happy path

Food as Love Language

I once imagined a sitcom where each episode was built around one of my mother’s dishes. Every menu item its own story arc. Maybe I was seeing everything through rose-colored glasses—but over the years, it was Mama’s food that raised us. It taught us to share, anchored us to home, and quietly kept us together as we left the nest one by one.

I used to think it was the recipes themselves—the traditions, the practical skills passed down—that compelled me to hover and collect details whenever Mama worked her magic spatula in my kitchen. But when she left yesterday, it created a sudden, gaping hole. I found myself scavenging leftovers from the fridge, realizing that the “end of days” had returned us to meals that were okay na yan—serviceable, but devoid of tenderness.

Maybe the low mood is temporary. It’s winter, after all, and the week after Christmas carries its own emotional fog. Still, I wondered: what if the joy lasted longer? How could I capture it? Through daily recipes, perhaps—food and life juxtaposed, woven together in a kind of magical realism, à la Isabel Allende, where meals carry memory, grief, and warmth all at once.

Twinning or Intertwin-ing

My mother and I are alike—and not. She has endless patience and built a full, bustling life around family. I, on the other hand, have no desire to manage a family size of that scale. I don’t dream of having a big household and multitask times the number of humans, I don't think I am able to process the world this way.

Maybe it’s not just a personal preference, but a generational fluke. As a millennial, my point of view on normalcy as being unstable has kept me in fight or flight mode. We were so used to our DINK stage (Double Income, No Kids) and the freedom it brings—and I’m at peace with that.

As Filipino-American, fitting neatly into any mold after migrating to the US is not a walk in the park for me, which re-reouted me away from a cookie-cutter life.

The Past Still Has a Chokehold

Old stories resurfaced during our Christmas cooking marathons. Some still sting. We teased our youngest sibling and spun endless “what if” versions of our lives: What if we had a filthy rich dad? What if there were fewer than six kids? What if I were an only child—would I have been unbearably lonely?

That’s a story for another time.

By the final day of the trip, the stress of holiday hosting caught up with me. Beneath the noise and laughter, I felt a quiet loneliness settle in.

Bittersweet and Hopeful Ending

Eventually, dreamland had to conclude.

We had a wonderful time. Mom probably enjoyed one of her best Christmases—we shopped our hearts away and her favorite winter snow just kept coming. It felt excessive, almost theatrical, as if 2025 needed yet another reason to be strange.

I know having my mom for a short time will be part of my core memory. I keep returning to the warmth of having her around. The way her presence lingered—just like the hot meals she cooked on cold December days.

I know for sure when anxiety hits. It’s when I start feeling the worst about myself, or about folks that I work with. Yet if it was a better day, I know they are part of my tribe. I have a tale of two me’s when I’m anxious. I know It’s not gonna be my week.

Coming off from a high and celebration of my recent wins at work, I am reeling from the overworked soulless nature of my role in tech. Although my challenges now are more interesting and less boring - it came with a price. What comes with working with smart folks, is learning how to self-advocate for boundaries. None of it has worked, as I’m still feeling like I’m close to crashing any day now. What it feels like? I show up for everyone at my 100%, and afterwards, I spend hours sitting in the quiet of my disgruntled self. 

I may be disgusted about the unfair dynamics of all things - I hate everyone at the moment. And that’s with the security of me knowing this is my circle of trust. Most days, I wanna beat the system and get into questioning processes, but I’m too beat-up, the system is eating me alive. I also happen to run a nonprofit startup on top of it all. I was spent.

It doesn’t help my socially supplied energy, that interacting with actual humans IRL is now removed from my daily routine. What with the consequence of remote work where we now have access to anyone as if they are a 24/hour convenience store, vice versa.

There are always many casualties to an unhealthy mind. Words said that you couldn’t take back, showing up at my worst low-energy vibe, multitasked-mind with no focus. The list goes on.

I spiral even more thinking about this faux-world we all have opted in for the sake of convenience, productivity to strive for that quality of life we all shoot for prior to accepting that this is what I dreamed about 5 years ago. It might as well make sense.

Anyhoo, back to my anxiety-driven week. 

My feeling so down, I cant put my finger on the “why” of how this mind works. I doubt myself plenty. I could think about quitting 100% of the time. Rage-typing by way of Carrie Bradshaw where the camera finds me zooming in on a tree-branched frame of a window, in small town Connecticut. 

I feel so ugly inside, I go through quick generalizations of self-sabotage, and this unhealthiness translates to those close to me, those who typically have access to me, I also end up criticizing - no holds bar - myself, why I’m here and what’s next.

I wonder most days if my husband got us a dog for emotional support during the pandemic. My dog, which I had lovingly named Yoko, with not much thought put into planning as to why, she in her adorable quirks, has saved me many times more than I can count. She is that visible reminder of why life is meant to be simple, and play is all you need before anything else. There’s something about those little moments for sure that makes me forget matters of consequence.

I am going with stream of consciousness writing here. I wanna call out the naysayers in my brain that tell me, why is it that I feel so disrespected at work, when I have made such great strides from my last week’s joyful evaluation with my manager? That got so serious so fast, but I think I get very competitive when I’m anxious - I gaslight myself as not being worthy of the good that come my way, and often feel like my being me, isn’t enough.

I wonder how, if this relates back to inviting discomfort to your life and managing that? A quote from Peloton fitness guru, Robin Arzon, where she speaks about inviting discomfort to your life as an art. 

It’s a halloween night of all nights. I’ve broken through my writer’s block. As I was waiting to hand out candies, I got a text from a friend who snapped a pic of a book that I’d recommended to her: “Hood Feminism” by Mikki Kendall. I don’t even remember seeing this book physically myself. For many years I’ve only listened to books - in the car while driving, while working on my laptop, or on my iPad, as a way to lull me to sleep. It was the only way I could do it. My friend asked me why I loved this book. What stuck to me was this - If women experienced food insecurity, women often becomes the demographic that gets hit the worst. The tone was introspective of personal encounters yet pinned relevant research to solidify the message. 

So ecstatic for my friend to be able to pick this book up.