What happened in 10 days

I am not yet back to normal.

This is just me trying not to think that I do need more than four hours of sleep. Once this week, I was up for 46 hours straight, fell asleep as soon as my head hit the sofa’s headrest, then snored like there was no tomorrow.

This is just me trying not to feel the physical fatigue due to lifting of luggages after luggages, boxes after boxes and bags after bags of conference knick-knacks. We practically transferred the whole office operation to a camp in the middle of nowhere.

This is just me trying not to dwell on the tragedy that befell my phone. Whoever has it now hopefully is happy and has enough sense to listen to the music I had in its player.

This is just me trying to say sorry to you. My mind was full of things to do everyday, problems to troubleshoot, people to talk to and materials to prepare. My mom, worried about why I didn’t go online or called her, even asked my brother to ask my whereabouts.

This is just me trying to remind myself that I’ll somehow see them again: my “nanay” whom I have only seen twice for the past 10 years, my other “nanay” who’s the classic mamench (as what we call the babaeng bakla) and the veterans who’ve been there since I became an activist.

This is just me trying to shake off the longing to go back to the Philippines and continue what I’m doing. I understand why I am here. I accept the reality of what should be. But it doesn’t stop me from still thinking of going home.

This is just me trying to again get used to the feeling of loss as old and new friends and comrades start to go back to their own countries to continue the work we are all passionate with. I’m holding on to the words a non-Filipino friend I met in another conference said years before: “there is no goodbye in solidarity, only see you again.”

This is just me trying not yet to digest the tons of new information that come out when one gathers hundreds of grassroots and grassroots-based organizations in one place to discuss and debate. Time will come that I’ll review what the situation of migration in the world is, or how globalization impacts the African people, or how the Latinos do in the US.

This is just me trying to not yet project the post-conference matters I have to settle. They have to be faced but maybe next week.

This is just me thinking that it has been 10 days of tiring but fulfilling work. The hard work paid off not only in the appreciation of the delegates for the hosting done but more importantly, in the fact that the objectives have been met ten-fold.

This is just me saying that I shall be blogging about the people I met, the things I learned and the experiences I had. Somehow I will for what just happened the past days are worth writing about and sharing with others.

I am not yet back to normal. But then again, as reaffirmed by the conferences we organized, the world is not normal and the life I have chosen can never be defined as such.