right here

I haven't written anything in a while--for two distinct reasons. The first is to avoid irony: I knew that if I would be writing anything again, it would start out with "I haven't written anything in a while"--totally lame. The second is for sanity: the last 4 months have been all about the work that must be done, that was done, and I am currently doing. I knew myself well enough to know that the writing I mostly do is the spill-over of whatever it is I am currently ensconced in. And writing about work, while I'm not at work, might just be, I predict, the last thing I do before the inevitable trip to the nut house.

So I won't talk about work, at least not consciously. I'll make the extra effort to talk about everything else in my life outside work. Give it the focus it deserves, give it tonight's spotlight.

Like my commute, have I mentioned that I stare at other commuters now? I do. It's my new hobby. Whenever I'm not unconscious in the backseat of the shuttle to Makati trying my best to make up for the lost sleeping hours, I take the time to examine my seatmates. The varying measures of disinterest, the fiddling of a watch or cellphone when we near 10am, the eyes that stare out but whose attention is caught inwardly.

I study these things not because I'm trying to usurp the position of resident creepy commute guy. I study the people in the van in the hopes of gaining some insight of my own. I, who am so helplessly embroiled in the heartache that is my job would like to know if I'm alone in this relentless crusade. Am I the only guy who's sinking in the sea of corporate life? Should earning my keep day by day by day really be this hard?

I'm still wondering today. The people I see on the street don't seem too overwhelmed about their lives. They walk around not worrying when the next deadline is, or whether they got the job done right or not. They just walk. One foot in front of the other. I worry-walk. The brisk pacing I now do is indicative of the rushed mentality I bring with me to work, like a security blanket.

But it's just a job, right? I could quit my job and I won't die. I've gotten pretty far in my life and I have no regrets. I'm proud of myself actually. But then, why do I feel like shit sometimes when I step out of the office?

I just want to know if I'm the only guy struggling here in Makati. I struggled to get here and now I'm struggling to simply stay put. I am aware that I earnestly want to be here. And I'm sure most other people struggled to be where they are now, too, just because they wanted to be there, with their whole heart and sheer strength of will.

And some of us have made it. So now we put on the face of the accomplished, the strut of the succeeding, because we got exactly what we wanted and we've got only ourselves to blame.

After that fateful first interview, plying that now too familiar route from the office to the shuttle center, I discovered something walking around the hustling and bustling men and women of Makati. They bore the face of the city. And though they wore expensive ties, sharp suits, and slick dresses, the city looked pretty glum.

So do I.