If  you cannot handle her claws.

This is part of one of my favorite poems by Barbara Jane Reyes, “To Love as Aswang.”

It makes me proud of my culture and heritage, and my own grit and determination.

It’s been more than a year since I’ve written here. It’s been a whirlwind, as usual. Life never seems to slow down. I spent a lot of my time traveling, both for work and leisure. I’ve pretty much had a plane trip every month since January, sometimes twice a month. Stateside, I’ve been to Baltimore; San Diego; Columbus, OH; and Orlando for different conferences. Internationally, I’ve been to Japan, New Zealand and Tahiti.

I’ll spend more time on those individual trips at some point, but suffice it to say, it’s been exhausting. Living out of suitcases, navigating time zone differences and extreme weather changes. Between everything, I’ve offered to be president of APALA for another year, I’ve helped take care of my grandparents, and I’ve volunteered for numerous FilAm organizations.

I’m ready to be still.

However, it is Filipino American History Month, and therefore October is an avalanche of events. Of course I’m involved in most of the major happenings in the City. This Thursday is the City Hall celebration of FAHM. Starting Friday, we open the 7th Filipino American International Book Festival, which happens every two years. Perhaps I’ll get to truly rest after that.

I’ve been going hard for the better part of a year, and cumulatively, everything has really strained my energy reserves and mental/emotional well-being. I was missing my meds, sleeping odd and few hours, eating sparingly or binging heavily. Yet on the surface, I was totally fine. It took pausing my regular life for a high school friend’s funeral to bring everything crashing down on me. She was a very sweet person, and facing mortality brings things into perspective.

Years ago when I was in the psych ward, a psychiatrist thought I had a lot of borderline personality disorder tendencies. I see them and feel them in my behavior, and I rally against them when I’m able. But it is so hard. I fight tooth and nail yet it still gets the better of me. In the moment I know the negativity will pass, but my intense feelings are so difficult to manage. I become unreasonable, trapped in black-and-white thinking and doubt. My anxiety grows exponentially. I don’t believe I matter to anyone. And I lash out at people who care about me, resulting in extreme guilt when the episode passes. This all happened about a week ago, and it took a couple of days for me to feel like myself again.

Since then I’ve been taking better care of myself. I’m taking my meds as prescribed, I’m sleeping better, and I’m being more mindful about my meals. I’m in control again. It took losing that control to convince me to do better.

I’ve had some good news in the last week though. I am the new SFPL Filipino American Center program manager, an entirely new position for the library system. I will be uplifting the profile of the Center and expanding its services. I am incredibly excited about this opportunity. I care deeply about my community and have worked tirelessly to increase its visibility within the library. Lots of ideas are percolating.

I also learned my student loans will be forgiven through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. That’s nearly $90K wiped out for working 10 years in public service. Phew. It’s a huge relief.

There have been other developments in my life, but they’re premature. I don’t want to jinx anything, but my coworkers have noticed I seem much more bubbly lately.

Suffice it to say, things are looking up. The election is in a few weeks. My birthday and the holidays are fast approaching. I may not be able to rest as much as I’d like, but I’m looking forward to what’s to come.