As I write this, there is just a day more to go before choruses will burst into "Auld Lang Syne" not with nostalgic sadness but a sense of relief. More so, a near-desperate sense of hope. Time Magazine said it best with their cover: the year 2020 with an enormous X ... not marking the spot but simply cancelling.
It was not even a roller coaster year: just one that demanded extraordinary care and attention. 2020 shall be the year best remembered when people had to hide their smiles behind face masks --- and, in the case of our country, walked around like cast members of The Mandalorian in an assortment of not only masks but also face shields. The scenario was close to dystopian. Whereas the previous year we entertained ourselves with a proliferation of zombies, now we have turned into parodies of space men with the very air we breathe becoming the source of ultimate danger.
But not everything about 2020 can be all that bad. It was not great but just think of it as ...it could have been worse. That is the best position you can take in order to look back with any semblance of positivity. Why? Because it was bad. And it takes extraordinary effort to smile and philosophize while watching the world you knew and lived through all your life crumble then rearrange under the heading, The New Normal.
So that makes the Old Normal as the The New Abormal. And that is depressing. Why? Because I still want to have a bowl of steaming hot ramen together with my nephews in our favorite restaurants in Osaka ... I still yearn for the laughter and stories exchanged over dinners with my closest friends in our favorite digs here in Manila. I want to see my students in the classroom and not in little boxes as I spend hours in front of a computer monitor talking to an illuminated slab. I want to go back to the gym ... I want the hubbub and cacophony of malls ... I want ... I want. But it cannot be anything like that any more.
And it seems like it will take more than just passing time before we can get to anything close to that.
So we say instead: it could have been worse. Some people had it bad. Others had it at its worst. And here we are finally bidding adieu to the year we have decided to hate with hopes that when the clock strikes midnight, the pumpkin will turn into a golden carriage again.
But still we learned our lessons. We realized that without seeing the good in all the things we have gone through, we will only live in utmost misery soaking on the tub of the bad. So let me take this time to mark the final hours of 2020 by actually thanking the year for what these challenging twelve months have taught me.
(1) Clothes do not make a man when you are stuck at home and working in front of a computer. Now if I can only keep my fingers from pressing the ADD TO CART button in each and every online store that pops up on my timeline in Facebook and Instagram, I could claim to have achieved the wisdom of the Yoda. Not the Baby Yoda but the crinkled green pea with ears version.
Even at the start, I realized that I have too many clothes (Kasi naman, when you see the SCREAMING FOUR LETTERS IN RED that spells SALE, nawawala ako sa aking sarili) and too many shoes. But unlike one of my nephews who believes he is a centipede with the number of sneakers he has purchased since he crossed puberty, I am just your regular boomer still trying to dress Millennial until I realized that ... wait, a minute. I have all these rags and footwear and absolutely no wear to go.
When your major event for the week is a quick run to S&R to buy your groceries --- or that your idea of outdoor life is the GCQ-approved thirty minute walk around your gated village, you realize that there is really very limited opportunities for you to dress to the nines and impress people with your sartorial taste.
Your oversized t-shirts and housewear shorts purchased from Lazada can and should serve the purpose.
(2) Now is the chance to be that somebody you always wanted to be but never had the time to do so.
I always (quietly, covertly) complained that there are so many things that I had to do so much so that there was no time left for me to do what I really wanted to do.
This did not only include screenplays and stories that I really, really wanted to write but had to give way to projects that I had to fulfill to keep the wheels of commerce rolling. But this also involves things I had to give up because of the erratic work hours I keep, sometimes shoving aside plans just to be able to beat deadlines and attend to matters in both school and filmmaking.
I remember last February when I sighed to one of my friends and said, "All I am asking is maybe three days of down time ... just three days when I can focus on what I really have been yearning to do for years and never found the window in my calendar to address." Well, guess what? Careful the wish you make. The three days turned out to be ten months and going on indefinitely.
And I still do not have enough time to do everything that I have always wanted to fill my time.
There are the boxes of books that I want to read: there is a Japanese term for that. Tsundoku. And now it a choice between reading that book that has been sitting on your shelf or night table or watching the latest Korean Drama warranting buzz from friends who are equally addicted to this form of entertainment.
In short ... when you try to be that somebody you always wanted to become --- you find yourself still not having enough time after ten months of self-exile and isolation.
(3) Regardless of age, there is always something to discover and/or rediscover about yourself.
Confinement can either bring the best or the worse in people.
When you do not consider your home a sanctuary where you can be who you want to be for this is your exclusive space on the Third Rock, then you are looking at the past ten months as incarceration.
But if you see the limitation of space as an opportunity to savor your "sanctuary" which is your home then you get to realize all the wonders that you can discover or rediscover about yourself.
I never appreciated my garden until I was forced to look at it since the spinning bicycle I had to acquire in the absence of the gym made me stay in the patio and glare at the pants while I am huffing and pumping away.
I never knew my neighborhood until I was compelled to do my other form of cardio exercise which meant walking around the village for at least thirty minutes four to five times a week. I literally go around the streets, amusing myself with the variation of discovering more nooks and crannies of my community, looking at the houses and familiarizing myself with my corner of the world. And to think that I have been living here for thirty-two years and I have never seen my surroundings in as detailed a fashion as I have nowadays.
And yes, it feels good to say good morning to a neighbor ... or a jogger, or a cyclist or anyone for that matter who is immerself himself/herself in the pleasures of sunlight and Vitamin D.
(4) Again ... regardless of how many decades you have celebrated in this present earthly existence, no one can ever tell you that you're too old to like, love or learn something.
There is this thing about acting your age, behaving according to the chronological order of the years you have been consuming oxygen from this atmosphere ... or leaving carbon footprints. And you reach a certain point when you say that you are too old to wear skinny jeans or oversized shirts you can buy at H&M or those Korean style clothes purchasable online. Well, one thing I realized is that you really shouldn't give a flying f--k about what other people expect from you.
The quarantine has taught me to accept the fact that I got this far (so I must be lucky) and that the next few steps are uncertain (well, more ambiguous than the usual) and that life is so unpredictable, unchartable and unplannable. What will happen will happen so I am going to make myself happen without having to worry what people think because I am doing things which are not expected from me.
Yes, I am a Boomer and proud of it --- because I am only praying to the heavens above that all these Millies and Gen Z-ers with their basta attitude will get to live as long for I plan to be around for another thirty years. And having lived through the Beatles all the way to BTS, I know I have every right to appreciate and dance to I Saw Her Standing There all the way through Dynamite.
It feels great when you reach my age even in these times of great uncertainty because you already have the perspective (and hopefully the wisdom) to look at things from a far wider point of view. Yes, I love K-Dramas ( I think Start Up and It's OK not to be OK are just terrific) in the same vein that I love Amazon Prime's The Boys or Netflix's Black Mirror and The Queen's Gambit. I no longer care about opinions about me especially those who make a living out of opinions or worse ... those who have opinions in order to make themselves feel better.
Despite the restrictions of quarantine, there is so much out there readily available and yours for the asking ... if you know where to look and know how to ask.
Being obsessed with what other people think of you is a condition worse than any Enhanced Community Quarantine. That is because you weld your own prison bars and define yourself from the eyes of others.
And finally, to cap off 2020, I shall crown this blog with a cliche.
(5) I learned the value of gratitude. I learned to stop looking for what I do not have and gave importance to what has already been given to me. My definition of ambition has been rebooted: it is no longer about how far I could go or how high I can climb. It is all about valuing the here and now because life does not owe you anything: you owe the world something --- and that is to be appreciative of life.
Goodbye, 2020. Believe it or not, I will say thank you.
Thank you for keeping me safe. Thank you for keeping my most loved ones safe --- both friends and family.
Thank you for keeping my students safe.
Thank you for teaching us through the most humbling experience to make us all realize that --- well, mankind, you ain't such a big deal after all.
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