They have a really nice place... A huge lot, maybe 2000 square meters big. There are two houses in their compound. They live in one and a part of her extended family lives in the other. Her immediate family lives in the house on the left part of the lot. In the middle, there's a paved basketball court and right next to it is a covered parking area. So, yeah, it's a compound very condusive for a family with kids to live in. There are a lot of trees, a lot of dogs, and a few fighter roosters. There are days when there's a hammock tied to a tree near the covered parking area. That's where I crash when it's there.
They're house is just right for a family of six. So there's her mom, her dad, her sister, her brother and her daughter of course. So you might be asking, "She has a daughter?" Yes, she does. A beautiful 9-year-old daughter who's on the road to puberty. She had her when she was still in college. As a result, she wed the father before she gave birth but eventually, they separated when the daughter was a year old. Okay, let's name my partner. Let's just call her Elizabeth. And her daughter, let's name her Crystal.
Right now, Elizabeth doesn't have work. She got retrenched three months ago and is actively searching for a new job. Good thing it's summer and she gets to spend all day and all night with Crystal. They really have an exceptional mother-daughter relationship. Crystal can just be so clingy that if you'd count the number of times she'd call her mom in an hour, you'd go crazy.
I, on the other hand, have this very demanding job managing a start-up RPO company in Makati. How demanding is it? I usually work 19 hours a day. I stay in the office for 12-13 hours and then spend around six hours more working while at home. I work nights, by the way. So I usually go to work at 8:00 PM. I go home at around 8:00 or 9:00 AM. I have a very critical role in the company as I report directly to the President and part-owner of the company. My boss is actually leaving by the end of this year and I only have a few months to have this company running like a well-oiled machine. I'm taking over when my boss leaves for the U.S. and that's an even bigger responsibility.
So now, you're seeing two sides. I have a partner who's draining all her energy on a daily basis trying to be busy. And, to state the obvious, I'm busier than a bee! When I come home from work on Saturdays, I'm usually so pooped that I just crash in bed with whatever clothes on I had on my Friday shift. I wake up Saturday night and rush to my partner's abode bringing food so we can all have dinner together with her family. After dinner, I just smoke with her for a bit and then I'd fall asleep right away. When I wake up usually around midnight, we'd just have another smoke and I'd be heading home.
As soon as I get home, I'd be busy with work again and I would stay awake until 5:00 AM, go to sleep and wake up in the afternoon so I could go back to Antipolo. We don't really talk much anymore. She'd be playing with Crystal and I'd be playing with my phone or working with my laptop. Before we know it, it's already Monday again. It just passed by that fast and we didn't get to spend even a wee bit of quality time.
These were my weekends for the past six months. Sometimes, I would get to ask myself the following questions:
- How did it get to this?
- Why did we let this happen?
- Is there anything else that we can do?
- Is it still worth it?
- Is it too late?
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