Failing Heroes

We all grow up with our own heroes.  Hero: a person we always wanted to become.  As kids, we have always looked up to our parents.  Boys wanted to be big and strong like their dads and girls wanted to be beautiful and loving like their moms.  Boys wanted to be like Superman or Wolverine. Girls dreamed of being Barbie or the Pink Ranger.  We all wanted to become like our heroes.  What happens then if the heroes that we look up to fail?

The first hero (or should I say heroine) I looked up to was Maningning Miclat.  You probably never heard of her.  But I did.  She was an artist, a painter and a trilingual poet.  I have always written poetry even as a kid.  But it was my discovery of Maningning's work (as well as Robert Frost and Edgar Allan Poe) that influenced me to take poetry writing seriously.  I was in highschool then, with all my raging hormones to compel me with burning passion to write about life and love begotten or unrequited, it didn't matter.  I wrote with a passion the way Maningning did on hers.  I so adored her I would sneak into National Bookstore during the weekend to read parts of her Voice from the Underworld book.  It broke my heart, then, when I learned she leapt to her death from a campus building.  My heroine was gone. My heart was broken. 

I was, too, a strong environmentalist as a child, hence my vast knowledge of nature stuff and my profound love for nature documentaries.  I would rather watch a nature documentary than watch a film on TV for that matter.  But my nature-freak nature doesn't end there.  Until now I am never comfortable throwing anything not into a garbage can.  I rather bring a candy wrapper home and throw it properly into the trashcan than just flip it conveniently into the streets. And so when I learned that actress Chin Chin Gutierrez was a strong environmental  activist, I fell head over heels for her.  She is also unbelievably beautiful and ageless.  She became my other heroine, even more so when she grazed the cover of Time magazine in 2003 as an Asian hero for the environment.  My heroine though, is fighting a losing battle.  In my beautiful country, the Philippines, poverty and overpopulation is pushing Mother Nature on her back.  By the end of the 21st century, if people and our leaders will not act soon, the country will be but and empty shell of of bare rocks, our people starved to death and ravaged by war and hunger.

For the last nine years, the hero that I looked up to is Lebron James, the basketball superstar.  I watched the NBA again because of him.  I looked up to LBJ because he is everything I wanted to become in my next life:  Big, strong, athletic, unbelievably wealthy.  He is of the same age as I am, a month younger than me.  And I've always cheered him on despite all the controversies surrounding him.  I wanted him to win a ring so bad to shut all the haters up and have his place in history as one of the best players to ever grace the basketball floor.  It is his ninth season already, and he is almost 28 years old.  Not as young anymore. Still no rings.  It seems like he remains a promise, a promise that is about to be blown out again this year in the playoffs.  I am writing this entry while watching their game.  I hope they win.  I don't want another hero in my life to fail.  Not now.  Not again. 

Nocab

I would like to dedicate an entire blog post to one of the best things in life:

No, I am not talking about love between these two characters.  I am talking about what they are cooking.  Crispy delicious bacon!  Look at that orgasmic expression on that woman's face.  Bacon!  Bacon bacon bacon! You are so delicious to the taste.  You make my heart go pit-a-pat, literally and figuratively.  But oh how tasty you are.  And you know it:

The wafting smell of bacon cooking in the frying pan gets me high.  Bacon is my weed. My coke.  My meth.  It gets me high.  So does my blood pressure.  But I don't care.  Bacon. Bacon. Bacon.  You are my one true love.  You are a king among hypertensive foods.  I love you with all my heart.  I love you more than I love my heart.  Heart attack or cardiac delight? Bacon bacon bacon! You are mine!

I. Love. Bacon.

Old?

You're only as old as you think you are.  

It sounds like a cliche ain't it?  Age is just a number.  Or really is it?

Working in a nursing home made me realize that yes, this statement is true.  Among the most fascinating people in this world are elderly.  It is hard to picture them interesting.  Most people only see the elderly in two pictures: (1) the wizened old oak who will share the secrets of the universe before he passes and (2) the decrepit invalid who soils himself and you wish never to become.  Both perceptions are also inaccurate.  Not all old people are wise, I'm telling you.  Aging is universal, maturity is not.  This explains why you can find 40-year-olds living in their parents house cause they don't want to find a steady decent job to pay for house rent.  This also explains my dumbass 50-something year old schizophrenic uncle who gives tantrums like a two year old when he's not given booze.  In fact, maturity is a choice and is highly likely to be influenced by surrounding circumstances.  I mean, people in the Philippines grow up to be pampered and coddled by their parents.  This means it is not embarrassing or taboo to be 30 and still living under your parents' roof.  I was that person too.  Until I moved out here to the US where I realized at 27, I am still a baby.  I have to be mature or at least act mature so as not to look dumb. 

The second statement is also inaccurate.  Those who are considered bed-ridden vegetables are but shells of real people with real lives.  They are existing, albeit no longer living and have all gone to their tiny pieces of heaven without having their spirits cut off from the mortal world. Yet.  It's like they are waiting for their number to be called so they could go into eternity. 

Age really is just a number.  I have seen an elderly resident putting on makeup and mascara and makes friendly flirtations with the guys.  She calls me her little China doll and I playfully as her to prepare for our date.  There is also an elderly guy who calls all the ladies baby, cause he says, I wanna take care o' all o'em!  These exchanges are funny as hell when you meet them.  And the laughter it brings them surely adds years to their lives.

It may seem weird seeing the elderly act like youngsters but truly, fascinating it is  to see people with spirits that cannot be broken by time.  Whose enthusiasm drowns out all the negativity in the world and replace it with a smile.  I wish I will always have a spirit like that.

Three days ago, I worked with a patient who i expected would be b***h.  Turned out to be one of the coolest grannies I've ever met.  She is almost 90 and lives in an assisted living facility.  She told me: nothing scares me honey.  I have had three heart attacks, five strokes, a broken wrist, two broken hips, a broken rib cage and a broken leg and I am still raring to go!  I always do what I set my heart into.  I never consider myself old.  My spare parts are beginning to break down but what the hell.  I was skating at 75 years old!

Me: Is that why you broke your hip?

With a smile she replied: Yes.  And I broke my wrist and ribs climbing up a tree, too.  :-)

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Shock

It was warm this morning.  I woke up late, rushed through my morning routine of fixin' my breakfast and packed lunch and strode to work.  I strode with as much gusto as coffee can give you whilst listening to Fall Out Boy on my Ipod to work.  This day will be good I can tell.  Everything was going smoothly until I walked into the door.

I clocked in.  Several seconds later my boss told me the bad news.  Nope, nobody of importance died.  Nope, I am not getting fired.  Nope I am not getting sued.  She told me somberly, they want us out of this facility by the end of the month.  I gave her a confused look and a 'huh?'-face.  She said yes, you heard me right.  They want their own people coming in to replace us.  It took kinda long for me to digest what she just said.  Then I saw Curtis, a PT assistant, reach for the phone and called Lucy Corr if they got a position open for him there.  Yes, there will be a shakeup and we are definitely moving out.  It's not a rumor anymore.  We are being kicked out.

I am not losing my job.  I still have a job, I just don't know where.  And wherever that is, I'm sure it will be stressful.  It is a proven scientific fact, that moving to a different place and getting a new job are among the most stressful events in one's life.  It is a strong possibility too that I will get both by the end of the month.  I hate to relocate.  I hate to start over again.  But I have no choice.   It's not the work that bothers me, it's the adjustment that I have to make all over again.

Just when I thought I was transitioning rather smoothly to living my American dream, here goes the shake up.  I've worked here for four months and during that period I have learned a lot from the people I am working with now.  I remember several months back that the people there just come in to work, do what they have to do and go home.  It's like there is no personal connection among them, everything is purely professional.  But lately, we have been sharing some laughs together, stories, nonsense and we kid around all the time.  It makes work light and even the patients who do their therapy there take part in  the camaraderie that we all enjoy.  I would like to think that I have helped a whole lot in making this transformation by opening up and doing silly stuff around which made them think I am not uptight and reciprocated my playfulness.  I consider them now as a small family.

A small family about to be broken up even before we made stronger bonds.  And now I will be forced to make new bonds with no assurances that the people I will be working with next aren't a-holes.  That the place I will be relocated at will be as convenient and accessible.  Until now, I don't drive.  And that is an immense handicap I have to face. 

I don't know what the future holds.  For now, I will sleep.  Still confused.  Still in shock.