Hello again.

It feels so surreal to be writing here again.

While tinkering with this site, I ran across some of my blog entries from 2010-2011. I don't have enough energy to go through all of them right now. I was so young then, equal parts hopeful, anxious, and dramatic (lol) about the future.

I took a screenshot of these excerpts from two separate blog entries I wrote around 16 years ago:

Oh, I have some news for you, young Fritz lol. While I do cringe reading this now, I have to hand it to this young naive person, she was a dreamer and I needed that! In another blog entry from this period, I wrote about questioning my sexuality in the most cryptic way possible. I could not even type the word "lesbian" lol. Who is she, really? 

Sixteen years went by and I did go to grad school (but not for sociology) and guess what, I am still trying to develop that "good relationship with the world" lol (and perhaps I am done in wanting to "immerse myself with the world's concerns"). However, the fantasy of living in some strange mountain or some small village near the sea still lives, ha!

Literally too sick to confront all these right now. But wow, I really held onto a lot of [idealistic] dreams back then. With 16 years between us, this doe-eyed (with a literal 20/20 vision) college student and this 30-something (with poor eyesight and dubious overall vision), there is definitely a lot to unpack here. But I shall leave this confrontation for another day when I am feeling better.

I got back from my 4-day Baler trip last Sunday. 

Finally got to pop up on the surfboard! It would be impossible to recreate that thrill, that adrenaline rush, that split-second tension between comfortably resting on your surfboard and waiting for your instructor to say "Get ready" and putting that one leg into position and preparing for what feels like chaturanga right before hearing "Go!" and then pushing yourself up against the board, up against the wave, and then balancing yourself, and bending your knees a little but not too much, figuring out what to do with your arms, and letting the moment stretch into what feels like an eternity before falling back into the water on your next blink and doing it all over again for the next hour or so. I can taste the saltwater just thinking about it lol.

Also, I vomited during the bus ride—three times (our bus had a built-in lavatory). This was a first (as an adult). The nausea came at the final hour of the ride. My friends were already asleep (it was around 3 am) but I just really needed help getting to the lavatory (the whole ride was so bumpy and it felt like we were going too fast), so I bothered Cheng and woke him up (sorry and thank you, Cheng). For my next two vomit trips to the loo, I was able to go on my own (this whole bus vomiting ordeal was perhaps a prelude to finding my center in surfing lol). 

Monday, I just felt tired as to be expected. By Tuesday, I started feeling kind of weird but still managed to go to my yogilates class. Wednesday was a blur, it felt like I just spent the whole day coughing and sneezing, so I took a sick leave at work, cancelled my muay thai class, and napped for most of the day. Today I woke up with an unbearably sore throat and my chest felt odd. Told work that I am still sick and also informed my friend that I cannot go wall-climbing as planned (we had plans to check out a climbing gym).

As usual, I am not too worried about this. I try not to fuss over sick days but my bout with dengue late last year did teach me that sometimes I do need to fuss over certain things! Last year, I tested positive for dengue after coming home from a week-long overseas fieldwork. I felt extremely weak and I attributed everything to fatigue, but it turns out that my platelet count was already dropping. I was down for about two weeks in total.

Apart from surfing, my friends and I also did a very short (but rocky and slippery) climb to see a waterfall. We got into the plunge pool (waist-deep, a snug fit for three actually) and enjoyed the cold water falling over us. 

These friends, I have known them for about half my life now. It is a privilege, really, to be able to see yourself and your friends change year after year.

Two weeks ago, I went on a hike in Batangas with another friend. She found a "joiner" package on Klook, we shared a van with four other hikers (including a couple: a Chinese woman and a Malaysian man who met while studying english in Cebu! this meet-cute gives me hope lol). We plan on doing simple hikes maybe every other month. Our next one is set for April. There really is nothing better than being able to walk and walk and walk in silence with nothing else in mind but gratitude for and confidence in the ways the rocks and the ground beneath you are guiding you to wherever you are supposed to be.

This friend and I have also been trying out different fitness classes like spin, pickleball, yoga, and mat pilates. I actually met this friend just last year through Bumble BFF (lol) and I'm so glad we matched! I love my core friend groups but we also have widely varying interests (and making our schedules match has become somewhat cumbersome with age), so I decided to try Bumble BFF with the goal of finding another millennial woman in my city who wants to do fitness classes and outdoor activities together. Deliberately making friends (outside of work and your usual social circle) in your 30s is an entirely different experience. 

I am doing a second reading of Discourses of Epictetus, which I might follow-up with a second reading (select parts) of The Myth of Sisyphus (Camus, 1942). The other weekend (I forget when exactly, my memory has been on the fritz as of late), I watched Teatro Meron's staging of Waiting for Godot (Beckett, 1952) and it made me want to revisit Camus' absurdism. More on these later, I feel like I need to take a nap soon.

Now in my early 30s, I have never felt stronger/braver. But I am also very tired, not in a physical sense, it's more of a worldly weariness. I am just tired of modern life, the overconsumption, the materialism, the empty politics, and the direction the world is taking. So when I read what I wrote here some 16 odd years ago, I am not quite sure how to respond to that younger version of myself... Maybe I would tell her, "Things change, kid, we're taking a different route now lol." 

Need to add that "lol" to assure her that things turned out fine and as Camus said, "one must imagine Sisyphus happy" and that "the rock is still rolling."

I'll end it here because I need to save energy for the rest of the day. Breathing feels like a chore right now, tbh. I don't mean this in an existential sense, just quite literally lol.