Workaholic diaries

I’ve always been a sickly person. Over the past two weeks, I’ve been lethargic, no thanks to a flu I caught from exhaustion before the Everywhere We Shoot wedding. One morning, I woke up with no voice — and had to “speak” to my team via whispers and sign language and even handwritten notes.

I can’t tell you how hard it is for me to be ill, not just because of the physical difficulty of my runny nose, my coughs that hurt my back, or my body that aches. The hardest part is being so weak that I can’t function, I can’t sew, I can’t sit up long enough to work on my accounting or answer my e-mails.

I am a workaholic plain and simple. It pains me to not be productive.

Over the years my longtime collaborators Ryan and Garovs of Everywhere We Shoot have always said to me “Mich, hindi mo ba kaya mag relax? As in kape lang tapos walang work na pag uusapan, hang out lang, ganun?” They, of course, know the answer: that after about an hour of so-called “hanging out,” I whip out my laptop to start working on sales invoices or what not, as evidenced at Garovs’ bridal shower a few weeks ago at my house –– when all the fun and games were over, I left my mom to tell her tales while I multitasked, hand shirring the ruffles for the Everywhere We Shoot wedding entourage while we all laughed and ate at the table. 

Right now, I am on my first holiday since 2009 — a four-day detox trip to Mandala Spa as a birthday treat for my mom who always begged for a timeout. I know people marvel at my so-called jetsetter life, but it’s all work — I never book anything without some kind of work purpose. When my band played in Singapore and Hong Kong, I still took my clothes to shops, followed up on orders and deliveries, and scheduled meetings with buyers. It’s the same wherever I go. So now, four days was all I could bear to spare. Our first day, our detox director Mo-Ching Yip said, “You have to take breaks and let your mind rest and get away from all the stress, this is why you are here.” I had left my laptop with Ryan and Garovs, who had begged me to relax and not work, but even now that I can still type out my column on my Samsung Galaxy Note, I am thinking about my studio, my sales invoices and all the things I could have been doing. I am grateful that I smuggled in sketches I can work on while I am here or else that feeling of unproductiveness would just kill me.

I was not always this bad, but I have always been committed to work. Since the early 2000s I would always invite people to my workroom in Ortigas to hang out, otherwise I would never see them. But over the years things have gotten worse, and I knew when it was beginning to happen. For instance, when I would get annoyed at the fact that I had gigs to play, instead of being happy to have the excuse for a break and to see my friends. Or when I turned down invitations to events and dinners because I had to focus on my work. Or when I stopped inviting people to come to my workroom because I wasn’t able to concentrate when they were here.

That whole work-life balance? I obviously don’t have it.

A few weeks ago, I got on Skype to catch up with my friend Quark who is now LA-based to greet him on his birthday. He asked me how everything and everyone was in Manila, and I didn’t even have an answer –– I was too cooped up in my own work world to know what was going on.  I told him about how my BFF Debrah Eastwood had to take a picture of us on Halloween, as it was a rare moment that I had actually left the house, and how she told me about how our friends would say, “You know, I love Mich but I never see her when she’s here.” I told him about how none of our friends ever invited me to anything anymore, and how I understood that because even if they did invite me I would probably say no. I told him about how completely out of the loop I was, but instead of feeling self pity for myself about having no social life I was okay with it all. I mean, at least I was doing something with my life and was being productive.

I’m beginning to think this isn’t normal anymore. 

I’d like to know how people do it. How do success stories abound and yet people still have time to have lives — because I sure can’t do it; I can barely even manage five hours of sleep a night. How Rajo Laurel can be über-successful and still have time to go on long holidays. How Inksurge and Everywhere We Shoot can sit around in the Fort with their coffees and still manage to get everything done. How Team Manila can open a million stores, have a webshop and yet still go to New York with the Eraserheads, and DJ and throw parties. I am secretly thrilled that I know one of my dear friends Neva Talladen is probably as busy as me with her successful business Leyende, but she still has more of a life than I do as she still has time for poker and movies and dinners.

I guess I do know the answers to these questions: that delegation is a must; that these people must have epic teams, or just really are amazing at time management. But talking to my friend Karen at Garovs’ bridal shower, I realized that even if I did have free time, I would never use it to rest or to chill, I would always find something else work-related to do, or come up with a new project to fill my newfound free time. Otherwise I would just be bored, and boredom is something I just can’t cope with. What can I say? Work is my life.

And I wonder why I am always sick. Rest was just never an option.