From Being Rich & Entitled to Doing Humble House Chores

The best things about writing a blog is that all your thoughts are let out into the universe. I’m quite thankful I never get a response back because I’ll never know what to expect. It’s like taking out your emotions on a puppy. Only they look at you with concern eyes and don’t judge you like a human usually does.

So the internet is like that for me right now. A one-sided conversation. An outlet for words as it usually springs at me. And If I get lucky, I get to write it down. This is one instance.

I’ve haven’t been called by my usual workplace at Caloundra since the holidays ended and I was getting worried about the rent and all the other bills that I had.

A similar event happened last year before the holidays and the very mistake I did was wait. I waited my ass off, working at other personal artworks when I realized that the possibility of looking for something new was the way to go.

You see I’m an international student, waiting for the next semester to start which is in March.  I’m also a consistent worker, not used to just bumming around for weeks on end, endlessly lying on the couch and looking at my phone. No offense to those who do that, I’m just simply saying, I can’t sit still.

My gift of design and art needed to come one and be expressed. So what better way to do than to start looking for new opportunities online, via the student hub and facebook work groups?

But this is not a story about finding work as I am still doing that and waiting for a response from the offices I applied to. It’s a story about what I learned during my weeks of not working. The weeks were I was alone with my thoughts and how It helped me grow more maturely.

I could never forget the opening song of Orange is the New Black where Regina Specter sang, “Taking steps is easy, standing still is hard.” It very much felt that way.

Waiting for a phone call to go to work when weeks have past and still nothing.

The first thing that went off in my head was the idea I was not talented enough. That my kind of work wasn’t truly welcomed into the space it once flourished. So as these thoughts come and go, I got busy with my camera. A full schedule was ahead of me. I spent sometimes going to university and having photoshoots with a few friends, practicing taking angles when it comes to portraiture.

I also focused on hand-written typography. Making quotes from scratch I had different songs and books as my inspiration. I also had some inquiries to so do freelance design work which was quite nice.

Yet from time to time, the security of having a consistent weekly income always got to me.

There would be no challenge when asking money from my parents. I wanted to pave my own path in life. And I love the idea that I was making my own money. A dear friend told me it was pride. I realized afterward that I like to push myself too much and didn’t know when and how to ask for help.

It felt great to get out of my comfort zone, away from the house, from my parents, from people who know me. 2017 was a year of reinvention. It was a time when I read the book “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck” by Mark Manson and saw how an entitled brat I was back at home. It was so easy for me to ask for money and to earn money with the amount I got back then. I had my pillars built strong, high and mighty, that I forgot to look down and notice how much of a doof I was becoming.

And now, 2 weeks later and still not a word from my employer, I felt more into survival mode than ever. Away from home, from my loaded parents. From a house I don’t have to pay for. From a ready meal where maids would cook and serve three times a day. From my sisters who I can talk to when I am emotionally unstable.

I was away from all of that. I was OUT of my comfort zone. The one thing I have is my girl. We’ve supported each other since getting here. We also got a cat to help with homesickness. Yet despite this, I can’t shake the feeling that I am 100% responsible with my life from now on.

The thought and weight of it crushed me at one point. Especially during the weeks of no work. So aside from my artistic endeavors, I also focused most of my time in doing the chores. Living all my years with help around the house, I was not so great at jumping into cleaning and washing up. Like I said, I was entitled. I never used to help around at first. All I did was work so many hours and hope that the money I was earning for the house was enough responsibility.

Then the time came when my girl had to go on her placement for 3 full weeks. She would work on the weekends which made her VERY tired. So there was no doing of chores for her. I was on cleaning duty for the whole three weeks. Learning how to wash dishes, cleaning, doing the washing up, cooking and even driving. I was doing so much work that I honestly grew tired of feeling like the help. But the whole time I did it, I noticed how much faster I got when moving around the house. I got faster with doing the dishes and faster when it comes to the laundry. I even figured the right times of the day when It’s perfect for the wash to be done so the clothes will try without hassle. It was spotless work as I was only doing freelance online design jobs.

It was the unintended physical and life training I should have learned years before but never did. Well, until now.

Aside from new found skills, I guess the biggest, most profound learning experience for me was how much I’ve come to grow into my own skin. How brave I can be to set of driving into different places without the fear of talking to strangers. How one can find calm by meditation and running. How being away from it all did not matter as much as I thought it would. And how amazing it feels to take control and make decisions not only because you need food on the table, but because you’re happy to do the job. All this, I’ve learned to notice and appreciate. So I am quite excited for 2018 and what it has in store for me. It would be my last year of study too. Hopefully, the path I am building takes me into great, fulfilling, challenging and amazing directions.

NOTE: All images, hand-written type, and quote graphics were made by me. Inspired from the books I mentioned above and from a cartoon show at Netflix called, BoJack Horseman. You can see more on my Insta account: sainah.benz

Thanks for reading!

Healing Whole. Appreciating What Has Been & What Can Be.

Lost in my own world, my nose was always buried in scary novels, hitting buttons on the PlayStation controller, doing hand written short novels on a notebook or buried in tons of paper, sketching anime for hours.

I’ve never built relationships when I was younger and discovered how little social skills I had when high school came.

I was an irritant. Making sure people heard me when I speak, laughing at the wrong things and saying inappropriate topics at the worst of times. I envy most of my friends for being “alright”. There was no formula to a perfect self when growing up, only experiences and how one was brought up.

Yearning for company and companionship, pleasing everyone seemed like my soul’s purpose. My years after college were the worst as I buried myself in bad drinking habits, wrong decisions, heartaches, lost friendships and a pile of insecurities. I kept looking for anything genuinely real and realized how masked I was and for how long the game of pretend was going on.

Then I’ve met new people, those who saw me in my worst and my best and stayed despite all the bullshit. It was amazing and I realized how living for other people is like breathing clean air. I looked back at old friends and family and realized I’ve never lost them. It was I who walked away.

Now, when I run every morning, I look at faces, smile and build a 1-second warmth of human connection. I call restaurant employees by their first name as long as it shows on their name tag. I say thank you often and let somone know ahead when plans change. I talk to strangers and converse randomly when my attention calls for it. It is rare and quite scary to do that in the Philippines so most people protect themselves. There is always a right place for all of this. But I keep in mind to be kind.

Posting feel good messages, sharing thoughts and ideas and listening to someone, helping family, laughing with friends, scheduling dates, crying when sad, talking to someone I trust, making time for hobbies and building new honest and real relationships. All these were the most basic human actions one can feel good from, yet I had ignored all this as chased something I thought would make me whole.

My mistakes were blessings that pushed me to find what’s not just the good in me, but also the good in others. And now seeing the good in life as well. When you start healing your core, you heal holistically and the people around you feels it. Better yet, they grasp the happiness and share it with others.

My simple advice? Love. Make yourself smile. Make others smile in little ways. Treasure time. Eat right. Get a pet. Exercise more. Read nice things. Feel nice things. Go places. Don’t spend all in one place. Hug someone. Allow to be hugged. Live.

All shots were taken by me using different lomography cameras and we’re collected over the years. Thanks for reading!

Remembering my dear neice who had passed away. Thank you for teaching us how to live better and how death is part of it all. We love you.