I Don't Know How to Respond to "Merry Christmas": Finding Hope Before the Year Ends

_{NOW. Finding a glimmer of hope from the little improvements of everyday. Streets have been cleared after Super Typhoon Rai. Our local government unit was quick to clear the roads from fallen trees and electric posts.}

On this side of the world, we were hit by a strong super typhoon. Help has been pouring, we are still surviving and the major damages are slowly being repaired. Greetings of “Merry Christmas” have flooded my Messenger inbox but I didn’t have it in me to respond to the well-wisher back.

_{BEFORE. The morning after the Super Typhoon hit, the uprooted Sampaloc tree led to the toppling over of the electric post behind it. Less than a week after, these were already cleared.}

I went to the office as usual, until one of the leaders had the courage to say what has been in my head for so long – “I don’t know how to respond to everyone’s ‘Merry Christmas’ because my Christmas wasn’t merry. We are resilient, but this is too much for us to bear. I don’t want to fake it.”

_{NOW. The electric post was cleared by the barangay officials. This eased the traffic in our streets.}

_{NOW. The Sampaloc tree was chopped and the trunks were distributed to the neighbors who were interested in keeping them. I heard they were making it into chopping boards. The leaves were already picked up by the local government trucks.}

To be honest, I found a glimmer of joy in the morning of Christmas eve. I went to wait for 2 hours and 49 minutes just to get my car tanked up with gas. It was a better queue than that of the stories of four to five hours that went to waste since gas supplies have run out. I reached out to an old friend and I treated my workmates to breakfast. Sometime in the afternoon, the glimmer started to die out. Until it completely left me when I went home. You know how easily it is to catch enthusiasm? In just the same way, frustration is contagious as hell too. A family member was acting up and she has been picking fights with everyone in the house. She may have grown too exhausted with the way things have been lagging for long – there is still no electricity, water supply, cellphone signal and internet connectivity in our part of town. I am not someone with the patience of a saint. I quickly packed my bags, went straight to my relative’s house just so I can maintain my peace and sanity. I left my home that night since I wasn’t in the mood to tolerate the situation.

_{BEFORE. The car beside my parking space was damaged by the fallen tree. Its rear glass was broken. Its trunk was also deformed.}

Things have been better, for now. At least, on the outside. On the inside, I have been growing uneasy. This may have been caused by hormones, or the frustration of wishing things to go back to the way they were again even if it was impossible. Or maybe by the discontent that one usually feels with age? I don’t know.

_{NOW. The tree was already cleared. The rear glass of the car was already repaired. It costed the owner quite a hefty amount. This will forever serve as a story of kindness for me. My car would have suffered the same fate if it weren't for the courage of my neighbor to brave the storm and guided me to transfer to another parking space.}

What I do know is @ybanezkim26’s words that rang true when I first read it “Just because we tasted the sweet life before the storm, doesn’t mean we are entitled to it going on forever. We were born poor, so we shouldn’t be fazed by this situation. We were born into this life, so this should be easy.” If words could slap, these would’ve turned my face bright red. People are creatures of habit and as Jonathan Yabut puts it, we easily fall prey to habituation. Just because we take a shower every morning and the heater works fine every single day, doesn’t mean that it is what’s normal. What’s registered as normal in our brains gets taken for granted. We then get frustrated when the heater breaks, thinking that we are entitled to a hot shower every single day. And as a mere mortal, I admit, I have taken electricity, water, cellphone signal and internet connectivity for granted. Every. Damn. Day.

_{BEFORE. Another wooden post made the road impassable at first.}

Right now, I have to drive to the office to charge my electronics every day. I get cellphone signal and internet connectivity there too. The office is in an area where electricity lines were put up the earliest. We are still lucky. When the office closes on weekends, it’s back to our powerless situation again.

_{NOW. This is how the wooden post looks like right now. It's still a hazard, but the traffic has eased since this was cleared up.}

I am one with @chillwithshanna when she said “I am tired of being tired.” And maybe that is the reason why I couldn’t respond to everyone’s Christmas greeting. I am tired of fetching water from our relative’s place, I am tired of having to charge my power bank just so my family’s devices can be charged. I am tired of having to drive to the other city to catch up with my messages and do work. I am tired of having to put up with my family member’s frustration. And if there’s one thing I have learned from all of this it’s – to feel the exhaustion but never ever stay there. I have to snap out of this.

_{NOW. When our emergency lights' batteries have been drained, we resort to using my grandma's invention. Seeing her happy when she made this made me happy for a bit too.}

Even if it's hard at the moment, I want to look for the light in every situation that I am in. I hope I can start with this post. I hope I can look back at this and see the improvement that has been made now – to remind me that things will get better, albeit slowly.

I wish I’ll find it in me to say “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year” just before the calendar turns a new page.