Both of my kids are back to school in person now. Evan, my first grader, has been going for two weeks now. Reese, my fourth grader, has just one week under her belt so far. They have been so happy to be back in the classrooms to see their teachers and friends in person, they don’t complain about having to wear their masks all day or staying distanced from their friends, and we have started to figure out our daily schedules with homework and after school activities. While the kids are gone at school, I have slowly started to clean the house and get it ready for their return to e-learning because, let’s be honest, it’ll happen at some point, and likely sooner rather than later. I just hope Reese gets two weeks at school just to fill her cup a bit, and then anything after that is bonus. My mother-in-law asked me this week if I’ve figured out what to do with my free time, and I answered that I am reluctant to set a new schedule for myself, only to have it halted once the kids return to e-learning. I feel like I need to be at the ready for any sort of covid-related changes the school throws at us, and today was case in point.

After dropping the kids off at school, I had planned to work out and then head over to my parents’ house with my sister to clear my mom’s garden. No less than a half hour after I dropped the kids off, I get a call from the school nurse telling me that Evan came to her office complaining of a stomach ache and nausea. Immediately my eyes rolled because I knew two key background facts: first, Evan had a bad night of sleep last night because he was scared of ghosts and couldn’t fall back to sleep (ended up sleeping with us, so none of us slept well), and second, he ate sugary cereal and a pop tart for breakfast (thanks to some free handouts). So those two things alone could explain why a kid would have a stomach ache and feel crummy. But in the age of covid, the school nurse can’t determine that; she can only call parents to pick their sick kids up and give us the following terms to allow for their return to school. These terms include either getting covid tested, getting a note from the doctor stating an alternate diagnosis other than covid, or quarantine at home for 10 days. I don’t blame the school at all; in fact, I appreciate the safety measures they are taking to keep everyone safe. But I do blame my kid because he’s an idiot. And why is he an idiot, you ask? Because no less than 24 hours before this event, I warned them that if they go to the nurse’s office for non-urgent reasons, like because they feel tired or blah or bored, they will still be treated as if they potentially have covid. I gave them many different examples of some of their friends that still had to get covid tested because they had random symptoms at school that went away within hours of coming home, just because they had to follow the rules in order to come back to school. I continued to tell them that if they truly feel sick and can’t focus in school because they feel so terrible, then by all means, go to the nurse. But having to hold in a fart that then caused a stomach ache is not a reason to go to the nurse.

I picked Evan up right away, but to my surprise, Reese was all packed up too. The nurse’s assistant, who looked like an 18 year old boy, delivered the kids to me, and immediately I said, “What is SHE doing out here? She feels sick too?” The poor kid meekly responded, “Well, ma’am, if one child presents with any symptoms, the siblings have to go home too.” At this point I was absolutely furious because Reese had MAP testing today and she was feeling fine. Again, not the school’s fault, only my own for not understanding the rules. I’m hoping I mouthed, “Are you fucking kidding me right now?” to the nurse assistant, but there is a very strong chance that I said it out loud, because he responded, “I’m sorry, ma’am. Here is a sheet of rules for the return to school policy.” Now, I know that verbally I didn’t rip him a new one, but I’m positive my face did because the kid limped back into the school with his tail between his legs. I got the kids into the car and as soon as the doors closed, Reese started bawling. Her sobs were gut wrenching. She started saying, “It’s not fair, I feel fine. I didn’t even start school and they sent me away.” I tried for a whole two seconds to be compassionate towards my “sick” child, but I could tell by his face and body language that he wasn’t sick. So instead of asking if he was feeling okay, I yelled, “This is BULLSHIT, Evan! You were totally fine this morning. This is exactly what I told you NOT to do yesterday. Your sister hasn’t even had a second week of school in person, and you pull this crap?” Reese cried for a half hour straight and there was no consoling her. When we got home I made Evan take a dump, and shocker, his stomach ache was better. I said, “Well, what happened to your nausea? I thought you told the nurse you had to throw up.” And he says, “I guess it’s better now.” This mother fucker. I sent him to bed and told him to read books and rest.

I filled Jamie in on what was going on, and we took turns comforting Reese and lecturing Evan on the seriousness of what he did. I called the pediatrician to set up a tele health appointment, and tried my best to lower my blood pressure. When things seemed to settle down, Evan came downstairs for a snack. He chose pistachios. Now, when I have a stomach ache or feel nauseous, pistachios are definitely not what I’m craving. So I told him, “No way man. You have a stomach ache and nausea? You get the BRAT diet today…bananas, rice, apples, or toast. Say goodbye to that donut you packed for lunch and pretty much anything else delicious for the rest of the day.” He began to pout and said it wasn’t fair. I said, “You want to know what’s not fair? That your sister got pulled out of school because you had to poop. That Tita Elaine has to do all the gardening work at Lola’s house because I have to be home with you guys. That your doctor has to be pulled away from actual sick kids because she has to see a non-sick kid on a tele health appointment. I’d like to point out that two hours have passed since you complained about your illness and now you’re fine. You’re telling me that you couldn’t stick it out at school for that long until it passed?” Clearly, I was still angry. Jamie then stepped in, always the calm and reasonable one. His lecture sounded like this: “Evan, we talked about this many times before. You have to learn how to endure hard things and challenging situations. Sometimes when things get uncomfortable or difficult, you tend to either complain or look to someone else to fix things for you. Today, you were uncomfortable, and instead of sticking it out or trying to go to the bathroom, you went straight to the nurse to have her “fix” things. You have to start figuring out how to get through difficult situations without losing your temper or having others handle things for you to make you feel better. You also have to understand that your choices affect other people. Because you chose to go to the nurse, your sister missed school too, and now Mommy has to get you appointments and doctor’s notes to get you guys back to school. Do you understand the two big lessons here?” Evan nodded. “What are they? Say them,” Jamie said. Evan shrugged his shoulders and said he forgot. Jamie listed them off, “One, you need to learn how to get through difficult situations, and two, that your choices affect other people. I want you to write those two things down.” Oh boy, now the water works started for Evan because he HATES writing. He protested that he didn’t know how to spell those big words, and we told him to just simplify the sentences and sound out the words as best as he could. “And make it snappy,” I said, “because your tele health appointment starts in ten minutes.” He starts stomping his feet, screaming that he can’t do it because it’s too hard to write that, and throwing a massive tantrum. I said, “Refer to number one: Do hard things. You better get on that.” There he sat, with tears all over his paper, writing, “Do hard things. My choices affect other people.” He was taking his sweet ass time and crying the whole time, so I yelled, “Stop crying and fix your face, your appointment is starting!” During his appointment, his doctor asked how he was feeling, and he said, “Fine.” I explained some of the things that were going on the night before and what he ate this morning, and she said, “Yeah, he is not acting sick and does not sound or look sick at all. Follow up with me later this afternoon to see if he does okay with his lunch, and I’ll send a note to the school.” Thank goodness the doctor agreed he wasn’t sick, otherwise, I would have felt like a total asshole.

Evan ended up eating two lunches and feeling completely fine. Then he wanted to play and I said, “Nope, you’re not doing anything fun today. You’re doing what sick people do, which is absolutely nothing.” Second tantrum ensues. The boy is not quick to learning life lessons, so I was committed to making today miserable for him to ensure this bullshit doesn’t happen again. He cried and screamed about all the unfair things in his sad life. I let it go on for about twenty or so minutes and then stomped up to his room and said, “Yo, I am not taking your temperature or calling your doctor back until you calm down and prove to me that you are not sick. If you can’t be calm for the next half hour, I am going to assume you don’t feel well, I won’t call the doctor back, and you can stay home with me and we’ll do this all again tomorrow. It’s up to you, your choice. It’s been your choice all day today. Your choice to go to the nurse or not. Your choice to now to be calm or not. You decide if you want to go back to school or not. I’m done.” I came back downstairs and Jamie asked, “Did you have a nice conversation with Evan?” And I responded, “You couldn’t hear that?” He said, “Oh, I definitely heard something.” “Was it the voice of an angel?” I asked. He just smirked. I told him what I said to Evan, and as I spoke, even Jamie looked uncomfortable. I asked, “What’s wrong with you? Why do YOU look scared? Was I too hard on him?” He quickly said, “Nothing, I love you. I’m not scared. I have to get back to work now.” Geez, I live with a bunch of softies.

Within ten minutes, Evan was down by my side, calm, and ready to have me call the doctor back. As we expected, he was still fever and symptom free, asking for more food, and begging to play outside. The doctor gave the thumbs up and faxed a note to the school nurse so that the kids could return to school tomorrow. What an ever-loving shit show this day has been, all for a stomach ache and an over-tired child.

This is just a small example of what you might experience if your kids go back to school, but probably without all the dramatics. Tell your kids that having a sour fart or having bad breath and smelling it all day in your mask are not good reasons to panic and run to the nurse. And this also serves as a lesson on how NOT to respond to a sick call from school. I whole-heartedly admit (now) that I was way over the top in my reaction to all of this. It is a testament that emotions and anxiety continue to ride high during this pandemic, and the minute someone takes away a little bit of normal from us, we tend to lose our shit, some more Cujo-esque than others. Best take home from all of this is that everyone in our house is healthy. And bonus, Evan learned (hopefully, but likely TBD) the importance of enduring a little bit of adversity to become mentally stronger, and that our choices affect other people. The picture below is Evan’s writing of his two life lessons. The many circles below the sentences was from me circling his tears. Yeah, I shamed him. And this is why my kids belong in school, because left to my own devices, this is the shit that goes down in my house.

The sucky thing about a global pandemic is pretty much everything. It’s an emotional roller coaster that you didn’t ask to be on in the first place; and not one of the fun roller coasters that you end up enjoying, but that one at Six Flags that spins like crazy until you stick to the walls and the floor drops, and you close your eyes and pray for it to end, and when it’s over you find yourself covered in vomit that you aren’t sure was yours or the guy’s next to you. That’s how I’ve been rolling the last 6 months, feeling like I’m dizzy from information and misinformation, nauseous from the unknown, and instead of being covered in vomit, feeling like I’m covered in germs because people either refuse to wear masks or wear them wrong. I had to quit my job at the hospital back in March when my oncologist strongly recommended I limit my potential Covid exposures as much as I possibly can. I felt pretty down about it, as it was my first job I got after I finished my treatment and I was ready to put the cancer life behind me. But between Jamie and my doctor, there was no way anyone was letting me go back. To give you an idea of how un-public I’ve been, I have only recently started venturing out to run errands inside actual stores in the past 3 or 4 weeks (moms, imagine not stepping into a Target for 4 to 5 months…it’s basically torture). I allowed myself a pity party here and there, but little eyes were watching me for cues on how to handle all this chaos and sadness. So eventually I pulled my shit together and have spent most of my time outside in open air with friends and family. It ended up being a summer to remember for our whole family, both for its ups and downs. It was reminiscent of the sort of summers I had as a kid, with my kids playing outside all day with the neighborhood children, while I periodically checked to make sure everyone was alive, and calling them inside when it was time for dinner. Perhaps it wasn’t an ideal summer if you asked my kids, with all their activities shut down, but they adapted and learned how to make the most of it, and that sort of skill is more important than a pool pass.

As much as I tried to enjoy the summer, in the back of my mind was always the question about what was going to happen with the kids’ schooling. In such uncertain times, I think parents thirsted most for a stable plan for our kids’ education. The task of risk analysis for a plan to return to school in person is not one I would ever want. I had my own opinions and hopes, but for the most part I kept my mouth shut and just waited for the school district to announce their plans. The situation was similar to someone diarrhea-ing all over a public bathroom; many parents were offering their critical two cents on how to “fix” the situation, but not actually cleaning the shit up. And since I wasn’t about to glove up and clean this shit storm myself, I was quiet and anxiously waiting for answers.

We finally were given the option to either choose sending our kids in person or virtually. After many days of deliberation, sleepless nights, crying, drinking, crying while drinking, and maniacally laughing because I ran out of tears, we chose to send our kids in person. And just as I began to come to terms with my decision (i.e., ran out of booze), our school district, like many, decided to start everyone remotely because the number of Covid cases were back on the rise and they needed more time to implement a rolling re-entry plan. Despite my sadness that they couldn’t go back to their classrooms quite yet, I put on my fake smile (not pretty and confuses everyone that sees it) and pretended that e-learning was going to be a great and fun adventure. And shocker, my kids actually fell for it. Nailed it.

I did my best to create their very own learning spaces at home so they would be out of each other’s faces this time around. Jamie even made Reese a new desk for her room and I painted their rooms to give them a new look. Then I realized how bad of a job I did with the painting, and I bought a bunch of wall art to cover up my mistakes. Reese spends most of the school day in her bedroom, and I hardly see her other than for a snack break. Since Evan needs to be closer to me during his schooling in case he needs help with reading or writing, we turned our dining room into his classroom (might as well, we only use that room for Costco bulk item storage). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve ironically said, “Hey, no eating in the dining room!” I’ve had to have a few talks with both of them about proper virtual classroom etiquette, like no jumping on your bed during school hours, stop trying to read and write while in a handstand, no making fart and duck noises even if you’re on mute, and stop calling me for a snack like I’m your damn maid. They’ve quickly gotten the hang of it.

I would venture a guess that most parents have said at some point or another during pre-Covid years, “Oh to be a fly on the wall in my kid’s classroom.” Well here we are, we officially made fly status. I have heard some of the most amazing things on their classroom calls. I hear Evan’s teacher so sweetly say multiple times throughout the day, “Ok, friends, don’t forget to put yourselves on mute and raise your hands…oh buddy, please turn your camera back on…friends, we don’t type nonsense things in the chat….yes, school is almost finished and you are all so patient…,” whereas I would have said, “Everyone knock it off or I’m shutting this shit down!” One day I heard her say, after giving instructions on an assignment, “Does anyone have any questions about the Seesaw work?” And Evan raises his hand and says, “I have a question. It’s my Papa’s birthday today and we’re going to FaceTime him later.” In response to his “question,” another kid chimes in, “I also have a question. My grandpa died.” Then every kid took turns announcing who in their family died, and man, it got morbid really fast. But his teacher didn’t miss a beat, she validated all of them, and so smoothly got them back on track. I have since explained to Evan the difference between a question and a statement, and the importance of saying things that are relevant to what they are learning at the time. He verbalized understanding. And no, this has not changed things. But hey, at least he’s participating.

I’ve walked in a few times to check on how Reese has been doing during her class calls, and I must say, her classroom experience sounds very different. I’ve heard her teacher give some very clear expectations about classroom behavior and performance, and I’ve heard her call out the kids that lounge on their beds during calls, turn off their cameras, or open windows or apps that they should not be opening. One kid even brought his Chromebook into the bathroom with him and did his business (dude I get it, FOMO is real). Sometimes I’ll peak in there and a kid will say, “Reese, why is your mom in your room?” And she’ll whip her head around and give me that “Mom, you’re soooo embarrassing” look that I have grown to love so much. All in all, Reese is doing really well and has even told me that this experience is way better than what she was expecting, which put my mind at ease.

With just some minor technical glitches, it has gone quite positively during these past few weeks. Their teachers are extremely patient and encouraging, and both communicate so much with the parents. It really feels like they are going out of their ways to get the kids as independent as possible with the technology and to keep the parents calm, since most parents are also working and can’t stop what they’re doing to figure out how to take a video on Seesaw or edit a Google slide. The anxiety so many parents had, particularly those who had to work and manage kids’ e-learning at home, was through the roof during the end of summer break. But now I feel like things are slowly settling down and families are figuring their bests out. With week 6 of school starting and the district dangling the possibility of a rolling re-entry in the next few weeks, I’m feeling cautiously optimistic, with a slight nervous feeling deep in my gut, similar to that of the bubble guts you get after eating way too many Flaming Hot Cheetos. And what do I do when I get bubble guts from eating too many Cheetos? I wait a bit till my stomach settles, and eat more. That’s how I know things will work out, we always find a way to move forward.

Despite my past tiger mom ways and hyperfocus on academic performance and achievement, this year my main concern has been my kids’ emotional well-being. I saw what the spring lockdown did to them, and they were lonely and craved any sort of social interaction with their friends and family. I know when I was a kid, my favorite things to do in school were gym, music, recess, and strangely, diagraming sentences (ugh, I feel like I lost cool points just sharing that last one). Gym, music and recess were fun because they were group efforts and we could be with our friends. But in the virtual world, the kids are doing their specials in front of a computer, and it’s kind of sad. So I decided to give my kids a recess period everyday, rain or shine. I told some of the parents in the neighborhood to send their kids to the park during their lunch hour and I’d be there to supervise the kids. What I thought would be a nice little playdate here and there turned into a full blown recess of anywhere from 10-15 kids. Soon the kids got into their grooves, knew when to don their helmets and masks, and would speed off to the park at recess time. To some of the older neighbors who take their walks during that time, it looked like a biker gang of kids who were riding wildly and literally screaming because they could. But it brings a smile to their faces to see all the kids together.

I pack up a backpack everyday filled with various balls, frisbees, jump ropes, and a bat, and the kids know to go through the bag and get their toys. I set alarms on my phone and give them the 5 minute warning, and when the bell goes off I call them in, do a quick count, and send them back home, making sure the older sibs don’t leave the younger sibs. At first, it was 30 minutes straight of me screaming commands like, “Keep your masks on,” “Stop touching each other,” or, “6 feet of distance, spread out!” I’ve even had a few injuries on my watch, and in these interesting times of no touching, I’ve found it somewhat difficult to comfort a crying child. One child that tripped and hurt his mouth was crying so much, and I just visualized all these aerosols spraying out of his mouth. I moved the other kids away, patted his non-mucus membrane head and back, assessed his mouth without touching him, and sent him home. Then I hand sanitized like it was going out of style. It was the best I could do. I’m guessing it will be like that at school too. Good thing these kids are tough and brush things off like it’s nothing.

Now that the kids are used to how things are run for recess, they absolutely love their time outside, and so do I. Sometimes they ask me to help them twirl the jump rope with them, other times they ask if I could pitch to them or play soccer, and I’m happy to do any of those things. It is so interesting to watch the kids play and work together; I can see certain characteristics from each kid’s personality come through during group games they make up. And even if some kids didn’t know each other or have not played with each other in the past, here they are after a few weeks together, playing like they’ve been old friends. Lately, they have been playing in the woods, collecting giant sticks, and playing some sort of tribal game that looks like a scene out of Lord of the Flies. They are literally screaming and grunting like savaged beasts, banging on anything that will make loud noises, and I just watch their creative primal juices flow. If they get too far into the woods, I just yell, “TICKS!” and they come back into view. I still have yet to figure out who the “Piggy” of the group is, but so far, no one has shown any deep desire to create a sense of law and order to the group. So I guess I’m “Piggy” and I should probably watch my back before one of the wild ones kills me. Of course, I’ve had to interject when arguments arise or when playing becomes too rough, but they surprisingly listen to me. Sometimes I’m like, did they just listen to me after telling them ONE time to stop? That shit never happens at home with my own kids. Some days a friend or two joins me at the park during a break from their work, and it’s nice to have an adult to talk to. It has become a time during the day that my kids, the neighborhood kids, and I have grown to enjoy and look forward to as the happy break in our days. And when I hear at the end of recess a little voice say, “Thank you, Mrs. Newton,” it makes it all so worth it.

So maybe I can’t work right now. And maybe my kids can’t safely be in school yet. But my kids taught me to make the most of it, and I think I’ve found my little contribution to help make these days a little more tolerable for everyone. Jamie has officially called me “The Recess Lady,” and I carry my recess backpack proudly. I hope their outdoor time has helped them feel connected to their peers, made them happy, and kept them a little active. If and when they go back to school in person, I hope our little recess time helps them transition smoothly, at least in the sense that they are feeling less emotionally lonely and isolated.

Surrounding myself with kids’ laughter and energy has helped me get through these tough times too, and I know I’ll for sure miss my time with them. Years from now when the kids reminisce about their memories of the pandemic, a little part of me hopes recess will be one of their happier memories amidst confusing times. And how great would it be if one of the kids say, “Remember when we got together for recess and Mrs. Newton would pitch to us and hit us and laugh? Do you think she was hitting us on purpose?” Haha, kid, you’ll never know.

I have two very ugly, half-dead plants in my living room, which I have now dubbed as “the room where plants die.” One plant is a money plant, which my friend brought to the hospital when Reese was born. Her birthday is around Chinese New Year, and this money plant is supposed to bring good luck and good fortune. The other plant is a lucky bamboo plant that was given to me by my mother-in-law on either my first or second Mother’s Day. Bamboo plants are sturdy plants, low maintenance, and nearly impossible to kill, so a perfect plant for a busy new mom.

These two plants had some serious promise, starting off young and eager to grow and thrive. 9 years later, let me paint the picture of what these two look like today. The money plant, which started off with 4 hearty intertwined stems and a few budding leaves, once promising to bring good fortune, is now broke. It currently has one surviving stem that leans so far from upright, as if it has an elderly woman’s dowager’s hump. I have propped it up with a spare chopstick I found from a carry out meal. I swear when I water this poor plant, I could almost hear it whisper, “I swear I’m going to die today. Bye, Felicia.” But if you look closely at it, this dying plant keeps sprouting new leaves every time one falls off, and millimeter by millimeter, it keeps growing its stem. It is truly a pathetic sight, but I still water it every week. I can’t seem to let it go.

The lucky bamboo plant has also run out of its luck. Its once green leaves are now yellowing and it too has begun to lean over, probably looking for a comfortable position to lay down and die. Lucky for it, chopsticks come in pairs, so I have also held it upright with a chopstick and a few twisty ties. This unlucky bamboo plant seems confused too. Most of it looks like it wants to be done, but upon closer examination, it appears to be sprouting these little “Hail Mary” sprouts from the stem, trying to give it another go. So I just keep watering it.

They are both eye sores in the corner of my living room. And I love them. Any normal person would have thrown these plants away long ago, or just stopped watering them and let them die, but I can’t. I feel like they are my mother plants. They’re me. Beyond our obvious Asian connection, I feel like I am figuratively these plants nearly everyday–fucking tired and wanting to lay down and give up, and definitely saggier than my younger days. Sometimes I don’t have enough water, enough sun, just surviving enough to give my energy to others. But I keep going.

In the family room, I placed my younger plants (orchids) where they have the most ideal sunlight to grow. I’m a crazy person, I even talk to these plants and cheer them on when I water them, telling them they’re doing great and I know they could sprout another flower or stem if they try hard enough. These orchids are like my kids and Jamie–I set them up where I think they have the best chance at thriving.

Two main points here. First, I am really getting good at playing Asian Mom Martyr. “Hey, sure, you guys get all the sunlight. I’ll sit here in the corner of the the death room and stare at the walls.” Okay, that’s actually not the point I was getting at, just a revelation I’m having as I write this. My first real point is that moms do what they can to set their families up for success, in whatever way they define living successfully may be. We are the behind the scenes folks, doing the stuff no one thinks of but actually cannot live without. We do what we can to raise up our children and our partners, and we sit back and watch with pride. And when they suck, we pull them aside, teach and show them how to persevere and be better, and once again set the stage up for them to be their best.

My second point: moms don’t stop. We don’t stop until we’re dead. And even when we’re dead, our spirit lives on. Even when we want to give up and just rest, we find energy from somewhere to grow a new root, a new stem, sprout a new leaf, and play our role, no matter how tired or ugly or worn out we are. Because what would they do without us? I’m sure they’d figure out a way to survive, but we make life better.

So if you are THAT mom that is being held up by chopsticks and twisty ties most days, I promise you are in good company. We only get one calendar day where we are celebrated to the fullest, but I know that our kids love us and are thankful for us everyday. And when they act a fool and don’t seem grateful for what we do, we are there to remind them just how good we are. Now, if your kids are assholes, well, it’s probably their dad’s fault (except maybe in this house, where it is clear who the asshole parent is).

Enjoy your quiet corner of the house today. “The room where plants die” is really the heart of the home, our thrones. And we are queens, disguised in leggings and 20+ year-old sweatshirts, wearing dry shampoo as crowns, and holding mops for scepters. Who run the world???…Moms!

Happy Mother’s Day to all, especially my mothers, aunts, sisters, cousins, and girlfriends who work tirelessly at this thankless and oh-so-fulfilling job. Love to you all.

Everyone is navigating through their new normal. People are working and learning from home, cooking a lot more, having lots of FaceTime and Zoom calls, doing occasional drive-by visits just for a little more human connection without the actual touching part. It’s a new normal hot mess. But it’s our mess, so we embrace it.

I like to use the interwebs, specifically social media, as a way to feel connected with others, and while my intentions are good, I end up feeling like I am failing at life. On Facebook, I’m seeing all sorts of amazing things people are doing with their quarantine time. For example, I just saw a post about someone making spinach polenta and baked pears wrapped with bacon and topped with goat cheese for a “quick dinner.” What in the actual fuck is a spinach polenta? Does it come out of a can, and does it pair well with spam? I just taught the kids how to make instant ramen and thought I was a gansta, and then I see a post like that. Defeat. I also hear about great family hikes and activities, which made my kid activity of, “Go outside and collect rocks..why? What do you mean why? Because nature!” sound sort of ‘meh.’ I see all these great DIY projects being completed at home, and I tried to use that to motivate me. It led me to taking my kid’s bedroom shelves down, only to have quickly lost steam, leaving the mess of an incomplete project on her bedroom floor. I am feeling inferior at best.

I would venture a guess, though, that many of my peers feel this way right now, so at least I’m in good company. In an effort to help others feel like they are not alone in their “inferior new norm,” here’s a peek into what our house looks and sounds like a month and a half into our quarantine.

1. Homeschooling Stephen King

I’m almost certain most parents are drowning in their attempts to educate their kids, and teachers are worried that their students are now carrying the 1 instead of making math mats and 10 frames. I’m kind of going back and forth between doing a great job and not giving two shits. My teaching mindset ranges from, “I will do my best to ensure my children will thrive,” to, “Define ‘fail’ in the pass/fail grading system.” The kids also fluctuate in their motivation and ability, but most days they seem pretty well-adjusted to the new system. However, there have been moments that just leave me scratching my head, wondering what sorts of things I did to have broken my children. For example, Reese had some creative writing assignments that she was so proud of and could not wait for me to read. She stood there and watched my reaction with so much anticipation as I read her first story. I had to control my jaw from basically falling off my face as I read about a guard of a castle (she was the guard) who decided to burn her prisoner alive because he wouldn’t answer her questions to her liking. It was like reading a scene out of Game of Thrones. I said, “Wow, that was definitely not what I expected. How very, umm, imaginative! So, burned alive, huh? Seems a little harsh, don’t you think?” And she responded, “I don’t know, it just felt right.” My next thought was, do child psychologists do Zoom calls these days? But no, I thought perhaps it was just a one time terribly violent story. A few days later she had another creative writing assignment, and this was her chance to redeem herself as a good human being. Nope, not the case. This time, she wrote about a surfer who was pulled down into the ocean and eaten by a shark. I tried not to give too much attention to her dark imagination, and just corrected her spelling and grammar instead. It’s fine, what’s two violently dark stories, right? No big deal. Then her third story, and this was not an assignment but just a story she wanted to write on her own, was about a super mean mom that constantly yelled at and fought with her daughter. They went on a family road trip together, and while driving at night, suddenly drove off the road. She left it as a cliff hanger, but if I don’t clean up my act around here, I’m guessing the mean mom in the story doesn’t make it out of the car alive. My homeschooling is either creating a future phenomenal author or a sweet sociopath. I guess we’ll see in a few years. Thanks, coronavirus.

1. The Sound of Music

The kids like to listen to music while they do chores. Sometimes they listen to KidzBop, sometimes they choose to listen to movie soundtracks. Lately, they have been obsessed with the “Pitch Perfect” soundtracks, which I was cool with since I like those movies. It seemed pretty harmless, until I started hearing my 9 and 6 year olds singing lyrics like, “…Let me see that thong, thong-thong-thong-thong…,” or, “I like big butts and I cannot lie,” or perhaps the best one, “Let’s talk about sex, baby…” So I had to make a parenting decision, and the obvious one would have been to stop them from listening to inappropriate music. But no, I’m not making good decision here these days. I said, “Guys, if you’re going to sing the Thong Song, please get the lyrics correct. It goes, ‘She had dumps like a truck, truck, truck.’ You don’t need to know what it means, just please sing it correctly. Also, you are to only hum, ‘Let’s Talk About Sex,’ because you’re not ready for the lyrics. And here, let me play the original Sir Mix-A-Lot song on Alexa so you know what the original “Baby Got Back” sounds like.” Sometimes I’m just too tired to do the right thing. Right now I’m good with not doing the most wrong thing. However, I now have a 6 year old who won’t stop singing, “My anaconda don’t want none unless you got buns, hon!” This might be borderline most wrong thing, but now I find it entertaining and don’t want to stop it anytime soon. Maybe when he starts telling his classmates on his Zoom calls to “shake that healthy butt,” I’ll resume proper parenting.

1. It’s What’s For Dinner

Jamie and the kids have really developed a liking for canned corned beef, spam and rice, instant ramen, and frozen pizza Fridays. The love for instant foods have become some what of a comfort to them, which is great for me since I’m so tired of cooking. But the MSG-saturated foods are not the only things the kids look forward to during dinner time. Since the quarantine started, we decided to have “family meetings” during dinner, and the kids love it. It is an opportunity for us to go around the table and share what our favorite part of the day was, and something that didn’t go very well that each individual needs to work on. I thought it was a great idea, and I’m patting myself on the back, thinking I’m just nailing this mom thing. Most nights, the meetings go smoothly, where everyone says something productive and I finish the meeting with a few thoughts and comments about how the day went and what my expectations are for the next day. But then there are nights when the kids take these meetings as opportunities to make passive-aggressive jabs at me. For example, one night I had said that I should have made more time during the day to be more active, maybe work out or go for a walk. Reese responded, “Well, at least your mouth and lips were active. You did a lot of talking and yelling today.” I mean, she wasn’t wrong. Its just hard to hear comments that would normally come out of my mouth come out of my kid’s mouth instead. After all, it’s only funny when I say it. Evan has also chimed in, saying things like, “I have a question. How come if you and Daddy are doing the same workouts, Daddy has muscles and you don’t?” I said, “Look, I have muscle too,” and I flexed for him. His response: “Oh Mommy, those are NOT good muscles.” Again, he’s not wrong, but damn, the honesty can be so brutal sometimes. But the kids aren’t the only ones taking pot shots. In fact, they are probably taking my lead. At the end of one meeting, I finished with saying to Evan, “And just a general thing…stop being SO ANNOYING!” Jamie had to text me to stop my rant before things got really ugly. Personally, I don’t know what was wrong with that comment; it was truthful and I used simple language that a 6 year old could understand. Apparently, telling you kids to their faces that they are annoying is frowned upon here. We’re strong in the honesty department in this family, not so much in the tactfulness. It’s a tough pill to swallow sometimes.

1. Too-gether

We are nonstop together, and some days it feels like a little too much. I created a rule in the house that everyone has to get thirty minutes of alone time daily no matter what, not including workouts. I mainly started the rule for two reasons: 1. To get them the hell away from me, and 2. To keep the kids from fighting. If you notice, both reasons directly revolve around me and my mental health. I explained that it was important to be able to spend time by yourself to reset your mind, get some quiet in your brain, and explore your own imaginations. Sounds beautiful, right? Like something out of a weekend retreat brochure. Well, my little devils took my fabulous thirty minutes of peace idea and weaponized it. For example, if they are fighting over a toy (like our in-house skateboard…yes, it has come to that), one kid will scream out, “I call my 30 minutes on the RipStick!” Crying ensues. There is no peace in the house, only death stares at each other, whines about “It’s not fair,” and maniacal laughter if the skateboarding kid wipes out. The 30 minute weapon has also been used to threaten a sibling into submission, with threats that sound like, “If you don’t help me clean my room, I’m going to take my 30 minutes and I’ll play the Lego game without you,” or, “If you don’t make my lunch, I’m going to take my 30 minutes and read Harry Potter by myself.” Tattletaling ensues, Mommy drinks. If I made this into a drinking game, I would be drunk everyday by 11am.

Jamie and I actually suck at taking our thirty minutes too. Jamie will maybe play video games after the kids go to bed, but by then the house is already quiet and peace has already been restored. I sometimes attempt to take my thirty minutes after the kids are finished with schoolwork, but it’s not a conscious peaceful time, since I basically crash on the couch to take a nap, only to be woken up 10 minutes later with a kid asking, “Oh Mommy, are you sleeping?” Nearly everyday we say that we need to do better with taking our thirty minute alone time, which I think has become code for us to tell the other that we don’t want to be near the kids right now. Although at this point in the quarantine, I have stopped using codes and just tell the kids, “Hey guys, I just don’t want to see you anymore. Please go away.”

As you can see, it’s all about survival over here. I’ve adjusted expectations with everyone’s behavior, mostly mine. The kids fight, Jamie and I fight, we fight with the kids, and it’s all good. We forgive. We forgive each other and especially ourselves, and it gives us a chance to do better and start fresh the next day. I let go of perfections– in schedules, disciplining and homeschooling the kids, cooking meals, cleaning the house, and home projects. I’m focusing on mental health and making sure all my roommates are handling this isolation as best as they can, because I know I’ll feel better knowing that they are okay. Our day to day life is not pretty, and we have no great creations or glorious accomplishments to share on social media (except maybe that one time I was Ripsticking in the house with a vodka popsicle in my mouth…that was a solid effort). We are excelling at being super average, possible even below average. Lucky for me, in the grading system of quarantines, it’s pass/fail. And since no one in my house is actively plotting the others’ demises (maybe occasionally thinking it, but no actual plan), I think we’re passing. And if I remember correctly from my academic days, earning a just-barely-passing grade in a pass/fail class is pretty much acing it.

When I was a freshman in college, the movie “Titanic” came out. It was all the rage amongst my friends and me, a group of sappy hopeless romantics who made mixed tapes with both instrumental and vocal versions of “My Heart Will Go On,” wishing for that love story, wondering if we had the strength to move on after trying times. The guy I was crushing on at the time had a clever way of using movie quotes to sound philosophical and intelligent, likely with the dark intent to impress foolish girls like me (yeah, he was a douche bag, and I fell for it). Though I mostly associate that movie and all that comes with it with that dickhead in college, I do remember one quote from the movie that is worth the recall: “Make it count.”

I wonder as I write, did the memory of that movie come to mind because we currently feel like we are stranded on a boat, destined for destruction as we head towards an iceberg, except instead of a boat, we are stuck in our homes by ourselves, and instead of an iceberg, we are headed towards a million unknowns of this virus and its aftermaths? No, probably not. I probably saw a picture of Leonardo DiCaprio before I fell asleep, had a steamy dream about him, and now he’s fresh in my head, telling me to “Make it count.” He is dreamy, that guy.

Like most of us, I have been trying to wrap my head around everything that is happening around us: the quarantine, sheltering in place, distance learning for the kids with all the schools closed, hospitals in dire need of basic supplies, food and supplies at the grocery stores running low, gun sales increasing, the market plummeting, assaults against healthcare providers and Asian Americans rising. These are all terrifying things, and it does have a foreboding “Titanic” sort of feel to it some days. And as a double dose of piss in my cheerios, this is bullshit because I already went through my quarantine just over a year ago, having to be isolated in the hospital for five out of eight months during my chemo treatments. I was separated from my family and friends, I ate the same boring hospital food, I had no privileges to outdoor air, my walks were in the hospital hallways as I wore a gown, gloves, and mask, and I was being pumped with poison while fighting for my life. On my graduation day, I thought, “Phew I hope I never have to go through something like that again.” But the jokes on me, because here we are just fourteen months later in a very similar boat.

I can’t help but make comparisons between the two different quarantines I’ve had to deal with. I think they are similar in the fact that they are both total disruptions from my everyday life, they feel lonely and unfair, and that even if I follow the experts’ orders, it is still a highly anxious time and the outcomes are not certain. Some things that made the hospital quarantine a little worse than our current quarantine situation are that the chemo really took a toll on my body, I was away from my family, I couldn’t drink alcohol, and you know, having cancer itself is just scary. But there were also things that were better than the current quarantine, such as not having to homeschool the kids (it’s not that I don’t like teaching my kids, it’s just that I suck at it and I’m afraid they are getting progressively dumber as the days go by), having uninterrupted reading or Netflix time (whereas right now I am basically the kids’ genie, here to service their every whim), and not having to cook a single meal or wash the million dishes I do daily right now. Taking all the similarities and differences into account, the quarantine that I’d choose is… neither. They both suck. But you basically have to choose the situation that you are currently in because otherwise, you’re just living in total denial. So today, I choose the coronavirus quarantine.

Despite the obvious difficulties of the cancer quarantine, I got through it surprisingly well. Certainly, the support from family and friends was a huge help, as was FaceTime and regular check-ins to keep me connected to the outside world. Yet there were unspoken but understood elements that were also key to remaining sane and staying the course, like doing the treatment as recommended because I had to. I didn’t want to be isolated from society for all that time, but I knew I had to, or the alternative was being really sick or dying. I had my pity parties here and there, but then afterwards, I would change my mindset and tell myself that this was temporary and I just have to do it if I want to get healthy again and get back to my everyday life. The same rings true for today’s quarantine. It feels like a huge inconvenience and disruption, but you just have to do it to keep yourself healthy and not spread it to others.

I think it is difficult for some to understand the gravity of the situation, especially if they don’t know anyone who has gotten sick, or if they don”t know anyone who is a healthcare provider that goes to work day in and out, not knowing what they are bringing home to their families. And when they hear that some cases can be mild, the quarantine and social distancing seem like even more of an annoyance and exaggeration than a necessity. And it’s okay to think that. Just don’t act on that opinion. Complain about it from home. Now, more than ever, it’s not about you.

It’s safe to say we are all struggling with this quarantine in some way or another because sudden life changes often shake us to the core. I think most of us by now have called on the obvious quarantine heroes (ie. Netflix, books, FaceTime or Zoom calls, the interwebs and all the glories of online shopping). If those things are still leaving you feeling somewhat hopeless or lost, here are some of the more abstract but essential heroes that got me through the first quarantine:

Trust

Trust what the health care professionals and scientists say. Most people go into the medical field because they want to use their knowledge and skills to help people, and need a profession that allows them to speak frankly about what they know. Most of the healthcare professionals I’ve ever encountered are no bullshit kind of people, so listen to what they have to say because it is important, and not self-indulgent or self-serving. When I was first told that I had to stay in the hospital for no less than a month, I tried to negotiate with the doctor because I thought I knew of a better plan that would suit my family and me. Not so much. The oncologist said the alternative is death. Okay fine, his plan was better. Weeks later, when the cardiologist said that all my outpatient chemo treatments would have to be inpatient, I felt like I suffered another blow to the gut with bad news. Again I tried to negotiate an at-home heart monitoring plan while I got my chemo on an outpatient basis so that I could be with my family, and she told me that if I chose that plan, the risk would be that I drop dead in front of my kids at home. Geez, okay, so at the hospital it was. My point is that it is a natural reaction to try to protect your freedoms and privileges because you think you know what is in your best interest, but in that situation and in this situation right now, it is absolutely imperative that we listen to the professionals. No one is blowing smoke up our asses, no one is trying to imprison us; they are trying to give us the best professional medical advice. Trust them, right now they know better.

Empathy and Community

Now would be a good time to put your ego away and think of others. Your concern for other people’s well-being could quite possibly save you and those around you in so many ways. My chemo quarantine was the pits, but I had to think about Jamie and the kids, and that going through the temporary hospital isolation would be better for the family in the long run. I spent my time figuring out how to keep Jamie and the kids’ lives somewhat balanced and sane while I was gone. It was a helpful reminder that there were more people involved other than little old me. Then the true beauty of empathy and community shone through, and friends and family from near and far helped get us through our hardships. They weren’t personally going through our situation, but they stepped out of their own situations and used their time and energy to help us without any expectation for something in return. Not only did their empathic actions help support us, but it also strengthened our relationships, knowing that we got through a difficult situation together. It also renewed my belief in the human spirit. Right now, we need to kick our empathy into high gear, think of others that really need us, and connect with and support our family and friends in creative and fun ways. It will give us deeper meaning in our lives, and help everyone feel closer, instead of alone, during this anxious and lonely time.

Perspective

It’s true what they say: “It could always be worse.” As shitty as having cancer was and being quarantined, it could have always been worse. Death would have been worse, a chronic form of leukemia would have been worse, being stuck in a hospital with a shitty staff would have definitely been worse. When I changed my perspective, I realized my situation wasn’t that bad after all, and that I actually had a lot of good things happening all around me. And I also realized my chemo journey was temporary, and when it was all over, I would still have all the good stuff around me. Similarly, our current quarantine is temporary. And although things are bad and will likely get worse in the next few weeks, the majority of us know we are not in the worst case scenarios. Sure, I miss social interactions, playing volleyball or having friends over, the freedom to go as I please without a mask and gloves donned, the kids going to school and getting a far better educational experience than the one I’m providing at home, Jamie coming home from the grocery store without the look of worry on his face over the process he has to follow to clean all the food. But that’s nothing compared to healthcare workers living in constant fear over contracting the virus and bringing it home to their family members; the worry of people who have been diagnosed with the virus, wondering if they’ll have a mild case or if things will progress quickly in a negative direction; the fear of small business owners and what will unfold in the following weeks and months. It could always be worse. So feel whatever you feel, and then take a look around, a broad look. You’ll find the good, and realize that your spot at home is not as bad as you thought.

Faith

I think there is a big spiritual component involved when getting through something as difficult as this, and you don’t have to be religious to feel the benefits of faith. Family, friends, and even friends of friends prayed for me, and just knowing the something as personal as prayer was offered to me had a feeling of healing and peace. I didn’t pray all the time, but sometimes I just sat quietly in my thoughts and allowed myself some introspection and self-reflection. That alone, whether there was a God component or not, helped settle my heart. I don’t know why it worked, but just a quick few moments of clarity and calm amongst the rest of the shit storm was like a double shot of espresso for my soul. If it sounds hokey, don’t do it. But after you’ve binge watched Tiger King and you still feel empty, give it a shot. I know you have the time.

These are the heavy hitters that helped me the most, perhaps keeping me from completely losing my shit. Don’t get me wrong, there was damage done physically and emotionally, but I survived. It has been over a year, and I’m still cleaning up some of the mess, but for the most part, I have moved on and am a better person for it. I think I could have ended up being a bitter person, had I gone through it in a different manner. But I lucked out, made some good decisions, had a good crew in my corner, and gave that unique time some meaning. That’s where making it count comes in. Do and think whatever you will, but at the very least, make some meaning out of this time. Maybe during this time you will learn that you enjoy spending time with your family, or perhaps you’ll learn that your personal space and time is extremely important. Maybe you’ll realize you enjoy working from home more than going into the office because you feel more focused when you’re not wearing pants. Or maybe you’ll realize you can’t work from home because your kids are so damn loud and your spouse won’t stop yelling (total hypothetical there). Maybe you’ll realize you have a natural calling to being a homeschooler, or, and more likely, you’ll realize that teachers are miracle workers that don’t get the thanks or admiration they deserve. Maybe you’ll finally have the time to reconnect with your spouse, since everyday life is usually all about the kids. Or maybe you and your spouse have spent too much time together and are secretly trying to passive-aggressively piss each other off, like him playing John Mayer music all afternoon while you write a blog entry just to annoy you (a very specific hypothetical). Maybe this will be a time that your kids could get reacquainted with each other and become lifetime buddies, rather than just house mates. Or maybe you’ll realize your kids will murder each other in cold blood over who gets to skateboard in the house next. Maybe this time will be an opportunity to work out at home and get that dead sexy body just in time for the summer. Or maybe you’ll instead choose to eat the queso straight out of the jar with a spoon because you already finished the chips (how else was I supposed to get the queso at the bottom of the jar?). Maybe this time will help us reconnect with family members and friends that we otherwise choose second or third over a busy everyday schedule of activities. And I could go on and on. For me personally, I feel like I’m getting the time back that I missed with my family from the first quarantine. Not all the time is good, believe me. If you asked my kids, they would tell you I am angry 50-75% of the day, and if you asked Jamie, he would just shrug his shoulders and say that he loves me very much and thinks I’m pretty. But deep down, I am grateful that I’m stuck with them for this extended period of time. I mean, when do you ever get time back that you feel like you’ve lost? This, in a time of fear, is pretty special for me. I finally have the time to dance with the kids, teach Evan how to throw a football and baseball, work on his batting stance or his running form, do volleyball drills with both of them, show Reese how to braid her hair or make fancy letters with calligraphy pens, go on jogs or bike rides with them, watch Jamie read them the Harry Potter books, and finish the night with a drink or board game with Jamie (though I often start drinking in the afternoon once school is out). You can be anxious and grateful at the same time. Take this time to find meaning, or it won’t count for shit.

I realize that I sound preachy, and I am unapologetic for that. It’s all coming from a place of experience, I know firsthand that the struggle is real, and I know we can get through this in a fulfilling way. We have now entered our third week of the home quarantine, and we will have many more weeks to go. Homeschooling will get easier (or we’ll care less), not showering will be our new norm, as will FaceTime calls and virtual board games, and we’ll get into our grooves as the days go by. But don’t choose a place of complacency and wait for this time to pass just because you know it is temporary. Make it count for you, and help others, especially the littles ones, find meaning in all of this too. There is always beauty in the chaos, and it will come from the human spirit. Dust yours off, we need you. We’re in this boat together, and we’ll survive.

(To my sister, my cousins, my Marquette girls, all my former and current co-workers, and all those in the community risking your lives to save ours, thank you! And to all parents working from home and/or homeschooling their kids, don’t eat your loved ones or feed them to wild animals. You are better than Carole F’ing Baskin.)

During this very strange and challenging time of social distancing, in the hopes to slow the pandemic from spreading and creating further chaos, it’s hard to notice emotions other than anxiety, fear, and frustration. I have been glued to my phone, reading everything from the latest news about Covid-19 locally and globally, to ways to homeschool effectively, to how not to murder the people you love during a self-quarantine. And we have only gotten through the first week! It’s been rough, wondering if I’m doing enough academics for the kids, wondering if we’re being quiet enough so Jamie could work from home, wondering how much weight I’m going to gain as I eat my feelings. And truthfully, as a stay-at-home mom, I’m also a little bitter that these three have encroached upon my office space, taking my organized chaos and creating a straight up shit storm.

For me, it’s actually easy to focus on those negative things because I’m naturally a pretty negative person; negative feelings to me are like a warm blanket (unknowingly filled with bed bugs). So I challenged myself to get out of that head space because in the midsts of all these hectic whatifs, there is also cause for celebration. My dude. Jamie recently turned 40-something, and we must celebrate with a feel-good story. My kids have been asking if I’ll be writing Jamie’s birthday story, as I did theirs. But it’s not really my story to tell, as my vagina did not play a significant role in his life story until way later. I don’t even know his birth story, other than I believe he was premature, which was probably the last time he arrived early to an event. So let me tell a story that I do know, the birth of us.

Jamie was one of my brother’s close friends in college. We called him the token white guy, as the majority of his friends were Asian. He definitely had an affinity towards Asian women, so I am sad to say it wasn’t my winning personality that drew him towards me, it was my brown ass. I wonder if this hanging out with a bunch of Asian dudes was his way of attracting Asian women, standing out like a beacon of light (he is a very pale guy). I don’t actually remember exactly when I met him, sometime in the late 90’s, and likely under the pretenses of inebriation. Besides Kuya’s white friend, I coined him as being the smart, cute, and sensitive one. Again, I was drunk, so I have no idea what made me think that. But it was true.

Years went by, and he was always interwoven in so many of my college memories, as he would often accompany Kuya to Marquette to party with me and my friends. He was even at my sister’s wedding, as my sister told my brother to bring all his college friends to the reception to clean out the open bar. I was always attracted to him, but my brother made it clear to both me and all his guy friends that no friends of his were allowed to date his sister. Our interactions with each other were minimally flirty, mostly just innocent and friendly. Since I couldn’t be with him, but I knew he was a good catch, I even set him up with my friends twice (I know, pretty twisted). Clearly I was the less selfish one because he never tried to set me up with anyone. And there we were, in each other’s backgrounds, throughout different relationships with other people, during important life events, not even knowing that someday we’d be each other’s main characters.

I remember having a going-away party in Chicago before moving to Arizona in 2003. He told me that night that he was genuinely sad that I was leaving, and I was really confused and asked why. He told me it was just nice to know I was around, and now I won’t be. And my response was probably, “Ok nice, let’s do a shot then!” I really didn’t think anything of it because I was young and about to start a new life adventure. Once I got my career started in Arizona and settled into my new place, my brother and his friends (Jamie included) came out to visit me for a long weekend in September 2004. We hung out by the pool, went hiking and to a bunch of bars, and I once again tried to set him up with one of my friends (hook up by association perhaps?). I introduced them to a guy that I was dating at the time, and Jamie adamantly said that he did not like the guy and he wasn’t good enough for me, even though he didn’t speak a word to him. Our friend, Darlene, was more on my page and thought he was pretty hot. While Jamie, Darlene, and I sat by the pool drinking, she said, “So that’s your type, huh?” And I responded, “No, Jamie is actually my type, but I can’t do anything about that.” Jamie shrugged his shoulders at me and said, “Yeah me too, but it’s against the rules.” Darlene told us to forget about my brother and just go for it, but we both said no and changed the subject. The night before they went back home to Chicago, Jamie and I sat on my balcony and just talked, nothing serious, really just enjoying a nice night as we sobered up. It had a bit of a melancholy feel because I knew they were leaving the next day. The following day came too soon, and there I was dropping them off at the airport. We all said our goodbyes, and I had a pit in my stomach. Jamie, in total Jamie rom-com fashion, did a last minute turn back and look and gave me a sad smile goodbye before he went into the airport. I cried for an hour at work, thinking at the time that it was just homesickness, but I realize now that it was more. I found out later that Darlene and Jamie talked about our little conversation at the pool a little more while on the plane ride back. She tried to convince him to go for me and that my brother would understand, but Jamie didn’t want to risk messing his friendship up with Kuya. With time and space, we both moved on.

Despite my frequent trips home, I didn’t bump into Jamie at all for two years. It was as if that little confession of feelings never happened. It wouldn’t be until my brother’s wedding in May 2006 that we would see each other again. A few months before the wedding, my friends and I had gotten our fortunes told just for fun. During my fortune telling, I was told many vague things that I eagerly ate up like a fool. But there was one specific detail that stuck out that I chose to hold onto tightly for some reason. She told me that the guy I was seeing at the time was not “The One,” and that something on May 25th happens that significantly changes our relationship, and we would eventually break up. It got me all curious because I knew that May 25th was my brother’s wedding weekend and I would be back in Chicago. A few weeks after my fortune telling, my dad tells me that my godmother wants to set me up with this engineer at their firm. She’s a pretty hip lady and has kids my age, so I felt like I was in good hands. She gave me this guy’s name and email address, and we started emailing each other. And let me tell you, when he said that his favorite book was the Bible and that he didn’t drink, red flags flew all around me. He would have thought I was Satan’s spawn for sure. Then my friend, Tina, looked him up on MySpace (yes, it was that long ago), and she would not stop laughing for a straight 10 minutes. Now listen, we’re not superficial people, well maybe a little, but this guy could not be further from my type. I’m sure he was a nice guy, but with the over-the-top enginerdy vibe mixed with no alcohol, there would be no way I could get through a date with him. At the same time, though, my godmother was really trying to set up a good time for us to meet, and well, it happened to be the weekend of my brother’s wedding. So I assumed meeting this guy was that “significant event” the fortune teller was predicting to happen on May 25th. I was like, “What the fuck, Universe, this guy? What lesson are you teaching me now?” Since it was in the cards, like literally in the tarot cards, I was convinced that I had to give this guy an honest chance. So I forced a few more emails, and each one that I read from him made me think I was destined for the most boring life ever imagined. It was like God was telling me, “Hey, remember all those bars you danced on top of? Yeah, now you pay. Enjoy reading the Bible and drinking your O’Doul’s.” With Tina’s steady laughter in the background for a solid few weeks of email exchanges, I decided I couldn’t go through with it any longer. I put a stop to the set up and decided the fortune teller was wrong about May 25th. I’m sure this never happens, but perhaps this fortune teller was a fraud.

My brother’s wedding weekend finally arrived. There was so much excitement with the wedding, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t also excited to see Jamie again after our two year hiatus. My brother picked me up from the airport the Thursday night before the wedding, and in true Kuya form, we headed straight to the bars to fit in as much partying as possible before his single days were done. Jamie showed up at the bar, and I was instantly back into crush mode. We casually chatted and flirted, and of course I asked him if he was dating anyone, and he said no. I suggested playfully that we should be each other’s dates for the wedding, and he completely agreed. That got me super nervous, so in my awkwardness I changed subjects and told him I wanted to try to set him up with one of my friends again. He looked as confused as I was, but agreed to it. I told him I needed to get his number so I could give it to my friend. I didn’t know how else I could get his number, but that did the trick. So I left the bar with Jamie’s number now stored in my phone and with him agreeing to be my non-date date for my brother’s wedding. And you guessed it, that night was May 25th.

On my brother’s wedding day, there was nothing but happiness in the air. And bonus, both Jamie and I were standing up in the wedding, so we were both dressed to impress. I remember standing in the vestibule of the church while waiting to process down the aisle, and I got a tiny bit emotional and quietly wiped away a tear. Then, from two couples behind me, I heard Jamie say, “Hey, no crying over there.” I thought to myself, “Yes, he’s watching me!” I had him in my periphery the whole day too, just waiting for that perfect moment to talk to him. But the time passed so quickly, and it felt like getting close to him was just not happening naturally. I felt sad for a second that things were maybe not going to happen for us, but then I thought that I was too drunk and too pretty that day, and I just had to make a move. I found him towards the end of the night and told him that he owed me a dance. He owed me nothing actually, but I thought that sounded like a rom-com line that he could appreciate. Unfortunately, when he finally mustered up the guts to ask me to dance, he got cock-blocked by one of his college friends. He missed his chance. Again, if Jamie was just ever so slightly more punctual, he would have had that last dance. But alas, unless he is playing a sport and chasing a ball or has to take a major shit, there is no urgency in this man’s step. Thank goodness for all, though, that after the party was the after-party.

My friend, Tina, was with me (you know, the one that got the full abdominal work out from laughing at the engineer’s MySpace page) during the reception and the after-party to take full advantage of the open bar. As Tina and I were walking to the hotel bar, Jamie came up from behind us and put his arm around me, and we walked together to the bar arm in arm. I was the happiest I had been all night. The three of us sat at the bar, and we were all hammered, but at least able to have a conversation. All eyes were on us, as if I had dozens of older brothers and sisters watching our every move. And this was gist of the conversation that ensued, slurred speech and all:

Ely: “So, you know you’re perfect for me, right? And I’m perfect for you.”

Jamie: “Yep.” (He then holds my hand)

Ely: “We should just be together then.”

Jamie: “We should. But your brother would never let it happen.”

Ely: “Eh, he’s married now. He won’t care. Here’s the plan. I want to do travel PT for a year, and you have two years left of law school. So let’s do our things, and then I’ll move back home in about 2 years, and we’ll get married.”

Jamie: “Ok!”

Ely: “Really? Cool! And how many kids do you want?”

Jamie: “Two.”

Ely: “Okay, me too. I like Isabelle for a girl, and Evan Nathaniel for a boy.”

Jamie: “Evan John, after my grandfather. I like Isabelle.”

Ely: “I’m good with John. We’re set then. We’ll get married in 2 years, and then we’ll have 2 kids named Isabelle and Evan. This is great! You know I’ll take care of you, right?’

Jamie: “Yep, I know. I’ll take care of you too. Like right now. You should drink some water.”

Tina: “Will you just make out already?!?”

Ely: “No way. I might throw up in his mouth.”

At that point, everyone was watching us, as in all of my brothers’ friends who knew we were breaking his “no dating my sister” rules. Kuya saw us at the bar holding hands, and he sent one of his groomsmen over to break us apart. I was drunk, but I still knew what was happening. So we stopped planning our future and Tina and I went back up to our rooms. Tina said, “See, I told you to make out already. Now you’re in trouble.” I went to bed feeling sick to my stomach, partly because I had just so much rum that day, but mostly because I felt like it wasn’t going to work out between us. And also, Kuya was pissed. The next morning at brunch, Jamie and I stayed so far away from each other, not even making eye contact. When it was time for me to leave, I gave everyone a hug and kiss goodbye including Jamie, and it was terribly awkward. I left feeling like I really fucked that one up pretty badly.

I told my sister and brother-in-law about what happened and how I was genuinely sad, and after laughing at my pitiful ass and at Kuya’s overreaction, my sister said, “Why don’t you just talk to Emer if you actually like this guy? I like Jamie, he seems nice. I mean, I’ve never known him sober, but he’s a nice guy when he’s drunk.” That was endorsement enough for me. While I waited for my plane back to Arizona, I decided to call Jamie (good thing I got is number that night). I apologized for being so sloppy drunk at the wedding, but that I meant every word I said. He said he did too. We talked for a bit, and it felt so easy and comforting. He said that maybe he’d talk to Emer when they got back from their honeymoon. We ended our conversation on a hopeful and excited note, and I felt the power of drunk Ely and sober Ely joining forces and totally nailing it.

A week after the wedding was my birthday, and I woke up that morning with a text from Jamie. I couldn’t believe he remembered. Sporadically after that, we exchanged texts and finally phone calls. We were really hitting it off, to the point where he realized he needed to have a conversation with my brother about us. His mom and sister told him not to go through with it because it would ruin their friendship if things didn’t work out, but he believed in us. He decided to meet Kuya for lunch, and he told Kuya that we had been talking and he wanted to pursue a relationship with me. Kuya said something along the lines of, “If this was U of I or Marquette days, I’d be totally against it. But you guys aren’t idiots anymore. You’re a good match for each other intellectually and you already know each other, so this might actually be a good thing. But don’t fuck it up, because she’s family and if it goes bad, I’m going to have to pick her. Don’t fuck it up.” So we got the green light from my brother, and within three weeks, he was on a plane to Arizona for our first date. By date two, Jamie told me he knew what he wanted and he was all in. We worked really hard to make our long distance relationship thrive, and within a year we were engaged. And just as we had discussed that night at my brother’s wedding, I moved back home in two years and we got married.

That’s the story of us. It’s a story of patience, good timing, friendship over infatuation, going for what you want, and putting the hard work into a relationship that you believe in. I have known Jamie for over twenty years, and I have learned that he is a quiet and calculated guy, decisive when he needs to be, endearingly awkward, loyal, humble, funny, intelligent, and he knows a good catch when he sees it (as in, when he sees it drunk on a bar stool planning his future). I love our story, and I hope to have the opportunity to tell our kids and grandkids someday. I know, given the current circumstances, I couldn’t give Jamie a great birthday celebration this year, but I hope this little walk down memory lane puts a smile on his face (maybe yours too), and reminds him and all of us that if we remain patient and hopeful during this time of uncertainty, happy times will once again reappear. All in good time. Cheers to my favorite guy, and thanks for giving us a story worth telling.

As I was driving today, I got a text message from my sister-in-law and brother-in-law that the WHO declared COVID-19, or the coronavirus, an official pandemic. First thing I thought was, damnit, I should not have just licked my fingers after touching my steering wheel and eating my snack at the same time just to read that text. I reached for my hand sanitizer in the car, which had a mystery brown gunk on the inside of the cap, which I’m sure is totally normal, and instantly after a few alcohol rubs I felt germ free again. Except now my hands feel like they’re on fire because my skin is all dry and cracked from all the hand washing to various tunes from, “Manic Monday,” to “Who Let the Dogs Out,” to “Happy Birthday,” to just regular good old everyday OCD counting to 30. But it’s all good guys, no reason to panic. You know why? Because I have played the board game conveniently titled, “Pandemic” at least 5 times, I can say with certainty that we can save the world.

Listen, most of the times I’ve played, I have partnered up with drunk Jamie, drunk brother-in-law, and sleepy sister-in-law, and we have saved the world a number of times. And for the times we did not save the world, it was likely because we were too sober. In this game, if a virus hits China or India, that usually means shit spreads pretty rampantly. When you see all these red, yellow, blue, and black virus cubes spread all over the world, it looks scary and we need to act fast. And by act fast, I mean Jamie and Corey deliberate the next move while Megan fixes herself another drink and I add songs to our board game playlist. The key to containing the virus in this game is to accurately place the “Quarantine Specialist” and “Medic” near the affected cities, while allowing the “Scientist” enough time and space to find a cure. Sound nerdy? Oh, it is. It is not your “Cards Against Humanity” fun times kind of game. No information from “Cards Against Humanity” can save us now (“glory holes” have no place in this pandemic scenario…also, anytime I got the card that said “glory holes,” I never knew what it meant and was always too afraid to Google it). The game requires a lot of collaborative strategizing and a little luck, and if you act quickly enough, the world is saved from viral destruction. We can do it, team!

What the game “Pandemic” taught me was that a team of experts have to work together to keep the viruses from spreading, cure or even eradicate the viruses as best as they can, and keep the cities around the world thriving as much as possible, with the ultimate goal of saving humanity. What I didn’t learn from the game was how to prepare for shortages of supplies at Costco and the possiblity of shutting down work places and schools. Now, in all honesty, we were one of the families that bought toilet paper and paper towels right before shit hit the fan. But in fairness, those two things were on our Costco shopping list. Jamie volunteered to do the Costco shopping this last time around, which was a rare but welcomed gesture. I thought maybe he was trying to do acts of service for me to show me he loved me. But when he came home with many non-perishable items that were not on the list, I paused and scratched my head. He hauled in a bunch of spam and a huge bag of dried mangoes, just to name a few of the off-list items. At first, I thought he was just being Filipino by association because these are all normal things Filipinos typically buy and eat. But when I saw the giant jar of coconut oil and all the bottles of water, I knew something was amiss because Filipinos fry their shit with vegetable oil and we drink from the tap. He was preparing for the apocalypse. I just shook my head and figured, eh, at least we’ll eat well. Well wouldn’t you know it, a week later, all these reports came up that Costco was out of toilet paper and paper towels. Crazy. But don’t fret, if worse came to worse and you didn’t have toilet paper, just use the “tabo” method (Google it…you’re welcome).

Even with all the alarming reports coming in, I was taking the information in with caution and being as rational as possible. Until today, when I heard that it was a real possibility that schools could potentially close. Now I panic. Why? Because no one, and I mean no one, would want me home schooling my children. It would be a disaster. My father-in-law once told me when Reese was very young that I should consider home schooling her. I thought to myself that he either secretly wanted the worst for my child, or that he thought very highly of me and my capabilities as a teacher and parent. It was the latter, but we all know better now. If the schools end up closing and I have to home school these animals, I’d be yelling and pulling out my hair, and Reese and Evan would be crying to the point of dehydration (thank goodness we have all that bottled water). My children would literally become dumber. The only potential growth that could come of this is that their vocabulary would expand, if you count swear words. I can only imagine the noise in this house if we were all quarantined: the “Zombies 2” soundtrack blasting from Alexa on repeat, bickering between the kids, Beyblades bursting all over my floors, banging on the piano keys, me yelling at everyone to shut the fuck up and clean something, and quite possibly, in a secluded corner, a quiet steady sound of tears dripping into Jamie’s beer. And every night, after drinking a half opened bottle of 10 year old rum I found in the back of the booze cabinet that would probably mess my body up more that the coronavirus itself, I would find myself on my knees with fists to the sky screaming, “Curse you, COVID! You did this! Your sweet, sweet promises of quarantine with endless flowing Netflix and unimaginable relaxation were all lies!!!!!” End scene.

While I am making light of the situation right now, I am taking it seriously, and I am confident that the WHO, the CDC, and all the powers that be are working very hard to resolve the many concerns involved with containing and managing this pandemic. While the media often hypes these situations up, it has also provided some useful information on the virus, or at the very least, have said to us, “Hey, stop watching “Love is Blind” for a hot second. Shit’s happening out there!” The kids’ school is teaching the kids about how germs are spread and how good hand washing is the best thing they can do to help keep everyone safe and healthy, schools and employers are encouraging people to stay home if they are sick, and even churches are encouraging to refrain from holding or shaking hands, which is a total relief for me because my hands sweat all the time and I’m always so embarrassed when I have to touch people’s hands. While many things are not in our control and we will find ourselves sitting and watching as things quickly unfold, I think it’s safe to say that we should just remember the simple things that are in our control that we taught our kids at a very young age:

1. Don’t be gross: stop picking your nose, definitely stop flinging your boogers at each other, and wash your hands (yes, with soap, and yes, even if it’s just pee, and yes, longer than that)

2. Don’t be a dick: cover your coughs and sneezes, and stay home if you feel sick

3. Keep your hands to yourself: stop licking your friends (yes, even your best friend)

I didn’t add in there that you should also stop touching your face because the minute I say it, I will without fail touch my face no less than 50 times in the next 30 seconds (see, I bet you just scratched your nose…oh, it’s not itchy…give it a second…).

I believe we will all be fine, so long as we are a little more mindful of our behaviors and make rational decisions that are based on facts and not hysteria. It will be a learning experience for everyone, young and old. For the lucky majority of us, this will just be an inconvenience and interruption to our regularly scheduled programs. So let’s look out for the elderly and immunocompromised, who might need us to just take that time out to keep the virus from spreading. Go out and buy a “tabo,” stock up on some booze and snacks, and invest in a few board games, “Pandemic” perhaps. “Catan” might also be a good one, seeing that our markets are down and we might have to sharpen our bartering skills. Whatever happens next, just look out for each other, stay safe, and be well! This too shall pass.

A year ago today, I had my last dose of chemotherapy. I celebrate one of my most memorable passive achievements: being a master receptacle of various poisons for an 8 month duration, including IV and oral chemos, blood transfusions, iron transfusions, various antibiotics, antifungals, antivirals, antihistamines, antiemetics, antidepressants, sedatives, steroids, stool softeners, laxatives, diuretics, pain killers, vitamins, and minerals. I had memorized my medical number, the hospital menu, the hospital floor plan, the names of all the doctors and all their quirks, the food service employees, environmental services employees, and of course all of the nurses and their spouses/significant others/kids/pets. I even learned the walking schedule of an elderly person I watched every day around the running track from my hospital window (miss you, “Boris”). With over 5,000 clinical hours completed, I even earned an imaginary but well-deserved honorary Masters Degree in binge watching shows from the University of Imstuckinahospital. I spent the greater part of a year learning how to take the back seat and allow the experts to take charge, to be patient and trusting, and to control whatever was within my grasp, which oftentimes was my mere mood and sanity. Not that I’m bragging, but I think I’d be an excellent prisoner.

The type of leukemia I had was very treatable, but the chemo schedule was pretty brutal. And being the sensitive and delicate flower that I am, it eventually hit me like a ton of bricks and my heart reacted adversely after just a few weeks into the treatment. My team of caregivers decided that I had to stay in the hospital for all of my treatments so that my heart could be monitored. There were no safe alternatives, so we made do and kept our eye on the prize, which was complete remission after the chemo regimen was finished. When I was in the thick of treatments, separated from my family and friends, I was certainly sad that I had to go through all of it. “Why me?” was an inevitable question asked by me and my whole family, and there never is a good or fair response. After that initial shock, the new question in my mind became, “Now what?” It was a life-saving question because the answers were calls to actions, and actions kept me moving forward.

The first thing that came to mind was to set my family up for success while I was gone. This meant calling on family and friends to help keep the kids on their schedules as much as possible, and to help Jamie from spiraling downward. Again, I barely did anything beyond making the phone calls; my supportive tribe did the actual work. Once everyone was set in their new temporary roles, I then set my mind to making the hospital as livable as possible. As a medical professional (and as a general human being), working with the nice patients was always favorable over having those crotchety, mean ones that complained a lot and were never happy. So as shitty as my situation was, I wasn’t about to take it out on my nurses and doctors. Instead, I tried my best to get to know them, be friendly with them, and show them as much gratitude as possible. They were, after all, my substitute family for the time being. I might have even treated them better than my actual family. They, in turn, helped me feel human, instead of feeling like I had a giant cancer sign stamped on my forehead (and that would’ve been a giant sign if you’ve ever seen my forehead). They played such a big role in making my everyday life manageable; they helped me feel comfortable, recommended all kinds of shows and books to me to help pass the time, laughed with me (sometimes at me), danced with me, snuck in some food to me, and just accepted me for the loud-mouth that I am. Their care helped me not only move forward, but go onward with a smile (and you know smiling is just not my thing, so that in itself was a minor miracle).

The final thing that I did to answer my “now what?” was to write everyday. I wrote daily on CaringBridge like it was my job. Even if I barely had anything interesting or important to say, I wrote. When everything else was up in the air, writing gave me purpose, direction, and a feeling of control. If I made myself write everyday no matter what, I felt like I wasn’t going to give up or give in to any sad or frustrating feelings. I was lucky to have some people read what I wrote on a regular basis too, which also helped me feel connected, even when I was trapped in my hospital room. I wrote everyday for nearly the entire year, and shockingly to just about no one, I still have things to say.

I will never forget that final day in the hospital. It wasn’t actually very sunny out, but it felt like everything was so bright and cheerful, like that first day of a long awaited vacation. My nurses came into my room to hang my last bag of chemo, with music playing from their phones and whipping around celebration boas and streamers. They were sending me off with a bang. We recited my medical number together for the last time, and they left me in peace. I sat quietly for the final 2 hours and 10 minutes with a calm I can only describe as unfamiliar. It was neither an anxious or relaxing feeling, just very steady and welcoming. Drip, drip, drip…one one thousand, two one thousand…drip, drip, drip…one one thousand, two one thousand. I watched that final bag of arsenic do its magic until the very last drop. When my IV beeped for the last time, I felt that excitement kids experience when the school bell rings at the end of the day. I happily called my nurse to finally unhook me from the machine. Soon after, I heard tiny footsteps running towards my door, followed by excited screams of “Mommy!” from Reese and Evan. I held them so tightly, along with Jamie, my parents, and my sister. My brother was there too, but we don’t do hugs or loving touches, but I do believe there was eye contact and a smile exchange, perhaps a high five. Reese’s 2nd grade classmates made me a congratulatory dance video and a stack of homemade cards, which warmed my heart and also made me giggle to see the million different ways to spell ‘cancer’ and ‘congratulations’. My family and I were then called into the family lobby area, where all the nursing staff waited to surprise me with cheers and applause, balloons, and the best victory dance I’ve ever seen. The energy in the room was electric, with so much genuine joy and pride, maybe a little bit of embarrassment (which I loved), and a true sense of accomplishment. My chemo journey was as much of an achievement for the nurses and my family as it was for me because we all went through it together and ended victoriously. And when we win, we dance.

And then I got home. Hello, outside world, I forgot how hard you are to live in. Overwhelmed and feeling physically spent, I was face to face once more with my next challenge, except this time instead of it being about how to not die, it was about how to do life again and make it normal for everyone else. Again I heard the question, “Now what?” I was as frail as an 80 year old, with the determination of a teenaged athlete, and the patience of a toddler. It was a confusing time to say the least, and the path to success was not very clear. I had to rest and take it slowly, which is never a pace I take (unless you are directly speaking about how I run). I also had to get my family and my home back to working order, which was the polar opposite of resting and taking it slowly. Many things still seemed out of my control, like my energy level and appetite, and general desire to cook, clean, or help with common core math homework (still working on that). Some days I had it in me to do multiple things, others had me barely completing one. Some days I was teaching Reese how to cook easy meals on the stove or teaching Evan how to prepare his own breakfast, other days I was half asleep on the couch begging them to feed themselves and do their homework on their own. Believe it or not, sometimes I missed the days of being able to pick up a phone and dial 23663 to ask the hospital kitchen to bring me some dinner. Jamie never knew what he was coming home to – a happy wife thrilled to be doing things with the kids and work around the house again, or a blob in bed barely having the energy to say hi.

For someone who just wanted it all behind me as quickly as possible, the healing process was painfully slow. I felt like I maxed out on asking for help, so I tried to handle most things on my own. Many days, more than I’d like to admit, it just wasn’t happening. But no one was putting pressure on me to get back to my normal pace, except for me of course. Even my kids didn’t seem to be asking for much, just that I was around in whatever capacity I could. So why did I put so much pressure on myself to hurry up and be better? Who fucking knows. There was no prize involved for rehabbing the fastest in all of cancer rehab history. It was just me against myself (and I play to win, bitch). Jamie even made the doctors say to my face that it would take at the very least a year from the last day of chemo to start to feel closer to my baseline level of function, mainly because he knew I’d push myself too hard too fast and feel like a failure. He would remind me every couple of weeks that I was rushing the process and having unrealistic expectations. I felt like I was making life unnecessarily hard for myself and others around me for no good reason. Eventually, after months of trying too much and overdoing it, I finally took a slower pace. I dumbed down my expectations of myself, went back to “Do what you gotta do to stay alive and be well,” and worked on doing any action, simple or complex, every single day. I accepted imperfections around the house, with the family schedule, with my body and my fitness, and even my mood. I re-examined my approach to raising the kids, fostering healthier relationships, and just having a better understanding of what this healing time was really about.

The universe seemed to be throwing so many little nuggets of wisdom at me throughout the year in dodgeball fashion, and sometimes I didn’t want all the damn life lessons in my face. Damnit, universe, I’m tired, leave me alone! So I implemented a little bit of ‘dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge’, and just grabbed a few takeaways from my experience that I could actually process and put to practice. After all, I wasn’t working towards Dalai Lama status, I just wanted to be somewhere between a tolerable and good functional human being. One of the wisdom nuggets I snatched up was learning to let go of things that didn’t work for me anymore and simplifying my paths, and it applied to so many different aspects of my life. It is scary to move on from certain things from you past that brought you comfort or happiness, but it could also feel liberating and open doors to better ways of life. The other valuable takeaway was to just take action. Do stuff. Do literally anything. It can be meaningful or it can be menial, but at least it is active. I’m the kind of person that can get trapped in my thoughts or feel paralyzed by indecision. Sometimes when I felt like I was drowning in my thoughts, I just got up and did something random, like walked laps around my house, cleaned up a few of the kids’ toys, or got my iPad out to write. The kids would ask me what I was doing and I’d say, “I have no idea, just getting out of my head.” The movement behind a simple action created momentum and inspiration to do more, steered me in a direction I might have otherwise not discovered if I was stuck in my head. The thoughts, the what ifs, the endless hypotheticals will always be there, but the actions actually take you places. My baby steps, oftentimes meandering, were still steps nonetheless. For me, those simple actions took me through an entire year of healing and to a starting point to redefine myself.

And here I am now, cancer free and feeling better than ever. I can say with confidence that I am healthier and stronger than I was when my body was at its peak level of poisoned, but still with plenty of work ahead. I’m moving in the right direction, and that’s the important part. Jamie is happy that I am around (most days), and the kids seem back to being at a healthy level of naughty. The kids constantly tell me that I’m so loud and I shout too much, so it seems like I’m nearing my normal levels of bitch mode. I’m better at making time for self-care, though many days it looks like I haven’t showered or changed clothes in weeks. I celebrate small daily victories, like using my InstantPot without blowing up my house, or letting the kids play with slime wherever they feel like it and not losing my shit when I find bits and pieces of it on their clothes and bedding, or laughing it off when I see Jamie playing a video game with the kids (or by himself) instead of folding clothes. If you ask Jamie or the kids if I’m back to my strict old ways, they’d probably all say yes. But you know what’s worse than too strict? Too dead. And I’m very alive, and feisty as fuck. Happy anniversary to me, and to everyone who shared in the fun. One year down, and God willing, a good 60 something years to go.

My first born child recently turned 9, the last year of single digits, and is just chomping at the bit to be a teenager (the thought of that makes me want to curl up in the fetal position, suck my thumb and rock myself until I’m in my happy place). This means that Jamie and I are nearing a decade of parenthood, yet we still feel like newbies (honestly, we’re just not good at this). If you’ve ever met Reese, you know that she always has a vivid story to tell, with no detail left out, and often a few embellishments added for dramatic effect. Her birth story is no different, and it is extra special because it is also a story of first time parents.

Ten years ago, I had ACL reconstruction after a volleyball injury. I was not allowed to return to work with any restrictions, so I was out of work for nearly 5 months before my doctor cleared me. I was extremely bored and had no good hobbies to occupy my time, so I decided it was time to make a baby. After all, that’s how couples decide to start families, right, when they get bored? Okay, maybe not. But I had a shit ton of time on my hands to research fertility, ovulation, and of course the Chinese calendar to ensure we would have a boy first. Apparently, Jamie was bored enough too and was game to expand our family. Cue the Marvin Gaye music, it was baby making time.

Well, unlike my parents threatened for all those years in my teens and twenties, it didn’t take just ONE time for us to get pregnant. In fact, it took us much longer than we anticipated. We ended up needing to use the fertility drug Clomed to help me along my merry ovulating way. Eventually after a few cycles, it worked and I was pregnant. That was the first of many signs that Reese would be on her very own timeline, not mine. We were overjoyed and things couldn’t be better. I wanted a boy so badly because my sister’s and brother’s first borns were boys, and I wanted to carry on the tradition. To my dismay, the Chinese calendar kept saying I was going to have a girl, the necklace and pendant over the belly pointed to signs that I was having a girl, I had dreams that I was having a girl, and every Filipina nurse at the hospital I worked at just NEEDED to tell me that I was having a girl because my belly was really wide and my face was so big (why, Titas, just why?). Sure enough, at the 5 month appointment, they told us we were having a girl. Okay fine, no boy. I thought to myself that I had time to prepare for a girl, unbeknownst to me that there was no preparing for a girl this tenacious.

My pregnancy with her was as exciting and nerve-racking as any first time pregnancy, filled with horrendous all-day sickness, reading pregnancy books about which fruit size she was that week, not knowing if the baby moved or if it was the refried beans I ate earlier in the day, and learning how to eat better. No joke, I was eating fruit snacks everyday because the package said it was made with real fruit, and I felt like the wind was knocked out of me when my friend, Dimple, told me that fruit snacks were not a good substitute for fruit. She said no fruit was naturally a chewy, jelly-like substance, and I nearly cried, wondering if my baby was going to be born with some sort of fruit snack induced deformity. I’m sure I also googled if I was doing damage to my fetus by eating Burger King whoppers and pork rinds everyday. To this day, Reese’s favorite food is hamburgers, and she’d never turn down an opportunity to eat fruit snacks or pork rinds. Talk about a parent’s actions influencing their children.

I was determined to work until the very end of my pregnancy. Working at a hospital as a pregnant woman had its perks. Whenever I felt paranoid that I hadn’t felt the baby move in a while, I would go down to the labor and delivery floor and ask if they could detect a fetal heart beat. After a while, probably when they were tired of seeing me, they told me to just eat a candy bar and wake the baby up (best advice I received all pregnancy). There was another time at work when I was getting ready to help a patient out of bed and I nearly passed out. I told her to move over and I halfway laid in her bed until I could get help. Thank goodness for nice patients that share their beds and know how to use their call buttons to call the nurse. Turns out it is common to have low blood pressure issues during your second trimester, information that would have been helpful early on, rather than “this week, your baby is the size of a kumquat.” Perhaps the most vivid memory at work was when I felt like my pants were suddenly wet, and I thought my water broke and I was going into early labor. We were supposed to go to a Bull’s game that night, but instead ended up in triage to monitor the baby. Baby ended up being fine, and the diagnosis was…I just peed myself. Oopsie. That was the first signs of Reese having a propensity towards pushing my buttons, beginning with my bladder buttons.

As we were nearing the 40 week mark, due at the end of January 2011, I recall watching the weather on the news about a snow storm that was building in strength and heading towards Chicago. They were referring to it as “The Storm of the Century.” I laughed and said to Jamie, “Ha! Watch Reese try to be born during that storm! Thank goodness she’s due before it is supposed to hit us.” Well fuck me. Guess who was 5 days overdue. Most hospitals, including the one I worked at, were planning on having a skeleton crew when the storm hit. My boss told me not to come in to work the next day because the conditions were too dangerous. That night, our neighbors in the condo were having a game night because no one was planning on going into work the next day. Before Jamie started drinking, he asked, “Do you think the baby is coming anytime soon? Because if you do, I won’t drink tonight.” And sure as shit I said, “No way this baby is coming. I haven’t even dropped yet.” And off he drank, and we stayed up late playing games and partying like it was a weekend.

We went to bed late that night, and the storm was roaring by then. 3am rolled around, and nothing says ‘good morning’ like your bloody show followed by your first set of contractions. I wasn’t sure if I was in labor or not, but just in case, I woke Jamie up. His response: “What the hell, Ely, I asked you last night if you thought you were going to have the baby today. You said no! I’m still drunk and I need to sleep!” And he actually went back to sleep. Dumbfounded and confused as to what I should do next, I opted to clean the bathroom and the rest of the condo, instead of murder my drunk husband in cold blood. Besides, I needed him alive to drive me to the hospital. I called the doctor to let her know the situation, and she told me to sit tight and keep timing the contractions. Hours went by, Jamie still passed out, contractions still inconsistent, and I had so much nervous energy to expend, that I hopped on the treadmill for a nice brisk walk, took a shower, and cleaned some more until there was nothing left to do. I started to get tired but didn’t want to go to bed because I was afraid my water would break and ruin our mattress. Early mom lesson learned the hard way: always choose sleep over cleaning.

Finally, Sleeping Beauty himself arose from his slumber, ready to tackle the day. He woke up a few of our neighbors and asked if they could help him shovel our shared parking area so we could head to the hospital. It snowed so much, that it took at least 2 hours to clear a path for us. When the contractions were more consistent, we headed to the hospital, in fear that more snow was coming. Chicago looked like a ghost town and roads were eerily quiet and clear, like a scene out of an apocalyptic movie. We went to Prentice Hospital at Northwestern, and we could see abandoned cars parked along Lake Shore Drive. It set a tone of foreboding, you know, exactly what you want to feel when you are having your first baby.

When we arrived at triage, the doctor examined me and said I was not dilated enough and suggested that I either go home or labor in the lobby. I told her that I didn’t want to get stuck at home if more snow came, so she was willing to admit me and induce me. Our labor and delivery room had a nice view of Lake Michigan and the traffic that looked frozen in time (much like my labor). Once we got settled, the doctor gave me Pitocin to kick my labor up a notch, broke my water, and told us to start walking. I remembered the labor videos the hospital made us watch a few months prior, and I had it in my head that I was going to walk a lot, and then as labor progressed, perhaps do some breathing exercises on a giant exercise ball. Nope, none of that. I walked maybe 5-8 minutes, got to the end of the hall, felt like I was going to take a giant shit in the middle of the hallway, and speed walked back to my room to sit on the toilet. No one in the video said I was going to have the majority of the labor pains on the damn toilet. I kept saying to Jamie, while holding his hand and bracing myself on the toilet, “I gotta take a shit, I gotta take a shit!…Oh, never mind. Wait, wait, I gotta take a shit, I gotta take a shit! Oh, it’s gone.” This went on for a solid 20 minutes until Jamie finally said in the sweetest way, “Monkey, haven’t you noticed that the sensation of pooping is coming about every 2 minutes? I think you’re just feeling contractions.” “In my ass?” I yelled. “Does this baby think she’s coming out of my ass?” Still got the jokes, even in all that pain. But no one was laughing, except maybe Reese.

The nurse came in to check on me and asked me how my pain was. Jamie said, “If your ACL tear was your worst pain ever, what is your pain now?” And I told them both that I was in so much more pain than a stupid ACL tear. The nurse gladly called in the anesthesiologist for my epidural. The anesthesiologist positioned me, palpated my spinal landmarks, and I’m not even kidding, asked me if I thought that was “the middle.” The middle of what? Was she really asking me if she was in the right spot to stick that giant needle in my spine? I told her I wasn’t sure, and all she said was, “Okay, okay, yeah, that’s the middle.” I started to freak out, and my mind went to all the mom patients that I had in the past who had nerve damage after their epidurals. I was not in a good head space by the time Jamie came back into the room. He tried to calm me down, put on some American Idol and a basketball game afterwards, and we eventually fell asleep (as if he needed more sleep).

I was woken up several times by numerous nurses and residents, so I didn’t get a ton of rest. The baby’s head was tilted to one side, which was slowing her progression downward, and they decided to place monitors on her head to keep an extra close eye on her status. As if my anxiety was not already at an all time high, I noticed that I lost movement in both of my legs, and the numbness began to climb up my torso and all the way up to the right side of my face. So to answer your question, anesthesiologist, no you were not in the middle. Also, you overdosed me. I said to the doctor and Jamie, “Okay guys, my vagina is numb, I was having contractions in my asshole but now that’s numb, and now my mouth is numb. Can someone please clarify which orifice this baby is exiting from?” They reassured me she was coming out the vag way, and encouraged me to relax as much as possible.

I labored for over 30 hours before it was push time. Jamie said since day one of my pregnancy that he was not going to look down there when the baby was coming out, in fear that if he was grossed out he’d never go down there again. But there he was, holding my limp leg and staring at the train wreck that was my vagina. There was a first year resident observing the delivery, and after my first few massive pushes, I heard her ask the doctor what “that” was. I gave her this look like, “Dude, you know what that is.” You don’t need to go to med school know what poop looks like. I mean, yeah shit happens in there, and I couldn’t help but giggle at her question. Many women feel mortified when that happens, but I felt like it lightened the mood. After a quick wipe and a guilty shrug of my shoulders, we were back at it. I pushed for a good hour, and it was so incredibly exhausting. Then I heard Jamie, his voice in the octave of an operatic soprano, excitedly exclaim, “Oh my goodness, here she comes! Look at all that hair!” And there she was, tiny and tired, with a cry that sounded like a 1 year old having a full blown tantrum. The lungs of that baby girl made me feel proud, like she was going to be outspoken like her mom. I held her and cried, and I think I said, “Damn, she’s so white!” It wasn’t my most articulate moment, but in my defense, she was really white compared to me. We were instantly in love with her.

As I held her close, we stared at her dark curious eyes, her beautiful face, and her weird ass cone-shaped head, in the back of our minds hoping it would round off after some time. The nurse was at the foot of my bed aggressively massaging my abdomen to get the placenta out, and I noticed her do a Matrix style move as if she was dodging something. I asked her if everything was okay, and she said, “Woah, you just passed a softball sized blood clot!” My first thought was, “Eewwww, my vagina is bigger than a softball! What the hell did that kid do to my body?” Then I started feeling woozy and told Jamie to take the baby. Jamie took her in his arms and peeked at the where the blood clot was, and he said he remembered seeing a waterfall of blood flowing out of me. Within seconds, a team of doctors and anesthesiologists came rushing in, and all I could hear was, “She’s hemorrhaging and I can’t find the source.” I was losing so much blood at such a fast rate, that my vessels were blown and they couldn’t start an arterial line on me. Finally, after what felt like a million pokes everywhere on my body, they found an artery in my foot. I was shivering with cold and vomiting while doctors and nurses surrounded my bed, taking turns trying to find and stop the bleeding. I watched Jamie swaying back and forth with Reese, facing the window, Jamie hardly able to look in my direction. They seemed so far away. Someone from the peds team came in to give Reese a bottle. I said, “No, no, don’t give her a bottle. I want to nurse her first. And I need to do skin to skin stuff with her. It’s part of my birth plan.” And then I passed out. I would come to and pass out several times after that for the next hour while they worked on me. I heard someone say, “Page the OR, tell them we’re coming.” I grabbed the nurse’s arm and said, “No! No hysterectomy. I won’t consent to a hysterectomy. I want to have more kids.” Then I turned to Jamie and said, “Don’t let them do it, Jamie. Don’t let them take my uterus.” He looked at me with helpless eyes, whispered something in the baby’s ear, and just tried his best to smile. At some point, when I felt like things were possibly taking a turn for the worse, I looked at Jamie and baby Reese and mouthed ‘I love you.’ Then I held my nurse’s hand and said, “Please don’t let me die. They need me.” She told me I was going to be okay and she wouldn’t let me die, and then I passed out again. That is some Shonda Rhimes shit right there. Play the Maxwell song, “This Woman’s Work,” in the background of all that, and you have the workings of a Grey’s Anatomy episode!

When I came to, the doctors were cleaning up and clearing out. I wasn’t sure if I had just dreamt that all, or if I was dead. Then my sister came storming in, looked around and said, “Why does she have an a-line? Why is her pressure so low? Why are they hanging blood? Why is she gray? What the hell happened in here?” Oh, my sister is here, so I’m either alive or in hell (kidding, kidding). We explained to my family everything that happened, and that they eventually had to inflate a balloon in my uterus to firm it up and stop the bleeding. See, this uterus party even involved balloons, a sure sign that Reese would be a future party animal. My mom, in her very Filipina mom way, said, “Oh my God, you’re having a blood transfusion? Are you going to get AIDS? They should have just taken blood from me instead of a stranger’s blood! Do you want to take my blood?” I can’t even type that without laughing. Classic Mom. I didn’t want all the attention to be on me (just most of it), so I told them to meet and hold Reese, if Jamie would ever let her go. And soon, they were in love with Reese too. Jamie’s family came in afterwards to meet the first grandchild on his side, and I witnessed this extra special moment of wonder and new love. Jamie finally, after hours of nonstop buttocks clenching, allowed himself a break and went out to dinner with his parents. It was then that he broke down and cried. He knew it was safe now to let the brave facade go, and he let out all his fears, sadness and snot on his mom’s shoulders. And there I was, finally alone in the room, jello in one hand, ginger ale in the other, and a giant ice pack on my lady parts held in place by enormous mesh panties. Also not in the video. It was perhaps one of the last times I was ever left alone in a room again for the next 9 years.

I finally got the movement in my legs back after a little more than 24 hours. Reese had many more family and friends coming in to meet her. They enjoyed watching us try to figure out how to handle a new born. Jamie would often say as he was changing her diaper, “I don’t know what to do, there are so many cracks to clean!” And I would respond, “Always front to back.” The excitement died down and the anxiety ramped up as our discharge neared. Jamie and I donned our celebratory matching orange Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups t-shirts (because we’re dorks), ready to conquer parenthood. I looked out my window one last time and saw the frozen lake, a snow-covered field, traffic on Lake Shore Drive back in action, and the city slowly inching back to life after that fiasco of a snowstorm. And I thought to myself, “Oh yes, shit’s about to get real.”

And I was right, shit got real really fast, and continues to get more challenging and rewarding with every year that passes. We learned quickly that there is never a dull moment with Reese. Reese, as our first child, became our everything; our every joy, our every worry, our source of pride, our main reason to google things, the culprit of our sleepless nights, our built in alarm clock, our button pusher, and a revealer of our most humbling weaknesses. Her birth story tells so much about her; her disregard for following a timely schedule, her love for hanging upside down, her perseverance and athleticism (30+ hours of labor is a lot of work for a baby), her natural draw towards dramatics, and mostly, her closeness with Jamie. Jamie spent those crucial first moments of her life with her, in a room full of commotion and anxiety, holding her tightly, protecting her from sensing one of his greatest fears, whispering loving things in her ear to keep her (and himself) calm. And to this day, if there is one person in this world that could comfort my girl, it is her daddy.

Reese walks along a path that her story set for her, one of great anticipation, hard work, patience, adventure, fear, pain, love, and gratitude. She is a kid who will always choose dancing over standing around, cartwheels over walking, singing over talking, forgiving over holding grudges, and kindness over cruelty. Cheers to my Reesey girl, one of my greatest life teachers.

My ever-evolving husband, dedicated to self-improvement and living a fulfilling life, suggested last year that we set personal and family goals at the beginning of every year. My complacent ass looked at him with confusion. I tried to use the cancer card to get out of it because it sounded challenging, but it didn’t work. I asked if Netflix could be involved in my goal setting, and he said no. I asked if I could set goals for him instead (like he should clean more); also no. So I agreed to set goals for myself, and then we set goals for the family. It was actually a good practice, and it gave me some things I should focus on throughout the year.

While it was an excellent activity at the time, I quickly forgot that I even set goals. I don’t think I even opened the note I wrote my goals in after that day. And then January 2020 came along and Jamie suggested we look back on the goals we set for last year to see how we did. The mere suggestion caused my armpits to sweat because I was pretty sure I didn’t do a ton of growth. Correction, I did some growth during the year, but in pounds and inches (not the kind of growth anyone sets goals for). But what the hell, might as well look to see if there was any progress made. To my dismay, I only met 2 out of 6 personal goals, partially met 3 by accident, and completely ignored 1. For our family goals, we did not meet any of the 5 goals we set, but at least made a half-assed effort towards 1. We set 2 house goals, which were both met, but only because we hired people to do the tasks for us. And, surprise surprise, we also failed our 2 couple goals. We stink.

I definitely felt disappointed for doing such a shitty job on myself and the family. However, I did apply the cancer card with great success, stating that it was a year of healing for all of us. And it wasn’t just an excuse, it really did take a lot longer to get things in regular working order after all my treatments were finished. So we get a pass for 2019. It wasn’t even a wasted year, as we still made a lot of changes in our personal and family lives. Our focus may have been a little broader and general than we had intended, but nonetheless, the gains we made were still valuable. And hey, we’re all still here and alive and well, so overall it was a successful year.

So here we are now in the middle of January 2020. The Christmas stuff is put away, the house appears bare and non-festive, and we are back to our regularly scheduled programs. For a week or two, I haven’t been stressing over any up-coming events or projects. The calendar is full but manageable. The kids are lovingly tolerable. I should feel great and relaxed, but I don’t. There is an eerie quiet in my brain, and it makes me uncomfortable. As many parents know, when it is too quiet, oftentimes something is up (usually a kid drawing on the walls with a sharpie while the other plays with toilet water). If I listen closely, I could hear a voice saying, “Goals, bitch, write your goals!” I know deep down the universe is opening up this opportunity for me to use this quiet time to be introspective and make meaningful goals for the year ahead. It’s saying, “Come on, Ely, it’s time to take a good look at yourself and make a plan to be better and create a more fulfilling path for you and your family.” Yes, universe, I hear you. Let’s do this.

Yet what do I decide to do with my quiet time? I binge watch “You,” followed by “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” followed by “Don’t Fuck With Cats.” Don’t worry, it’s all for research purposes towards my goals. I’m happy to report that for 2020, none of my goals entail becoming a stalker, murderer, or Jewish comedian. Next up, I need to catch up on “This Is Us” to learn about family dynamics under stressful conditions…just kidding, I just want to look at Justin Hartley and hope that he takes his shirt off or cries. What can I say, I put the “pro” in “procrastinate” (also the “crass,” and perhaps lately even the “ate”).

The truth is, being introspective is challenging. It’s not easy to be brutally honest with yourself, to admit to some of your shortcomings, or to see the areas in yourself that need a lot of work. Setting goals for myself means there are improvements that need to be made. Setting goals means I have to put forth a meaningful effort towards something other than binge watching shows while the kids are in school. Setting goals for myself means that I’m opening doors to both growth and failure. And failure sucks. It’s so much easier to be comfortable with where I’m at now, to live a “whatever happens, happens” life. But noooo, Jamie won’t let us. His commitment to personal development is such a pain in my ass (perhaps a firmer ass by the end of the year if I reach my health and fitness goals).

Last year’s time of healing and regaining physical and emotional stamina was challenging, and it helped change my perspectives on health, parenting and relationships. Although I’d give myself a fat F in last year’s goal achievement, I don’t feel like a total failure, and I don’t intend on being too hard on myself. I’m going to use some of my failed goals as a guide to setting this year’s goals, and change my focus to be one for rebuilding and remodeling various areas of my life. I won’t share my goals here, mainly because I don’t have any yet, but also because they are for me and my family (yes, I actually keep some things private). Mind you, I’m not trying to make this massive self-transformation, like giving up speaking in the name of world peace. Hell, I can’t even give up swearing for Lent successfully. Some of my goals might be as small as reading an actual book (Facebook is not a book) or doing a puzzle with a few friends, maybe a game night with Jamie during the week if he promises to not always beat me. It’s just about time well spent and giving my actions a little more purpose behind them, instead of feeling like I’m floating along. I have to remind myself that it’s not just about achieving my goals, but even more importantly, being aware of and committed to the process because that is when changes happen. My hope is that once I put pen to paper and write my goals, the process will take off. Ugh, why is my pen next to the tv remote? Why is “Fleabag” so easy to watch? Why does “Shameless” have 10 seasons? Oh the challenges that lie ahead for 2020. Must. Write. Goals.