An hour’s drive to school, stuck in the three-lane Commonwealth traffic, listening to Deo Macalma and his blind items and his infamous bubuwit: This was part of my high school daily routine with my Papa Nick. He would drop me off school, and he would then proceed to his office in Manila.
Papa had an eight-hour job as a bank manager at the cashier’s department. Sometimes, he would ride on armor vans, with large sums of money. Not ours, of course.
It was a regular job, but the daily commute ate up so much of his time — our time. Normally, by the time we would get home, it was already dinner. Or sometimes, I would just have dinnerienda (dinner and merienda combined), which was the chicken meal he would bring me whenever he picked me up from school.
Work. We live most of our lives working. Say, we start working in our 20’s, and retire by the time we reach 60 years old. That’s 40 years, more than half of the average lifespan of Filipinos. Our productive years are really spent toiling. Ironically, when we have saved up enough money, we may not have the strength to enjoy it.
Papa said you have to work and prepare for your future. I’ve been planning for my future since I was still in my 20’s, getting insurance policies for non-existent dependents. I adhere to clean living — I don’t smoke (hate the smoke), I try to eat healthy, and I exercise regularly, although I fall short of getting enough sleep. But otherwise, I am vice-free. If only these would guarantee a comfortable retirement.
My husband and I want to retire in Baguio and enjoy walks amid the pine trees. Listen to music. Paint (assuming I’ve already taken lessons). Do gardening and maybe, have a small business. We would also love to travel. Are we looking too far into the future?
But, my grandmother, Mama Mary, the original workhorse in our family, told my husband and I to enjoy life while we are young. Did she mean we ought to go on a spree and not prepare for the future?
I try to blend what my grandmother and my Papa told me: Work hard. Live life. Find a balance.
Donita Rose resigned from Umagang Kay Ganda to focus on her culinary course and family. She devoted four years of her life on the morning show, but the load was already causing her migraines. Donita is such a faithful servant that she knows that God will provide for their family.
She said, “Work is just work, what is important is relationships.”
I will not dare do what Donita did. But it enlightened me into finding a balance.
My family never had the luxury of not working. When I was a kid, my parents could not make it to most of the school activities because they had to work. Work is imperative and perhaps, finding that balance merely entails looking at life as a glass half-full.
We did not strictly adhere to having dinner together like most families. I do wish we had that, but thanks to his work, the take-out dinneriendas and the conversations I had with Papa Nick while stuck in traffic were all worthwhile.
(E-mail me at nagmamahalateb2@yahoo.com.)