Saturation Point

Sometimes if you feel it’s too much already, you have to drop everything that you do and find time to think and be useless for a while. I’ve been struggling for the past weeks. One day I feel so okay then suddenly something would happen that would turn my mood and disposition 180 degrees. Darn! And today is the saturation point of everything, that’s why I stopped. I took a leave and went home. It wasn’t planned. I just felt I badly needed it. I followed what my heart and my mind are demanding. I know this will make me feel better and make me forget…I know because it always does.

• My co-teacher Beepsie lost his brother because of a cardiac attack. I really feel sorry for her. I pray that she’ll go through this with faith and courage, but I know no matter what I’d say, it’d still be not enough to make her feel better.

• I couldn’t make things better for me, my dad and step brothers. I want them to know how I am, what I do. I want to know how they are and what they do. I haven’t started trying, pero I feel tired already. It’s crushing me…

• The first time I was able to have a serious conversation with paolino (my favorite student whom I call “my little prince”).

Pao: You know what, I’m the dumbest boy in our class

Phnas: Don’t say that pao, that’s not true.

Pao: No, it is! I get low grades, and oh eto (as he stared to the ceiling, his mannerism when he talks to me)…uhhmm… how come I can’t read. My classmates they all can. They don’t need to review for a long time for a quiz. Me, I do but I still get low grades.

Phnas: Let’s just put it this way, all of you have different ways to learn. You learn differently from them. Even if you can’t read fast, that doesn’t mean you are not smart.

(this 10-year old boy, as I see him, is a “maparaan” na kid, he can get away with things, he has his way…I can sit down with him and talk endlessly….I loooove talking to him)

Phnas: Paolino, did you get me? You are not dumb. You, being here is one of your ways of learning. I teach you how to read, to spell and to understand more.

Pao: Oh, I have a joke!!! (syempre, tangential ang sagot, serious nga tayo pao eh, eto na naman tayo sa classic Paolino joke mo! Hehe)

(this is one of the things I love about my little prince, he tells jokes, pero he doesn’t know that paulit-ulit lang ang jokes niya, pero I don’t make him feel na I’ve heard them before. But it was not what he says, but how he says that makes me laugh).

Pao: What do you call this? (he was doing his posit joke..you know, “what’s the opposite of posit? Answer: opposite?)

Pero how come…?

Phnas: How come what? (Oh we’re back on track)

Pao: When I was in prep (he looked again to the ceiling), I was solving math, how come I got it correctly even if I didn’t know how to read the direction, that my teacher read to me pa?

Phnas: Oh see! I told you, you are smart, because you knew what to do at that time, you did not need anybody’s help in that particular time to be able to solve the problem.

Pao: Eh kasi I saw the minus sign, that’s why I subtracted it.

But that’s okay, as long as I pass, I don’t care if I get a C or D as long as I pass. (then he smiled).

I wish it’s that easy o be contented, to be happy and to bring happiness. I wish that I could have the heart of a child forever, so it’s easy to forget and move one.

• Last Saturday, Gabby couldn’t stay seated and couldn’t stop moving.

Phnas: Gabby what’s wrong

Gabby: (holding his lips) mmmmmm…

(suddenly…)

Oh my gosh!

(He just lost a tooth, and throughout the two-hour session, he was biting cotton with blood…eewww…pero I saw no reaction…. He wasn’t hurt, he didn’t panic, it was like, wala lang)

Ang sarap maging manhid in times when you are supposed to feel hurt…

• Last night, I couldn’t stop crying. I just needed to cry. I felt tired doing what I am doing. ON my way to my apartment, while walking on the street, I couldn’t hold my tears from falling, I was supposed to go home but I got home late from the wake. I felt so guilty I wasn’t able to attend community as I had promised. I felt sad that I didn’t see my community friends. I called Kets and I said sorry.