Lotus in the Swamp

There are two ways that I use to cope when I have lost someone in my life. 

(1) Commemoration
(2) Accepting and continuing to live on 

The two overlap, for sure. This blog will be dealing with the second.

Accepting and coping for the living. We live for ourselves, as least we all should. In order to live the fullest of our lives, we should be happy. I mean find joy in our life, living to the best of our ability and goodness with a positive outlook. All right that shit is hard to do. Honestly, I am going to keep things real and this will be heavy. 

I called the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline the weekend before last. I was sitting in my old room that I will soon be calling my room again in July. I was looking at my phone wondering if I should call or not. I made the choice and called, waited and was connected with a counselor. I had suicidal thoughts when I was in high school, but I had not come so close to those thoughts in a long time. What prompted me was after waking from a nap after writing these words in my phone, “Is life really worth living anymore?”

When I woke up from my nap, I decided to seek help. I surprised myself with typing those words in the first place. I knew that nap was to sleep it off hoping that indifference would go away, it sort of did but I knew I could not wonder anymore if I truly felt that way. I needed to talk it out with someone.

I know my family was downstairs, but I don’t know there is just a pressure from people who know you and you do not want to scare people with your raw emotions. The whole point of me explaining this is trying to communicate that when we are in a really low place, there is still hope. There is a place of growth waiting to be explored like a lotus growing out of a swamp. I had to be in that dark place in order to find myself. I am still in that dark place, in all truth. I am not as in deep as I was that Sunday evening…but I am not completely definite about where my life is going. That unknown is scary and sometimes I cannot handle it.

I do not think we need to pressure each other to be happy all the time, or to have that positive outlook, but that hope exists and there will be times when it feels like even that slight hope is an impossible effort. Life is a rollercoaster, full of ups and downs. We cannot judge those who are stuck and those who may not seek help.  There are many ways to cope, and yes calling the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is one way. And that was the way I was comfortable with at the time. There are so many other ways to cope and we just need to have access to those different ways. 

Sophomore in high school

When I was in high school, I had suicidal thoughts. I became a high school art teacher for the very reason that what saved me was creating art. Since art has become my career, it does not have the same force in its expression when I was in high school. That is where climbing has come to fill that former outlet’s void. I do still create though, when time allows. I am now finding myself more and more everyday. I am doing a lot better than I was last Sunday and I knew I had to be in that place to come to accept myself and where I am going in my life. I know that may have been heavy to read and I am very grateful for your support in reading this post. 

I would like to end this blog post with something my student had commented on. The photo above was when I was a sophomore in high school and I had put that in my about me slideshow to show me students as an introduction to my ceramics class. A student in my advanced ceramics commented on the photo, “You looked like you needed a hug, Ms. Salonga!” I told him, ya…I really did. As cliché as it is, hug the people you love. Tell them you love them. I definitely let my friends and family know I love them.

Cheat Meal – R&G Lounge

There are two ways that I use to cope when I have lost someone in my life. 

(1) Commemoration
(2) Accepting and continuing to live on 

The two overlap, for sure. This blog will be dealing with the first one. 

Commemoration. My brother, cousin and I have decided to commemorate Bourdain’s life by taking a Bay Area tour of places that he had ate at. On our Friday evening out, we indulged in eating at San Francisco’s Chinatown’s R&G Lounge. Below is a list of food we had ordered, unfortunately I only had the mental capacity to take photos of two dishes since I was hangry already. Then for fun, we finished the evening chatting over Plentea drinks. 

R&G Lounge list of what we ordered

Salt & pepper calamari
Salt & pepper crab
String beans spicy
Three treasures
Honey walnut prawn
R&G signature beef

Plentea haul

Sea salt crema oolong tea  – brother’s
Peach tea – cousin’s
Papaya smoothie – mine

Intro: Cheat meals & Mental health

I have made myself a very hefty breakfast since June 11th. I have been consistently doing cardio everyday until I was tattooed on June 21st. I had also been climbing everyday, which I think I need to do less of. I need to learn how to have off days from climbing so my muscles can rest. 

Another thing I need to remember to do is have cheat meals. Although, I want to be in optimal health I cannot limit myself to having no fun when it comes to life.  I consider eating not only a necessity to live of course, but fun! Eating should be enjoyed. My gosh, there is so much food in this world. I am not allergic to anything via consumption so by all means – let’s EAT! (I’m allergic to animal saliva due to being bit by a dog in high school, maybe I will blog about that one day 🙂 )

My brother is a chef and has been working as a chef for more than a decade. He and I would bond over watching Anthony Bourdain’s Travel Channel’s “No Reservations” He texted me the morning of the day when Anthony Bourdain’s death was announced with simply “Anthony Bourdain is dead”. He was devastated and saddened. He is not a man of many words. When I came over to the house to hang out he told me he cannot watch the last episode of the most recent TV series that Bourdain had filmed. I have not kept up with Bourdain’s recent TV series since I truly believed that the best series Bourdain had was No Reservations. Also, I am not much into TV and honestly – it’s only with my Kuya (brother in Tagalog) that I ever watch TV.

I am going to split this blog entry into two entries in response to Bourdain’s death. Please skip the next two blog entries if you are not interested in my cheat days and my view on mental health 🙂 

The reasons I have joined the Spartan Race.

I am currently training for the Spartan Race on December 1. Not only am I teacher, who’s salary is quite measly, I am also off for the summer. A perk of being a teacher that I know is the envy of most. With my personality, I am not so good with transitions or change from a structured schedule. There are many things that happen when the school year ends. On a side note: I mentioned my salary due to the fact that I would have traveled but because of my living situation and the very high cost of rent in the Bay Area I am unable to travel this summer. 

Again, I teach high school Ceramics. The majority of my ceramics classes are Seniors, and as a result I am pressured to get my Seniors graded and out of there as soon as I can. Yet, I still have work to do with my Juniors, the very few Sophomores I have, and Freshmen. Teaching all grade levels can be a nuisance, but I love the environment since kids get exposure to new students, maturity levels and point of views. I typically stop going to the gym the last few weeks of school, overeat due to stress and feel like a chunky monkey. I accept this fate freely since it is only temporary, and I end the school year knowing that I will eventually get to the gym. Then sadness hits while I bid my Seniors adieu as they walk down to accept their diploma, which welcomes even more overeating since I love eating my feelings. 

That is usually the timeline for the last week of May, first week of June. This year, as all that overeating was being done, I was asked to join the Spartan Race happening December 1. I have the worst time transitioning, I overtly love my students. So cold turkey, good bye students after finals and graduation literally breaks a part of my heart. I was depressed and did not want to join the Spartan Race, but KNEW this would be the only way to motivate myself to get moving. I accepted the challenge to get back into shape and stay focused on myself. 

There is something else you should know, I am a giver. I have codependent tendencies that totally fuck with my anxiety and sometimes deepens my depression, and at times I am completely unaware of its effect! In part, I feel like I am a good teacher because I have these codependent characteristics. I am sensitive to my students’ needs, emotional states, and am very understanding to their situations. Basically, what I am trying to explain is that I do not actually enjoy summers. Perhaps it is because last summer, my boyfriend at the time and I broke up at a wedding – you can read the details in my next entry – but the reality is that I had not given myself a good summer. I could easily add this summer to become a bad track record, but I refuse. My heart is broken, yes, but now I have changed my mindset this summer. The only way to not be so damn codependent, is to be independent. Here I am, blogging, doing my best to write out all the bullshit that floods my mind and put it somewhere so that I can not only share it but take it off my chest. Also it is a good reminder of where I am in my head, instead of just feeling and being confused, I am putting it in words and making sense of it. I am also taking care of my physical self. My needs fall to the waist side when I exhibit those codependent tendencies because I lack self-care, boundaries, and being selfish. How the hell am I going to be a good a teacher if I am not actually caring for myself? That is impossible. Again, through understanding my goals of being a caring, nurturing, straight up good educator I need to put myself first.

To just be a good, happy, live life to the fullest human – I need to put myself first before I can care for anyone. 

Why I climb and how it continues to be part of my life…

The above photo is from the August 2017 at DUMBO Boulders in NYC.
Photo credit: Anthony Francis, whom I had the honor of meeting @ DUMBO Boulders

I climb because it is the the few moment where I am not stuck in my head. It did not begin that way. It began in 2014, when my now ex-boyfriend recommended that we do something called bouldering. I had just returned from Bolivia and did some outdoor bouldering out there with the intention of getting from one destination to the next. Going up a fake boulder was not that appealing, as a result I did not return to climbing until October 2016. 

Rental shoes, rented harness in 2016
Mission Cliffs in San Francisco, CA

I entered Mission Cliffs in San Francisco in October 2016 exhausted from my work day. I was a first year teacher at an Oakland High School, living and commuting from San Francisco. I remember annoyingly learning the 8-knot and realizing that I was acting out just the same as one of my student whom had begun to test my patience during our double pinch pot unit. I forgot how to learn, and climbing became a testament that you never stop learning. I began to be obsessed. I immediately bought a ten-pass, then that became a membership. I purchased my first pair of climbing shoes and my precious harness that I hate forgetting. Who likes the feeling of a rental harness?

         RIP my first pair of climbing shoes. (left) Worn out shoes and my bruised leg from bouldering. (right)

I also returned to bouldering at the most amazing bouldering gym, Dogpatch Boulders. Of course I am biased, I love my San Francisco Touchstone climbing gyms. 

But why do I climb? Again, it has been in my experience that when I climb – I am not stuck in my head. I remember toproping with people who would remind me to stand up and reach a hold. But I am 5 feet tall and those who would remind me to “just stand up” were who I called, tall – anything above my height. Climbing has always been a challenge, and I love challenges. There are layers to it, I live with anxiety and depression every day of my life. I don’t feel anxiety and depression creeping in when I am on the wall. It is silenced, for at least a few hours while I incessantly ponder and throw myself onto a route. If anything, it has helped me live better with my brain’s roommates, anxiety and depression. It has made me more resilient, opened my mind to accepting that there is no one solution to any of my problems, and maybe there is not an immediate solution to the naked eye. I may need time to ruminate and I will try again the next day. Maybe I also have to accept failure, and yes I need to meet myself where I am instead of disliking my height and my +1 ape index. It has taught me to love myself on and off the wall.

DUMBO Boulders, August of 2017 Photo Credit: Anthony Francis

Climbing has also taught me patience. I was learning something new and finding that I was once again not good at something. That can be a truly frustrating but rewarding experience. As adults, I feel we assume the position of knowing everything. Mind you, I am a high school ceramics teacher and ya, there are times when it is hard to say, “I don’t know.” And it seriously is hard to tell my kids (students, whom I refer to mostly as my kiddies) that I sometimes don’t know what will happen to their ceramic pieces when they are sitting in the kilns. I may be the expert in the classroom, but reality is that there is always the unknown. That is actually truly the beauty of life. But back to climbing – that is the beauty of climbing as well – how the hell will you get up that wall? I only know my way, and I do enjoy sharing beta. That is something else I should mention as to why I climb, camaraderie, friendship, and also the lack of a relationship. 

I began climbing with my boyfriend at the time, who is now an ex. I think climbing and I will never become exes, but who really knows. Nothing lasts forever. In the time that I have climbed, the rock wall and I have seen a few boyfriends come and go. The breakup from my boyfriend who introduced me to climbing halted me from toproping and I began to boulder instead. I have returned to toproping since then. Then my first summer as a teacher came with yet another heartbreak, that ended up spiraling into a positive change. I entered that summer putting my first year of teaching behind me, knowing that I had made it. I entered that summer, not knowing that late June my heart would break and that I would obsessively boulder nearly every day after that for a month and a half. I met climbers who later became good friends during that time and continue to meet people who may or may not be friends. But we may definitely bond over a route or two and wave hello at the gym. I have even reconnected with a friend that I had not seen in more than 15 years. Life is crazy. And although things sometimes look down in the dumps, there is no where else to go but up. As cheesy as that sounds, that’s my truth. The more and more I blog, the more you will learn about my journey and although I am 5 feet tall and only know the way that I climb, I welcome you to join me and hopefully you will stay for the ride.

Welcome to my blog 😀