Can be a punishment or positive reinforcement.

I attended a workshop for Project Managers yesterday by Vicente Romano III. It was food for the weary soul.

In my 5 or so years of managing projects, I sometimes experience periods of dark night of the soul — like the very life of me has been snuffed out. I wonder if I made the right choice (but was there any other option?), my profession chose me — meaning, my bosses think that I can herd people and make systems out of thin air so I did. Didn’t I try for Operations and HR? Is it my inability to ad lib that prevented me from a career in Client Management?

I never wanted a career in HR and that’s to be brutally frank. I find HR work boring, repetitive and limiting but of course, when I hear about the challenges that my HR-practitioner friend encounters, I feel envious. She does her work with so much oomph and style. But me — I just do not see meaning in endless string of candidate screening (I currently do a lot of recruitment and selection), disciplinary actions, performance appraisals and compensation structure, and the messy labor relations. These are tasks that can be done with 3 quarters of the human brain in hibernation. And still, I dream for a regular 8 to 5 job.

What about clinical practice? I wanted to try that but at some point, I thought that I won’t be able to survive interacting with no one but crazy folks… I mean, the world outside the mental ward is weird enough, won’t you agree? Also, getting into psychotherapy or psychiatry requires more studies and it means money and hey, it’s a scarcity, same with rational people.

So, here I am, back at my forlorn desk littered with documents for compliance to this and that, report for this and that and my equally forlorn looking laptop. I am trying to find the art and beauty in my profession but sometimes the chasm is too wide, I cannot bring myself to bridge the gap. Tse! I swear, Enteng taught me a lot of things during the seminar - things that I already knew (from reading PM books and from experience), tools that I never knew existed and most importantly, I now see MSProject as my friend and not the very bane of my existence. Amen.

Jude: Mama, let’s go home early and drop by the flower shop so you can pick your flowers, ha?

Me to myself: Yeah, right. That sounds so romantic and exciting like picking food bits stuck in your rusty brackets.

Me out loud: I’ve told you, I do not want flowers. So forget it.

I shared the story to my officemates and they all had a good laugh. “Was he joking?” Not in the least. Shall I say, Jude is one of those few people who, when they try to do something romantic, the result is either catastrophic or comic. I think the only thing he is good at is writing me love letters. His letters were always so candid and well, they melted my brains from so much lust and love. No kidding.

9:30 PM - Thirty minutes after I got home, he arrived. I was busy giving instructions to a coworker on night shift. He brought me a bottle of Merlot and chocolates and then complained the rest of the evening of how long the queues were to the confectioneries and how difficult it was to get a cab. He ate half of the chocolate. It was 85% cocoa. I had my fill of alcohol (a few sips) and played the grateful mistress role the rest of the evening. The kids went hyper from all the serotonin boost.

“Di ko Irdy, Tandino ko,” thus, proclaim the pudgy lord of our little cottage. He said it with so much importance that I could not help but smile.

I crooned “Come here, my little baby Santino,” to which, he replied, “No, di ko baby. Tandino ko.”

“Right.” And I am left to wonder: where did my little cherubim go? The baby, whose dimple on the right cheek appears every time he is up to something mischievous. He is now replaced with a Halfling with a temper of a full grown ogre.

Last night, I caught him hanging by the staircase. I asked him calmly to come down because “You might fall.” He answered, “wala na ka Irdy.”

It is difficult to be a parent. It is difficult to appear composed when your heart somersaults inside your ribcage. It is difficult to find meaning in the endless bargaining and NOs and standoffs. Sometimes, I ask myself, am I picking the right battle here? I remembered the time when he was so fascinated by the coffee maker and refused to get down from the chair. I told him incessantly that it is HOT. He took the other meaning and planted his finger on the plate. Oh the meltdown that ensued only to be replaced with a jubilant “Wala na!” after 10 seconds of ice bath. And as a parent, you could not help smile at the little beaming tear-streaked face.

He is an easy baby… yeah, sometimes but aren’t they all like that? Then I read somewhere that our kids are given to us on purpose because somehow the universe conspires to match the parents’ temperament with their children. It is naive, yes but also comforting to think that Fate has brought us together - because somehow it is willed that our children’s needs will be filled by us; that we were chosen among many couples to foster them because we are made of stuff that can withstand the trials of raising them. Honestly, I find strength in that crap.

Valentine’s Day is near and I have to confess —

lately, I have been having lusty thoughts of you doing unmentionable, wicked things to me. I am not even ashamed to admit this and I am not surprised if you would have this urge to tie me up, take me over to your knees and spank my plump behind red.