Written Contusions

With a single red headed match,
I ignite,
burst into flame,
smolder,
burn,
flicker,
die out,
turn to ashes,
fly into the wind,
and settle
on your forehead.

It's ironic that it only takes a single red headed match
for you to notice my presence,
yet, brush me off
back into the wind.

Where I live, we still believe the saying that says, "Ang sakit ng kalingkingan ay sakit ng buong katawan." That is a Tagalog saying that is roughly translated as, "The pain of your little finger is the pain of your entire body." I would attest to that as my ingrown toe nail on my bit toe throbbed painfully all day yesterday until early this morning.

It started yesterday, when I woke up. I started feeling that my toe nails were already dirty, so I decided to trim them a little bit. Knowing that it has been a chronic problem, I took careful attention when I was trimming my big toe's nail on my right foot. I stood at the threshold of our kitchen's back door because the early morning light illuminated the space better than the living room. I trimmed away, not knowing that I was in for a big surprise later on in the day.

The day went on lazily. My family and I just watched television and some DVD's. I also played Warcraft on my PC. I slept in the afternoon and continued watching TV; all of these activities didn't require that I use my feet much.

However, when the evening came, I felt a throbbing on my right big toe. Thinking that it will subside, I decided to ignore it until I banged my foot on the floor. It hurt like being impaled by a swordfish! I was still not paying attention to the pain. I just tried to numb my foot with some topical analgesic, which did the trick for a few hours.

I was already asleep when suddenly, a sharp jolt of pain woke me up. I banged my toe again; this time, it was on the wall on the feet side of my bed. I wasn't able to get much sleep because of that. I think, I was able to finally sleep at around 3:30AM.

When my mother woke me up, the pain was still sharp, and it felt more raw than ever. I felt like my toe was being eaten by worms from the inside out. That was when I decided to really go in deep and get the toe nail that was killing me.

I tried to remove it by using hook-shaped nail cutters, but it didn't work. Then, I hastily borrowed my aunt's nail cleaning set and got out her nippers. With the nipper's help, I was able to remove most of the nail on the side of my toe but the part of my nail that was slicing on my flesh was still embedded deep in my skin. Each snip that I tried seemed to feel like flowers, made of pain, blossom from my foot. I don't know why that is how I describe it, but that's really how it felt - red roses 6 inches wide, blossoming from one end of a field, moving like a field of barley being bent by the passing wind, causing pain and agony.

That was when I asked my aunt to intervene. I'd like to detail more about her, but to cut that part short, she wasn't able to help. Each time she tried fishing out the sharp shard of toe nail, the pain intensified, causing me to feel nauseous, dizzy, faint, and sore all at the same time.

Out of sheer desperation, I decided to clench my teeth and do it by myself. I'd rather face the pain just for a while than to spend the rest of the day agonizing over a tedious and persistent feeling. I decide to nip, pull, cut, push and slice my way into the nail and skin of my toe to get the ingrown piece out. After a while, seeing that my flesh has been macerated by my attempt, I gnashed my molars for a final tug.

All of a sudden, the pinnacle of pain was know to me, and I was writhing. A few minutes passed and all of it slowly drew away, like the ebbing of a flood. I am just thankful that the pain was gone. That's when I realized that the old saying was true. Hopefully, this is the last time that I have to endure this suffering. Thank you, God, for pedicurists.

I’ve always wondered why my blog entries seemed to only include mental events, which doesn’t always sound happy. Last week, it came to me in an epiphany that I have been constantly living in the future. That realization seems to explain why my blog entries are too abstract and gloomy. Thinking ahead, anticipating, and creating contingency measures seem to place me too far ahead in the future to enjoy the present.

I’ve always thought ahead into the future. To me, it is a crime to not think of repercussions, consequences, and backlashes that rob me of my happiness. Just last week, I asked my friend, Kate, if she can go with me and talk about this realization. As we were walking around in the mall, looking for a place to eat lunch in, she asked me if we could eat at Wendy’s.

I said, “Sure! I think I already know what I will order.” At that point, I was thinking of the Big-a-Boom Combo 1 that they served at Wendy’s. While walking towards the fast food restaurant, I was already looking forward to eating spaghetti enough for two people, a burger, and a large iced tea. At the counter, we ordered, waited for our food, and sat down in a corner.

I was half-way through my spaghetti when I realized that it wasn’t as delicious as I have imagined it to be. The meal that I was eating was a glaring contrast to the savory sauce, salty cheese, and juicy bits of meat that made me agree to eat there in the first place. I was, again, too ahead of myself to enjoy what I was eating. I have already enjoyed eating mentally, which made the real meal pale in comparison.

Likewise, it seems that the fun of weekends is overshadowed by my pessimistic anticipation of the coming Monday. I catch myself saying things like, “Don’t bother going out. You’ll need all your strength when the week starts.” I said that monologue about 3 months ago. Another friend, Donna, texted me saying that she was back from the US with her baby. She was suggesting that we should hang out and catch up on each other’s lives. I received her message at around 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Thinking that I will get tired and lose sleep by going out made me pass up on a bonding moment with a friend. It was a Saturday when she sent the invite. I could’ve stayed up late, and I could’ve done my resting that Sunday. Instead, I cooped myself up in the house just because I was expecting a tiring week ahead.

Aside from anticipation, I also tire myself with thinking about contingency plans. I always say to myself and to others that it’s always good to have back-up plans. It keeps me safe from what I fearfully anticipate such as heart-ache, physical injury, and money problems.

Writing this reflection reminds me of the time I worked myself to the point of exhaustion. Because we were falling behind with our quota, the company that I work for rolled out an incentive scheme to encourage my department to review more essays. As a carrot to a horse, we were baited with prize money for completing the most essays within a week. We were supposed to review 4000 essays by the end of February. However, it was already the third week of the month, and we still weren’t on the half-way mark.

I decided to go on over-drive and reviewed essays from morning ‘til late in the evening. I was running a lot of schemes in my head. “I should review 14 essays today. With that number, it will mean one grand in my pay slip,” I thought to myself. “On Saturday, you should review another 18 essays – by hook or by crook! “ I even joked. During that Saturday, I was able to complete 20 essays. That number was my all-time high. I was ecstatic that night. “I’ll win the incentive,” I said confidently.

True to the word, I did win the incentive, but I was blindsided by what I’d call as burn-out. The next week, when we got the prize money, I was sick with sore throat, and I was not able to muster enough will-power to keep my performance up. Just thinking of doing more essay reviews made me feel tired. It seemed that my back-up plan back-fired on me, causing my next pay slip to dip right below my budget.

Looking back, it seems that concentrating on the future, with intent to be happy, never really helped me achieve that goal. Thinking ahead, anticipating, and devising contingency plans seemed to have robbed me of my present happiness. It even robbed me of full blog entries that could’ve interested readers. Receiving this epiphany now seems to be really timely. I’ve realized that I’ll never be able to fully foresee the future, so I might as well enjoy the present. I’d rather be happy than intend to be happy.