It is not easy.

In this picture I’m lulling a baby to sleep with one arm while a pump is attached to my breast to catch let down milk. Bottles of milk, lampin (cloth diaper) and baby wipes are occupying as much space on my table as unfinished inventories, requisitions and notepads. This is the nth time that my baby tries to sleep in my arms today. She couldn’t find her position and couldn’t sleep long so she keeps on crying. The telephone keeps on ringing, so does the doorbell the doorbell. The sound of my keyboard wakes her up. The voices of my co-workers, the printer, my coughing, the scooters outside. I pick her up whenever she cries, dance with her, feed her, cradle her, everything just so she’ll stop crying and won’t annoy my colleagues or God forbids that the person on the other side of telephone asks why a baby is crying in the background. And when she doesn’t stop, well, there’s always the breasts.

I don’t know what my colleagues think of it. I don’t even dare ask. Although I have an agreement with my boss, I know I am not delivering as much as I used to. In moments like this, I am very grateful to work for a company that allows me to work and be with my child at the same time. And to have colleagues who are very understanding. I won’t exchange this for a bigger paycheck or a higher position.

February 2, 2017

Thirty six weeks and six days. My dearest T, tomorrow you will be a full term baby. From tomorrow on, you can come out to this world anytime you want.

Unfortunately my love, this is not the kind of world that Mama has envisioned for you. Yes, you will be born in the Netherlands, your Papa’s motherland, a country of privilege, both in money and human rights. Here you will be protected, not only by your immediate family but by the Dutch government as well. Your well-being will be taken care of until the day you’d be required to pay taxes.

But Mama worries about your future. The world is getting uglier. In the Philippines, where Mama was born, almost 8000 people had been killed by a populist leader’s thirst for blood and power. In the USA, hatred for immigrants, bigotry, misogyny and greed are tearing their nation apart, fueled by a fascist child they elected for president. In Syria, people and children, even babies, are being bombed and murdered everyday. And while trying to escape the hell they’re trapped in, they’re drowning in the Mediterranean Sea while our politicians here in Europe remain reluctant about their fate.

What a cruel world, dear child! This is not the kind of world that Mama wants you to grow up in. But there is no perfect place. I just hope that I’ll be able to raise you well enough that these cruelty will not make you disillusioned. Instead I hope this makes you a good person. Someone who won’t be apathetic, someone who’ll act against injustice, even in the smallest ways.

Whenever I echo my fears to him, your Papa always tells me that you will save the world. Your Papa is a man of science and a very good person. Mama is fiery and can sometimes be too emotional. But Mama is also brave when it comes to things she believes in. I hope you’ll take the best from us. We hope to nurture you with our better traits but we know that you will create your own self, outside of who we are. And we want you to.

You will save the world my dear child. You, together with all the children of your generation, will make this world a much better place if Mama and her generation wouldn’t completely destroy it first.

I am waiting for your arrival with a full heart.

Love,
Mama

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Is that possible? Could you be living all 23 years of your life without exactly knowing who you are, what you want in your life, where you are heading? In my case, the proverbial question popped out while I was at the end of a press junket in La Union.

On the last day of a surfing coverage, I decided to take the bus further north, all the way to Pagudpud – alone, running out of money (and clean clothes) and with a very heavy heart.

I was excited to go on maternity leave and finally have the time to sit at home, be lazy the entire day and still get paid. But I lasted only two days. Boredom and frustration forced me out of the house.

“Time. I didn’t have time.”

That was my excuse whenever I cancel my plans of visiting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. A real shame because I’ve missed several interesting exhibitions particularly Van Bosch tot Bruegel in 2015. Last week, I was finally able to go.

Located in Museumpark, Rotterdam’s art “centre”, Boijmans Van Beuningen is small compared to the more popular museums in Amsterdam like Van Gogh and Rijksmuseum.