, I've got a lot of why's and how's, puzzled by who to blame or will I ever have to blame somebody for feeling like this? There were nights that I feel angry and disappointed at myself, mad at myself for being mad, frustrated at myself for being frustrated. There were nights when I don't know what to feel anymore, half numb and half oppressed by reality. There were moments when I feel like I am not enough, that what I do are still not enough, that whatever I do will never be enough. In times like this, I know, I'm certain, that I need to help myself. There will never be anyone who can make me feel good about myself but just...

It's been a while since I last visited my virtual friend. Today might have been too heavy to bear alone so here I am, saying... "Hi, it's been a while." I have trust issues. Maybe because I was betrayed for several times already. I also do not know if being a person who can easily read emotions is an advantage or disadvantage for being doubtful at times. Or maybe because having lots of judgmental, backstabber and untrustworthy people around made me uncomfortable of showing my emotions too easily. I have a few friends. Too few that my fingers on one hand is too much. It is because I couldn't tolerate having two-faced people in my life. My friends are usually my enemy at first meeting, or a person that I do not like at first glance, or the person that annoyed me before and eventually became one of my best friends. I think it is because we're alike and that we all have strong personality and too upfront. In other words, often misunderstood. I never love...

There are people who will feed you with misleading information, one-sided opinion, edited stories, trash talks, and will manipulate your mind to get mad and your heart to be filled with anger. As much as possible I want to avoid such people who will throw negativity upon me. 

This is a follow up post to my "project" which was tackled on my previous post entitled  Keeping The Faith . I'm starting to feel dismayed but trying to understand things straight. The loan wasn't released and needed another month of processing. We weren't approved for financial assistance at work because it wasn't about being hospitalized nor death. I was dumped by 4 people in a span of 5 days. And some left me hanging without assurance. How would I take all of these?

Parents play a special role in each and everyone of us. They are the heroes of our lives. Their responsibility does not end when we get married and have our own family. Whenever we need them, they’re always there. I see a lot of grandparents who took the role of their children when it comes to raising their kids because their children are either working abroad or here in the country and some of them were abandoned because the parents of their grandchildren chose to live their own lives with their new family. Proud hands-on mom to my 3 boys Sometimes, we tend to neglect their hardships, their sacrifices and we disregard the fact that they also have the right to live their own lives.

Dear Daddy, You took us by surprise. I don't even remember that you love surprises. You left us too soon. Too soon that we didn't get a chance to patch things up. Of course we're okay. There is no perfect family, no perfect parent, no perfect child. Those little arguments have been normal to us since you took  that "left turn." Since you've been gone, I'm beginning to figure out what you really feel. Why you chose to stay even if you're being pushed away. Because you chose us. Until the very end, you never left us. You're absence has left a soft mark in our hearts, in our conscience. It has been a vivid realization of how important you are to us. How generous you were as the head of the family and most importantly, you never stopped caring for your children and grandchildren. 

I have a child with special needs. He was born premature, an eight-month medically fragile baby and was diagnosed with Global Developmental Delay Syndrome. Yes we did everything. From early diagnosis, early interventions like Occupational Therapy and Speech Therapy. Whatever you might think of to tell me what to do, I've done it.  When you have a child with special needs, you'll get to meet a lot of medical specialists. From General Pediatrician to Developmental Pediatrician, Opthalmologist, Ortolaryngologist to different Therapists. Who wouldn't want answers and solutions to their child issues, right? It is hard, and it hurts.

As we grow up, there are so many things that we learn as we get to experience a lot of things on our journey called life.  We get to learn a lot especially after rising from defeat.  We learn that even the last person that isn’t supposed to let us down, probably will. Broken trust brings us wound that eventually turn into a scar. A scar that no matter what we do stays on our skin that will serve as a reminder that at some point in our life, we were hurt.