When NT’s Mental Health Crisis Team did a house visit last month after my 2nd strong suicidal ideation, they asked what my propensity to hurt myself was at that time. I told them it was 60% — I’m ready to hurt myself by all means and die. The other 40% was not, and only for 1 reason – my husband, Karlo. There are countless articles on what type of person you should look for and marry, and from vague memory, I remember writing one for…Continue Reading “My 40%”

Starting at 17 years old, I lost 4 friends in 4 consecutive years. Charmaine in 2005, Randall in 2006, Axell in 2007 and Krishia in 2008. All of them are my High School batch mates. And my life was never the same ever since. One is called a widow/widower for a spouse who gets left behind but there is no word to describe parents left behind by children who die earlier than their parents. Probably because it’s not the way things should naturally be, in…Continue Reading “How Death Has Guided My Married Life”

It’s 11:00pm, 14th of February 2017. First Valentine’s Day celebration as a married couple. I’m propped up on our bed, writing this blog post while my husband is snoring beside me. An hour ago, we were walking from the parking lot to our hotel in our flip flops and summer casual wear, while every couple we walk past were dressed in their best romantic dinner date attire. An hour and a half hour ago, we just parted ways with our 1st 2 friends in Darwin…Continue Reading “Valentine’s Day 2017”

Hi kids, This morning, Mom woke up at 4:30am for her 11am meetup with friends. Yes, I woke up 6 1/2 hours early! It’s not because of my body clock (I’m not an early riser, for starters), it’s not because I woke up to your Dad’s snorefest (I’m a deep sleeper I couldn’t even hear your dad’s snoring), but it’s because Mom wants to escape the horrendous traffic situation in the city especially during rush hour. Also, it’s because Mom needs to allot extra time…Continue Reading “Dear Luna and Julio: On Commuting”

I’m way overdue for my 2nd quarterly reflection about marriage (supposed to be written on our 6th wedding monthsary but we celebrated our 8th yesterday) but I thought tonight would be the best time to write about it, while sipping red wine on the sides, enjoying Karlo’s signature hotdog and onions as pulutan, listening to Wave 89.1 Dreamsounds playlist in Spotify, all while being in a completely confused state in our life. My first quarter reflection listed 10 things but I’ll cut this down to 7…Continue Reading “My Next 7 Things About Married Life”

To my dearest Luna Aurora and Julio Miguel, Hi kids, it’s Mum. This is my first letter to you my loving children. Just to let you know, neither of you has been formed in my tummy yet as I’m writing this. I’ve sent the wrong signal to my friends over the weekend that I was pregnant when I posted a pregnancy journal that I bought on sale. The thought of writing a letter for my future children has been bugging me ever since. I think…Continue Reading “Dear Luna Aurora and Julio Miguel”

I wanted to go into the details of how we prepared for the wedding, but since I’ve yet to sort the 2000+ photos sent by our official photographer and I wanted to include photos in that particular blog entry, I’ll have to save that topic to a later post. I thought of sharing a bit about the things I’ve learned for our first 3 months as husband and wife. In a way, this would be a ‘quarterly’ report to our parents and our godparents, and…Continue Reading “Wedding Wednesday Series: 10 Things about Married Life So Far”

I knew it would be Karlo. It was just a matter of when and how he would propose. I sometimes avoid sharing to Karlo my delight in watching wedding proposal videos because I feel that I’m putting so much pressure on him to prepare for that eventful day. It’s often those big displays of affection and love, elaborately planned with all the logistics, which make an impact on me. Think of those proposals involving family and friends making surprise appearances, popping the big question in…Continue Reading “Wedding Wednesday Series: The Proposal”

I’ve decided to dedicate Wednesdays for weddings. Being the middle day of a 5-day work week, Wednesdays are those days that you just got to get it over and done with. It’s called a ‘hump day’ for a reason anyway. So to counter the negative vibes attributed to Wednesdays, I will choose to focus on positive things and what better way to do it than think of pleasant events, and in my case, it’s our wedding! As of this writing, we’ve been married for 99…Continue Reading “Wedding Wednesday Series”