Untitled Musing No.1


It seems I have fallen back in my old ways, but unlike before I no longer feel bad about not being able to post for months, as I have chosen to not just be more chill about the blog, but to actually be chill about it.
Perhaps it is the maturity that naturally comes with getting older, last month I responded to a tweet that asked to sum up your life in seven words, and my reply was….
I’m turning 35 next year and with it I am beginning to learn and accept many of the things that I strive for over the period of my life is either a bust or has already come to fruition I just wasn't paying attention. These included many different aspects of existence, like independent and social accomplishments. 
Part of the being chill with the blog is accepting that this will probably never be one of the most followed sites there is. I always say that I could’ve made this blog into something more than the musings of a stay-at-home trailing spouse but I didn’t want to, but there was always that hope that it would find its own niche, but now I truly accept that.
I had a bit of an ethical dilemma some months back. I was getting ready to write a number of entries from my trips elsewhere, when news of inflation back home started to dominate my social media feeds. I started doubting the appropriateness of my posting about my vacations when my countrymen are bemoaning the soaring hikes of fresh peppersand other vegetables.



As a diplomat’s dependent, I don’t want to be pegged as insensitive to the plight of the everyday matters back in Manila, with friends and family affected by such concerns. I asked them how things are, with everything that’s happening, and while they were all in still good spirits taking it all in a shrug, I still felt somewhat uncomfortable writing about where I went.
But then life goes on. I am aware that what is presented in social media sites isn’t always the big picture, rather only a centered moment of a corner of someone’s life filtered in every sense of the word. However, I see that friends and family seem to be contented to live in their windows and posts, whilst living with every economic, socio-cultural, or political concern they face back at home. Perhaps some of them prefer to delve in these small victories, which makes me wonder about those who choose not to participate in this now dominant form of media and social interactivity.
Are they not online because they are happier, with fuller lives they’d rather not share? Or do they have this hypocritical sense documenting their thoughts and faces, while struggling with the demands of everyday?
And with this, should I take it as a permission to just write what I want? Or is the permit necessary at all, would anybody care?
Since making this new blog, I see that the handful of my readers are from elsewhere, now more from visitors in Hungary. Except for my Mom, I don’t even think family and friends read my posts, so why should I care about what others think?
Whether they do read or don’t, my point here is that while I was saying that my blog is my personal writing outlet, free from the desire to find more readers or getting heavy traffic, if I was too concerned about how people may perceive it, then I wasn’t really being authentic in what I said it was about.
Which brings me back to what I was saying earlier, slowly finding my place means that I am beginning to understand my roles and what I can do to fulfill that. The rebellious youthful angst to forge my own way, have my cake and devour it with gusto has died down, only to be replaced by a much-opened perspective.
Such roles include being a true partner to my husband and stop trying to prove that I too can find my own success in any other form far from his coattails. We recently celebrated our first decade of being married, and with that also found seeing clearly what each of us bring to our wacky, nerdy, nomadic life. He brings home the bacon and I cook it, sometimes it’s overdone, sometimes it’s as saggy as old underwear, but I realize that JG wouldn’t know how to even begin to turn on a stove, let alone prep pork, and that makes me a valuable asset. Leaving the salty pork of a metaphor, I on the other hand have realized that working a steady job isn’t really my thing, and the choices I have made to let my husband support us,  is a practical and realistic decision, not because I have no confidence in my ability to build a career, and suppress my feminine rights, but because I acknowledge that he needs me, not as a successful writer or whatever, but as a companion, a partner that compliments each other – sufficing our limits and magnifying our strengths.

There’s also a matter of attitude, I have always prided myself for being “woke”, well-informed, critical, but as I get older, I start to think that while those things are well and good, it really doesn’t mean anything unless you do something about it. I use to be one of the first to be vocal about what should be and shouldn’t. Social media gave me access to be even more indignant about lots of issues in our world, but I think I finally see that I am no better, another part of the grumbling noise, with no real teeth to bite my gnashing with.  Plus the fact that we don’t really listen to each other, most of us just like the sound of our voice (sounds jaded I know). I use to think that especially nowadays, it’s important to take a side, make a stand, take a claim, but I think such beliefs only make polarities, and is part of what makes the world so crazy right now. I think for now, I choose to take a step back and sit at the fringes, find what feels right, depending on the values I have long been taught, readjusting to whatever helps me be part of the solution, or at the very least not add to the problems. I still give a f*@<, but a lot more quietly now.
Finally, as I explained in a previous post, and as I mentioned earlier, this trailing spouse gig is mostly due to our husband’s career yes… but it is a choice. Marriage, as I shouldn’t have to explain, isn’t a sentence you have to live out, since I married a Diplomat, and since I want to stay with him and not do the whole LDR thing, therefore I trail. That being said, the Diplomat part is mainly just him, sometimes, depending on the post, we wives get involved, but not always. Here in Budapest, my life is fairly quiet, my mingling clothes are scarcely used, and the highlight of my day, involves the wellness and the adorable antics my old dog gets himself into. There are many pros, but also several cons, but going back to my seven-words-life-in-a-sum, finding your place also entails realizing the important things, the really important things, our health, safety, well-being, in general we are okay, and that is what matters.



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