When did I stop being cool?

One day a few weeks back, I welcomed guiltlessly the greatness of doing… nothing. Coming from a challenging 2015 that transitioned into a very grueling campaign season in early 2016, I suddenly had to come to terms with this general state of reflectiveness and melancholy that I can only describe (or explain) as a burnout, a weird feeling that was intermittent — there but also not there, like some surreal cloud that chose to hang around like a mist after the rain.  But mists are nice and gentle and inviting; this one was not.  I did not like it very much, as it was the emotion counterpart of my least favorite time of the day — when it is no longer sunlight but not yet sunset; that time when the world is gray even when you are not. 

Like most things that adults have to deal with in the real world, I do not know how this pensiveness crept in, wherein everything seemed tender and fragile. My only logical explanation is that, perhaps, I was running breathless for a stretch of time. Just one challenge after the other. But then, isn’t life always like that? There is always something to fix, the journey goes on. Highs and lows. Like maintaining a clean house, it is a daily commitment. Simply put, you just do what you have to do, and hopefully it all works out so that you can be rewarded with opportunities to do what you want to do. So there I was, on the backwash of accumulated victories over a period of 17 months, both big and small. I was grateful for them all, yes; I felt stronger, figuratively speaking; but I also knew I was physically exhausted and emotionally spent, maybe something like a soldier coming from battle — triumphant but scarred and bruised and wounded here and there. Thankfully, comfort could be had in many ways, and I enjoyed each respite as it lasted, never looking too far ahead or thinking too much about how long each would last. I took what I could. Sometimes, peace would come in the gentle words read on the pages of a really good book, or a bowl of hot soup, a long and very pretty walk in a new place we had the chance to visit, or going to bed at night knowing there was no schedule for the following day.  Once it was in an ice cream shop named Earnest, on a very cold day, where we huddled with friends and I ate a big cup of a delicious flavor called London Fog. Sometimes I would happily daydream about running away with my loved ones to my happy place (it has always been Hong Kong for me!)  and staying there for two weeks, in a room that would allow me to wake up to a view of the beautiful harbor every day! I also toyed with the idea of doing the El Camino, in its entirety, never mind if it meant being away for weeks on end, walking and walking, because then maybe it would mean finding myself again. But then again, I thought, what was there to find when I really did not feel lost? In seminars, you go and sit on a chair and listen to someone speaking, and you come out of it hopefully richer because your perspective shifts. The appeal of doing the El Camino came from knowing that through miles of steps that I would take, I would be going inside myself, I would be able to reflect on my life as I know it, and come home refreshed and even more grateful for all that is, was, and will be. One day, maybe, I will get a chance to do just that.

But that particular afternoon, jetlagged and sluggish, I padded to my daughter’s bedroom across the hall from our room, and ended up cocooning myself in her space for the most part of the afternoon. She asked me to join her in bed.  “But I want to be more productive,” I said. And besides, I had just woken up. I felt guilty about crawling back into bed.  “Never mind, Mama,” she said with the joy of every 15-year-old child. There is no law that says you cannot linger in bed for as long as you want. Okay. Maybe just for today — never mind that I had to unpack still, sort through three piles of paperwork on my desk that had accumulated over the campaign season, go to swim or dance class and basically just snap back into my regular routine. And so I climbed into her bed, obediently, her cold room feeling even more so with the rains outside, and I cozied up under her soft sheets.  She was playing vinyl records — Norah Jones, The Beatles, Albert King, Fleetwood Mac, Wings. We marveled at the simple joy of good music, thankful that we got those records when we randomly walked inside this big vinyl shop in Vancouver that was beside another establishment selling marijuana. Then we watched a couple of makeup tutorials together on YouTube, a few episodes of Fresh Off the Boat downloaded from iTunes, and ate far too many chocolate-laden biscuits, a pasalubong from Japan. Then I slept some more and when I woke up I listened to some of the music of her generation, of artists who are hugely popular but I am not familiar with. I genuinely liked the melodies of their songs, even if I sometimes feel they lack thought or words, and I marveled at how near and yet so far my own youth seemed at that very moment. When did I stop being cool? When I was my daughter’s age, I knew my music; I knew what the trends were. Now I just stick to what I like fashion-wise, I have yet to really embrace the phenomenon that is white sneakers (why does it look so good on teenagers with their skinny jeans or short shorts but not on a mommy like me?!); I am at that point when I want to start wearing lower heels and more flats because, really, high heels are nice and sexy but why must anyone run errands perched on them (?!); and I am more than ever drawn to old songs and the body of work of old singers. Oh, well. Maybe I am just getting old.

Anyway. That day spent almost in its entirety in the four corners of her room was restorative for me, maybe not necessarily in a big way, but definitely calming and gentle in the grand scheme of things. And I so needed that. I need more of that still. Time spent with her: those moments are precious to me, grounding me in time and place. In that one afternoon of laziness, accompanied by a perky and funny teenager, where the greatness of doing nothing was the only agenda, I felt refreshed. Thank you, dear God, for the gift of a random day. I look forward to many more just like this.