The Prodigal Ant is Back...

It has been more than a month since my last update - or at least a semblance of an update.

The ant has been busy - and uninspired (or just plain lazy) - for the past weeks. Besides that, nothing eventful really happened.

Well, I did have my birthday last month but even that was not so note-worthy. I started out planning to go out bowling with the family but last minute changes and a sick nephew prevented us from pushing through with it and my parents and I ended up eating out in a mall.

I haven't been going to yoga sessions for well over a month, I guess, and I am starting to feel the weight coming back and the lethargy setting in. I really, really need to get back to working out. Though I've really been taking it slow for quite some time now as I have been beginning to notice asthma attack precursors showing up - due mainly to weather changes and work-related stress.

Speaking of work, it hasn't been rosy at the work place either. I had to make major man-power decisions and is looking at making another this week. All these aside from the numerous reports, process monitoring, performance evaluation, training development & implementation and other non-work-essential-but-work-related projects.

On the flip side, though, I have gained some headway on my comic collection - what with the recent opening of a local online comic book store. Truly, a boon from the gods - and a bane to my savings account!

Which is actually why I am sitting on the fence with regards to moving on and quitting my job at this point. No job at this time means no extra money for X-Men, Ultimates, Justice League and Birds of Prey. Sigh - the things one has to consider to make life more interesting.

And in a few more days, Christmas will be upon us - and the SMAP, or Samahang Malaming ang Pasko (which I am currently the Mother Superior of), will have its annual retreat. Oh, how I would love to not be a member of this group this year! Any takers?

So, I've pretty much covered updating the more important aspects of my life on this post.

Hopefully, something good and exciting is brewing up just around the corner for the next few days or weeks before we finally say goodbye to 2011 and say hello to 2012.

So, the Ant is back... for now...

Close to Normal

I hate crying in public - don't get me wrong, it has nothing to do with machismo or anything, but crying is so messy.

Anyway, that was not the point...

Was able to catch Atlantis Production's Next to Normal.

Powerful cast - Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo, Felix Rivera, Bea Garcia, Jett Pangan and Markki Stroem - who's voices and emotions came across clearly, gave me goose bumps.

The song that hit me most - and led to a tiny tsunami to gush forth from my eyes - was "Maybe". Some of the lines are as follows:

I don’t need a life that’s normal
That’s way too far away
But something next to normal
Would be okay
Yeah, something next to normal
That’s the thing I’d like to try
Close enough to normal
To get by

That's what I am living right now - something next to normal. Normal is too far away.

But next to normal is ok with me, close enough to normal to get by...

World's AIDS Day - the Yoga For Life Way

December 2008. It was the first World's AIDS Day that I attended. And I swore that it was going to be my last...

Fast forward November 2010. The day before December 1 (Tuesday), I texted our yogi and asked whether it was OK for me to do yoga practice the day before my CD4 extraction. He said it was.

I was actually trying to make an excuse not to attend another World AIDS Day event.

On December 1, I was called to an emergency meeting scheduled for 6PM. Normally, I would have made a fuss about the timing but I accepted the meeting invite without second thoughts.

I was actually trying to make an excuse not to attend another World AIDS Day event.

Later that day, the meeting was re-scheduled for 4:30PM and finished a few minutes past 6PM. I left the office quarter past 6. I was expecting to reach Ortigas from Ayala way past 7pm as usually happens.

I was actually trying to make an excuse not to attend another World AIDS Day event.

Lo and behold! No traffic along EDSA! And I made it to Ortigas quarter before 7!

I could not make any more excuse to attend another World AIDS Day event!

And I am glad that all my excuses came to naught.

Filipinos have a saying: "wag kang magsalita ng tapos". And this was proven on the second World AIDS Day that I attended.

I was more than happy that I came. Aside from actually disclosing my "kapusitan", the Yoga for Life activity for WAD gave me a more positive (no pun intended) experience of this event.

One of the things that stuck with me about that evening were the words: "times are changing". And indeed they are.

Gone are the days when WAD is about death and suffering.

What struck me most was that during that WAD celebration, we were actually doing that - CELEBRATING!

Celebrating our own lives - whether positive or negative. Celebrating the lives of those who have gone on ahead of us by living our lives as healthy as they wished they could have had they been given the same chance that we PLWHA are being given now.

I do not regret disclosing my HIV status during that YFL session. It was a step for me in finally accepting my status not just in my mind and heart but in my words as well.

Times are changing indeed.

The Little Angel Who Hang on to Life

I spent the whole day yesterday at the wake of my friend's 4 month old daughter.

She was born pre-maturely. So premature that at the time of her birth, the doctors could not even determine the gender of the baby.

She also had a small mass on her lower back which grew with her as she progressed.

Worst of all, she did not have a hole on her anus, so her body had no way to discharge the waste.

She was a fighter. From the moment she was born, the doctors gave up on her. A pediatric surgeon, however, had the wits to check on her condition. The doctor pulled on her little arms, testing her will to survive. The little baby held her fingers securely as if telling the doctor: "I want to live".

Right there and then, the surgeon decided to operate on her to help her with the most pressing concern, that of providing her little body with a means to discharge body waste.

That was when we first heard about her situation. The management of our company sent out an email blast informing us of our friend's and her baby's conditions (both her parents work in the same company as I do).

That was more than four months ago.

Last week she had another operation. It wasn't a planned operation but her doctors said it was necessary.

She got out of the operation fine. She was stable. She was still fighting on.

A few days after the operation, sepsis began to take over her frail body.

The details of the treatment and her death are not clear to me. I wasn't listening anymore as her mother retold the story of how they fought to keep her alive when her doctors were already quitting on her one by one.

I was already immersed in my own thoughts. In my own fragile mortality. In my own possible end.

But the little girl lying in that little box showed me how it was to fight. To hold on to life to the very end.

Even as my physical body decays and the virus traps me into a life resembling the living dead, I will look up to that little angel who, despite her physical deformities and the hardships she had to endure at a very young age, fought with all her might to live.

I Love Life!

I am following this site called "The Art of Non-Conformity"and recently the writer (Chris Guillebeau) posted this article .

Since having been diagnosed in 2008, I have vowed to live my life to the fullest, knowing that at any moment my health can deteriorate.

However, the demands of work and the lure of a "happy" life with friends most of the time prevent me from keeping this vow.

Sure, I have my meds to keep me strong but for how long? And I have not been living as healthy as I need to be.

It's a good thing that I came across Chris' article.

OO nga naman, who ever came up with that old saying (i.e. if you love something/someone, set it/him/her free) is in love with being hurt.

And I agree with Chris... One has to make an effort to ensure that the thing most important to him/her thrives. It's a daily choice.

So, I re-affirm my vow which I first made when I tested positive: I will live! I will protect my life because I love life.

What makes a throne

Went to Megamall this afternoon to buy, of all things, a toilet seat. Yes, a toilet seat.

My brothers and I were supposed to buy one last Monday at Ace Hardware. However, I found out that it wasn't as easy as going to a rack and pointing to one that catches your fancy.

No, one has to know the dimensions of the toilet! I never imagined that something as mundane as a toilet bowl had standard dimensions to follow and that buying the wrong seat could spell the difference between comfort and disaster!

So, before going out on a toilet seat hunt, I asked my brother to measure the bowl. 14" x 18". Fair enough.

Armed with this information, we headed once more to Ace Hardware to purchase a seat.

Then the real dilemma began. Are we buying the hinge-less seat or the slow-close one? Which color to buy? And what about the price? Does a higher price ensure more comfort?

After some discussion, we settled for a standard, "universal", white seat. I would have wanted the soft, beige one but the only design available was one with a huge butterfly "embroidery" on the canvass cover. Too "bohemian" for our taste.

Lesson learned: never take toilet seats for granted - they are the ones that give dignity to our "thrones"!

On Starting a New Blog

Here I go again with another blog. It has been years (3 years to be exact) since I last updated a previous blog I maintained (unfortunately, I can't remember my credentials to that account, so, "Goodbye, Old Blog").

I guess it is just fitting to start a new one at this time... the old me is gone, vaporized into extinction by what others would call "sero-conversion". I would call it a wake-up call, but that would just be so non-melodramatic.

Thanks to the other PLWHA and their blogs, I have realized how much I love writing.

So, here's to me - the Ant traversing the infinite strip called Life. And here's to my new blog - a journal of one Living in a Mobius Strip!