Monday Sickness

The problem about happy weekends is the ugly truth that you’ll face during Mondays. Most of us have rest says on weekends and on my part (being on the night shift), it started 5:00 in the morning. I will abruptly finish my work and making it sure I turned off the computer at 4:59 am. By exactly 5:00 am you’ll see me rummaging inside my locker and dashing off outside the building to welcome the first ray of the sun. Feeling good about the first few minutes of my work-free time, I chatted with my closest friend at the office who is Rakel, as words, laughter, emotions and heavy puff of smoke comes out of our mouth. At 5:30 am, we’re ready to wave our goodbyes and anticipate ourselves to reach home as soon as possible.

Weekends meant home. That’s how I define it. And home means family, bestfriend and partner.

I have two sets of family by the way. If I want to spend time with my pops, my sister Nadine, my brother Jay, Malou aka Sam, and our dogs Buck and Chill, I will drive myself to Makati and spend the whole afternoon there. The thing that I wanted the most in Makati home is spending time with Trudy, our super computer with internet connection. (Yes, the bloody computer had a name). I don’t have to spend money for anything there which was great and that is something I miss every now and then.

Spending time with my mom is the best because she comes to me, tagging along my sister Arby and my youngest brother Batutoy. I cooked everytime they visit which my mom never fails to say something nasty about it. She’s a typical mom, never approves of everything she sees about my own home. She doesn’t approve about the thick ice on the refrigerator. She hates the moldy bread on top of the microwave. She disapproves about the undies which are soak for a week or two in the KFC bucket. She despised the mountain of plates on the kitchen sink. She nags about the kitchen floor and how stinky Mio (my pet dog) is. She’s a yada-yada machine while she scrubs the floor, defroze the ref, threw away the garbage, wash the dishes and do the laundry. I sometimes wonder how she managed to nag and scrub at the same time.

The wacky days are spent with my bestfriend Ivory. Every two weeks (which is pay day) is our bonding days. We watched movies or go to the zoo or a trip to a spa or drink and sang at a karaoke or whatever. It was always spontaneous.

Mostly, I spent time at home with my partner. We spend time eating whether we cooked it or order it from somewhere. We consume a lot of electricity during these weekends watching dvds and sleeping the whole day with the aircon on.

What made it so gloomy during Mondays? Because probably the fun stops there and I have to put on the seriousness of the weekday routines where I have to wake up early to prepare food for Germaine and the ache starts where she leaves for work and I was left alone with Mio and the house with never ending chores. Maybe I was missing the human contact. The emotions that I shared with them everytime we were together. The happy weekends became good memories that stained during Monday mornings. How I think very significantly that 120 hours each week will make my baby brother into a man, that I am running out of time spending day at the zoo or play games with him, or my mom or my dad will soon be called lolo and lola by my soon to be nephews and nieces, or my bestfriend and I will soon show heavy wrinkles and white hair sticking out of our heads or my partner will still be my partner in the long run while I am busy being a robot programmed to be alone, to let my love ones grow, to force myself to sleep after lunch so that I can work in the evening to make something out of myself and to earn for a living.

This is sickness, where the only day I think of time; where I always felt like crying; where I always crave for hug; where I dreamed of pat in the back; where I always hungered for love; coz this is always the day I think of the cycle of human life.