Abu Dhabi
First I was dying to finish my high school and start college
And then I was dying to finish college and start working.
Then I was dying to marry and have children
And then I was dying for my children to grow old enough so that I could go back to work
But then I was dying to retire, and now I am dying.
And suddenly I realized I forgot to live
Please do not let this happen to you
Appreciate your current situation and enjoy yourself.
July 2007. A paper was flipped from a magazine on the working oval desk where most of us flunk every time we discuss business matters.
My eyes were glued on the soft writing on the paper. At first I didn’t mind it. Off I dazzled and returned to my cubicle. When the guys were finished, I turned myself back. The A4 sized paper lie in waiting for grab. Pretending to sort things out on the table I neatly folded it and zip in my blazer safely. I don’t know who wrote it. Was it personally written or was it copied? I didn’t mind. I briskly copied the entire text after having a quick read.
From great slumber, I awoke. The first and last lines were very much attuned to how I have lived my life. I was focused and I am still. I put things in perspective. I can’t live without organizers to write anything and everything that pops out from my head. A stressful day may bring my to do’s in oblivion without my organizer. A thing I have been doing since 1997. It keeps me on track every day and I find it very helpful. I don’t rely on my memory; at least I don’t have memory lapses or gaps now that I am almost a year out of the calendar.
Back in my flat, I internalized each line. And I suppose, things have been the same with my dearest papa—my invisible wings, my stronghold in the pedestal of life. The last three lines were applicable to him. He forgot to live. He was preoccupied with how to find meaningful living for his family of seven has growing and varying needs. A centavo for him is valued a hundred. His sweat means sweet labor of love and so every hour must not go to waste. He sacrificed much and deprived himself of his supposed enjoyment—form of relaxation and entertainment dimensions. Whatever he has done, it was for reason. The purpose is clear—he wants to become a good provider by all means. His so called means was simply his honest to goodness ways.
Living KING size seems formidable tasks ahead. Something I can equate with hard labor, perseverance, persistence and incorporating in between takes time to unwind to free one’s mind with boggling formulas and equations of how to survive. It is always good to untangle whatever was and has been tangled. Unwinding takes many form and does not have to be very expensive—like taking vacation trips which will drain out the pockets. It simply can be walking in the morning, inhaling fresh wind at a nearby beach, spending time with the family for a leisure walk before the sun sets. It’s making moments through bonding. Personally, I have been deprived of these. I can only recall spending little time with my parents. Father has always been the corporate man and mother the all rolled into one mother-wife-businesswoman-farmer. The two are in tandem. Mother’s investments in the farm have been our fall back until today and father’s have absorbed all the fix and miscellaneous expenses for our education and personal needs. We don’t have extra I guess. It amused me to remember that solicitations come and go and has eaten a big pie in my parents’ monthly expenditures.
If I am to trace more than a decade back, I could paint a picture of survival. Financial hardships, distorted relationships with relatives, coupled with internal family problems caught us all in a state of bitterness. The indifferences situated us unfairly judged. Yet the problems made our family stronger than ever. The will to survive was there. I would say those period were the only time father and mother was out from the corporate world and back to what I call starting another means of survival. That time, we were in college. Had we studied right in our hometown, we could have or I could have spent time with my father until the time he made his dignified exit in March 2001. We all toiled for bread and butter and now we have passed that agony in our lives and had broken the invisible bondage of suffering.
In 2001, my parents fulfilled their legacy of education to all of us. This should have been the time when we could have spent moments completely like when we were still young. His farewell depressed us even more. It was disheartening.
Father led a busy life. He forgot to live king size. Yet the time he had shared with us may be short, it was well remembered. He may have forgotten to live king size, yet it was his own way of spending his life at its fullest. He may not be very emotional, yet his love was shown in full by providing our daily needs out from his sweat. Each drop of his sweat means milestone achieved.
Had it not for that paper flipped from the magazine, I could not remember to turn back time and recall my family’s precious moments.
Today, all of us including mother, belong to the corporate world of business and employment. Thanks God for the wheel of struggles have taught us how to face the different facets of life’s harsh realities.
This time, I must live with full vigor and enthusiasm, optimistic and on the go. I realized, I spent the last decade partly forgetting how to live king size.
Insertion:
26 July 2009 I opened my gmail inbox and found a forwarded messsage from my friend Libay in Dubai. Libay is working two buildings away fom Al Wadi buidling where I worked before I accepeted a job at the Dubai Airport Freezone.
The message is the same as this blog entry. Here is what she sent me.
