Wala Lang

I was in New York last week and decided to touch base with my friends from Notre Dame. One of them related to me her latest heartbreak and how her family showed their support for her and this was what her dad said: "Never let your emotions control your actions."

Two years ago,  I decided with another person that our faiths and families were more important than us being together. I still remember crying and sobbing for months after I broke up with him. It was the first time that I really did cry for any guy. And I cried for months! I know now that if you wrench yourself away from someone you love, the pain seems so tangible, that you can feel it weigh you down. I remember that during those days, it took some effort for me to stand up and walk. I just felt so weighed down.

Was that love? My mother said that maybe it wasn’t. She said that the fact that we still placed our faiths and families above our feelings for each other may indicate that we did not actually love each other.

And this brings me to another thing that someone else told me so many years ago. Someone said that love is a conscious decision and not just an emotion. When you love someone, you consciously tell yourself that you will stand by this person no matter what. It is your mind, and not your heart, which decides that you will stay with this person for the rest of your life.

I think that two years ago, I may have lived the advice of my friend’s dad. My emotions, at that time, were telling me to stay with him, but my mind told me that staying with him would make both our lives a living hell.

Am I happy that I did not let my emotions control my actions? There are days that I still feel sad about it and yes, I still miss him from time to time. There are days, however, that I am glad. I am not sure if I would ever find someone like him again, but I know that we now both have happier lives ahead of us because of our decision to go our separate ways.

Yes, I guess it is true that love is a conscious decision and not just an emotion. Love means not letting your emotions control your actions. If you love someone, it does not only mean consciously deciding that you will stay with this person for the rest of your life.

It may also mean making the painful decision of letting each other go.

I know, I know…my title is so cliche! If my creative writing mentors (e.g. Butch Dalisay, Isabelle Mooney) would see this, they would immediately regret the grade they gave me when I was their student.

I can’t help it though. For the first time in many years, I am actually looking forward to a new year. I think it helps that I like what I am doing now. Two days ago, an old high school friend, Twinkle, asked me what I do for a living these days. It made me think a bit. Then, I decided to say, "I am trying to be an international human rights lawyer." 

Trying to be an international human rights lawyer, I think, is a fair assessment of what I have been doing during the past year or so. I am a newbie in this field and I have so much to learn, so I can’t say that I am an expert in anything yet. This world I am trying to hack into is so filled with professional and personal rivalries, petty quarrels (yes, even among supposedly mature and eminent international lawyers), and of course, discrimination.  I encounter so much of the last one, considering that I am a Filipino, a woman, and I look young. There seems to be an impression in the international human rights world that if you are a Filipino, you only know about Philippine issues and have no business discussing the issues in other parts of the world. Also, in most meetings I go to, I would find myself to be the only woman sitting in the room. More often than not, the other people in the meeting would think I am my boss’s secretary! Since my boss is not a lawyer, he would usually refer to me when it comes to legal issues. And when he does this, it throws a lot of people off since then they realise who I am and what my position is.

Nowadays, however, I feel less and less like a lawyer. As I said earlier, international law is a a political minefield. I feel that I do more political decisions now than legal decisions. Also, I have to manage my staff and consequently, I have to do administrative stuff. There was once when I had to fix a conflict between two members of my staff. After that really stressful day, I had to tell my boss that management skills were never taught to us in law school!  There would also be days now that I would pore over Excel sheets, computing and re-computing the budget, talking to donors, and keeping an eye on the finances. That was also never taught to me in law school!

A few months ago, I bought a bunch of management books to get me through the basics at least. So, I’ve been reading on how to hire and fire, how to make the people work with you and how to deal with conflict situations in the workplace. I used to laugh at people who read these books because I used to think that they’re not ‘very literary’. Life can be ironic.

And since I started with a cliche, I might as well end with a cliche by telling the rest of the world what my New Year’s resolution is. This year, I will be pleasant. I will be pleasant to those who discriminate against Filipinos. I will be pleasant to ex-boyfriends (for those ex-boyfriends who are reading this, expect a pleasant email from me! ha ha ha!). I will be pleasant to everyone!

To all my friends reading this, if you find me reverting back to my old cranky lawyer self, please please shake me until I regain my senses.