ISABELLA

Life as presented to me is full of colors, magic, rainbows and unicorns, and all other things you can think of.

I must admit, the way I’m handling my life as of the moment is so far from how I imagined it to be. Before, all I really wanted is a little bit of freedom. Like, being able to walk around publicly without people recognizing me, following me, taking pictures of me or watching my every move. I want to do crazy normal things and experience the wildness and rawness of my youth. Thing is, it’s not easy. No. It is easy, but it’s not easy to be me and my siblings.

Ever since we started having a sense of who our parents are, what they do for a living, and their impact to their respective chosen field of work, we know right off that we need to keep their names clean. One wrong move and things will surely go dark for all of us, and that’s one thing I never want to happen.

When I stepped into my twenties, I thought, things are going to be much better for me in terms of freedom. Given that I’m at the age where I know where to place myself and my judgement, though not as sharp, can save me from great trouble, I was confident that my parents will let me run through the wild and explore it on my own. Unfortunately, it’s not what happened, for they still treat me as a kid who needs protection twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It is suffocating.

Don’t misunderstand. I love my parents and I appreciate all that they’ve done and has been doing for me. It’s just that, I need space from them, from everybody, to be able to learn, grow and experience things on my own.

The reason why up until now I still haven’t contacted any of them, even when I’m missing them a lot, is because I want to savor each minute of my borrowed freedom. Yes, I said borrowed freedom, for I have a strong feeling, that sooner or later, I’ll go back in the comfort of my parents’ house again, all because I’m slowly realizing that complete independence without proper training might be a huge mistake.

I’m going clean and honest here. I’m having a really hard time living on my own. Not only am I innocent of how most things work around the apartment, it also took me a while to learn how to use public transportation (I’m used to being driven and picked up anywhere and everywhere). I at doing household chores. I cannot cook a decent meal no matter how many cooking videos I watch. My salary that I thought is more than enough to get me through day to day, cannot sustain me. With rent and house bills alone, it’s already wiped out. What more for food and other necessities? This is where you can say that I’m totally clueless of the world and how it works, for I didn’t even consider simple things as paying the bills before deciding to break free from my parents. If not for my boyfriend, Ryu, I wouldn’t be able to last a day out here.

“!” I’m doing my laundry and I forgot to separate the whites from the colored again. This happens every time. Now, my white shirt that Dad gave me, has turned purple all because of another shirt that bleeds its color in the wash. “Great!” I dropped in the trash in annoyance.

How stupid can I be? Why is it that I can’t seem to figure out simple things like this? I only have a few clothes with me. I threw out four pieces already after they turned a different color too. I swear! If I screw up again, I’ll end up not having clothes anymore. Gabby left some of hers though, but most of them are not fit for work.

“NO!” I look in my pantry and found nothing but a pack of instant ramen.

It’s not the end of the month yet and I ran out of food already. My diet consists of instant ramen and microwavable dishes and snacks, because I’m on a budget and this stuff are the only ones that I can afford. I only get to eat hot food at YGE every work day.

“Here we go again” I whined and ran to the toilet.

For days now, I’ve been feeling sick. I even called the office for a day off because it seems to have worsen today. I have dizzy spells. I throw up every morning and even at night sometimes. It’s weird.

“Gosh!” I stood up from the cold tiled floor and head straight to the sink to brush my teeth.

In times like this, all I want is to go home where Mum and Dad will take care of me, and my siblings will take turns in watching me. It’s always a family task whenever one of us are sick.

“If I’m Mum, what would I do to make me feel better?” I asked myself in front of the mirror.

I’ve been doing this “If I were Mum/Dad” thing whenever I need to solve or decide on something. Those two are really the best decision makers (at least in my eyes), because they seem to think of the best solutions to problems all the time, and if the problem is impossible to solve, they will think of a great way to work around it and blend in. Things I cannot do well yet.

Speaking of Mum, according to Aunt Daryl who I got the chance to talk with a week ago, Mum is in a bad state. She’s depressed as I thought she is, based on the last time I saw her. I blame myself for it and Dad too, mainly because he left when I’m sure all my Mum wants is for him to stay beside her during that night. I tried reaching out to her, I swear, I did. Thing is, she doesn’t want to talk to me, so I let her be until I decided to move out of the house and didn’t get the chance to talk to her anymore.

I know my Mum, she’s been through worst cases than this. She will power through. One of these days, I’m going to visit her. Hopefully by that time, she’s much better already.

“Wait” my innards flipped when I noticed my desk calendar and realized that I haven’t had my period yet.

One thing Mum taught us girls ever since we started having our periods, is how to mark the dates. We encircle our first day and put a square on the day it ended. It’s old school, I know, for there are phone apps that has menstrual calendars, but this is how we grew up and we didn’t bother to change it anymore.

My calendar for this month is clean. There are no circles no