Four years in Sydney

It's been more than a year since my last life update. 

It's also just a few weeks before my birthday and my 4th Sydneyversary. Perfect time to write down as much as I can of what I remember that's happened this whole time since the big move. Because I know I'm going to look back at this period of my life, laugh, and say, damn. What a very strange time. 

I can hardly believe it's almost been four years. I was just thinking a while ago how surreal it feels, that if I had asked myself a decade ago if I had even an inkling of anything that I have or am now (DOUBTFUL), not realising that on my last update here I was thinking the exact same thing.

Life has been good, not gonna lie. I can't think of anything original to say at this point.

My friend Krissy recently wrote a milestone blog about her life the past few years and I felt myself tearing up a little bit. When I left Manila, it didn't occur to me that it wouldn't stay the same. It seems so obvious now but you're not really conscious of this until something happens. When Nio died, that was the first time I felt the earth-shattering reality: that, as I had moved on, so did everyone back home. They weren't frozen in time; their lives continued like mine did, and my loved ones experienced life without me and vice versa. We weren't there for each other's big life wins, the painful losses. We experienced them far away from each other, most of it in the middle of lockdowns, and many of us made choices that none of us thought we'd ever have to make.

So here I go, in my attempt to chronicle the highlights and turning points these past few years that I've been away from home. Because I don't ever want them to fade away in time, and I need to be reminded of the lessons I've learned and the grace that I've received from unexpected people and places that brought me to where I am today.

*** Fragments ***

2019

I started this year accompanying my mom to her medical appointments, surgery, and treatments. We found out as a family that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer in December, and it was a shock as no one in the family had any history of cancer that we know of.

I had just gotten back together with B, and were planning to move to Sydney while I was doing my uni. I meant to file my resignation about a month before the move (funnily enough, it would've been around May that year, too). But when I had to go and fix something again at work while I was in St Luke's hospital with my mom, I remember thinking - this isn't right. They can't be calling me like this over some trivial thing they could probably handle without me if they had any empathy. For the nth time. And so I drafted my resignation letter that afternoon beside my mom's hospital bed and sent it the next morning. It was February.

I left the Philippines on the 25th of June of this year and haven't been back since. 

When I first arrived in Meadowbank, I found it eerily quiet at night. I wasn't used to the silence of Sydney's inner suburbs, coming from Makati. And even in my childhood home in Las Piñas where it was a gated community, there was always something abuzz. 

I got used to it.

In July, I went to Hawaii with B for his childhood friend's wedding. We were happy then, as we always were on vacation and away from the daily grind. I was back in Sydney in time for the start of the semester.

I felt a bit in over my head when I started my masters. It was a Science degree, and I hadn't been in uni for a long time. But eventually, I found myself enjoying it. I had a pretty good average, and I nearly had a Distinction WAM if I had taken deadlines more seriously (or at least for one or two assignments).

When spring broke, I remember feeling that I had never felt lonelier in my entire life. It wasn't just being in a new country or away from every support system I'd ever known growing up. The relationship was rocky.

My finances, among other things, took a toll on my relationship, too. B paid all the rent, and though he didn't demand anything, I felt it was my duty to keep house in the very least. I would drop everything once he came home, made sure dinner was cooked, also while job hunting and doing my studies. Everything hinged on him being comfortable.

My first job in Sydney was a Christmas casual for Super Dry. I've always been very good at interviews, and I knew I was gonna get the job. I had no retail experience whatsoever. It paid $25/hour. I was a bit shy, didn't know how to gel with others, I just felt like most of them didn't like me nor think that I was a good worker even though I was trying my damndest. I was really hoping I would get to stay on after the Christmas season, but that didn't happen.

My mom came over to visit in December even though I didn't want her to because I didn't know much about Sydney then, I hadn't really settled in. I had a student's budget, didn't really go out, I couldn't find work until recently, I was running out of money and couldn't pay my credit card bills fast enough. The bushfires were happening and I couldn't take time off work, I didn't know how I was gonna show my mom around.

I stayed with her at her hotel for the length of her stay. One night, near the end of it, I broke down and confessed about my finances, with a lot of guilt and shame. She saw me stress about ticking off the wrong tax information on my employee documents and didn't know why it was such a big deal when I was going to get all that money back at the end of the financial year anyway. So then I had to tell her the truth, and why I needed that money desperately at the time. 

If she hadn't paid off my credit card debt at that time, I think I would have taken me longer to heal and pull myself back together. I think my mom saved my life. Or my sanity, at least.

B had dinner with my mom and I, and it could've been a bit warmer. At the end of that evening, while I was walking him out, I impulsively asked if he had missed me all this time I had been away from our apartment. He said something to the effect of, "Not really." I knew the answer already, and it had been one of those times with him where I had just put myself out there like a gaping wound, knowing I wasn't going to get any balm. But I needed to hear it. It was the proverbial beginning of an end.

2020

My uni offered three sessions of free counselling. After the third session, you start paying for the sessions - unless your counsellor thought you needed more help.

Mine decided I needed way more than three sessions on my first visit.

I had a feeling I was depressed - I mean, I was crying some nights and stifling the noise - but I'd been on survival mode for so long that getting out of it wasn't a priority. I certainly wasn't in the position to afford any of it, I was thanking my lucky socks that Australian universities even offered free counselling or I wouldn't have bothered getting any mental health care. Apparently, with a GP referral my overseas student insurance also covered up to 10 sessions of therapy, so I was set. It was the only path forward that I could see, everything else seemed like a dead end. Even if it did nothing, at least I tried.

I had started volunteering at a vegan resto that had a pay-what-you-want (even nothing) system a few months prior. It was the only thing that made me feel somewhat better. Part of it was because it helped me feel productive and I got some hospitality training, and another because I was always getting attention there. I didn't realise that I had been starving for validation because I don't remember dealing with real insecurity before. And now I was experiencing it for what may have been the first time in my life, well into my 30s.

For whatever reason, people here, men and women, found me beautiful. You could see it in their faces and their eyes that would follow me around as if dazzled. It was different from the attention that used to irk me back in the Philippines, with stares clinging to you like boogers. Never mind that I felt very much unlovable, or that I started wearing my grays because I couldn't afford hair colouring anymore - in those moments, I was seen.

In that first year, I thought it was funny how friendly people in Sydney were. I would be eating alone, or waiting at the bus stop, and people would go over to me and say, "Hello, you're gorgeous, have a nice day!" or "You look so happy I just wanted to say hi". I didn't know what to make of it because even elderly ladies would do it. The men who did it didn't seem creepy, either. It would often be accompanied by a shy smile, an admiring gaze, and a polite nod or a cheerful wave. They didn't ask anything from me, they just wanted me to have a compliment and a nice day. Later on, I'd been told this wasn't everyday Sydneysider behaviour - but maybe there was something in my vibe in those days that made people reach out. I certainly haven't been experiencing this lately!

Ironically, the one person I couldn't charm or even interest was my live-in partner. The only times he would pay attention was when he thought somebody else was, and it felt slightly accusing, as if it were my fault. One day, I had brought home a pack of pandesal that one of the regulars gave me, after finding out that I was Filipino. He was an old Argentinian, and although he often complimented me, it felt friendly. Maybe I was simply naive and lonely, and encountering warmth and attention from anyone felt friendly to me. I thought nothing of it but when I came home with that pandesal, B grilled me about it so much and I ended up feeling so badly about it and ashamed that I had accepted what I thought was a harmless gift.

I don't remember what I did to it. I had gotten other gifts besides that. A bouquet of flowers, a love letter. I threw most of them in the trash so that I wouldn't have to take them home. The one exception was a sack of flour that was from one of the doctors at the clinic I worked at (more on this later), who thought to give me one after I mentioned how it was often out of stock (like toilet paper!) at the groceries. I could tell the practice manager, who, of course, didn't like me, was a little puzzled as to why he would (I mean, me too, to be honest - but it was very innocent, he seemed like a jovial family man who maybe just shared domestic joys). B often made great pizza and he was just happy for the gift of premium flour.

I avoided naming any male friends that I hung out with to avoid conflict. I remember one time B reacted to the mention of a "Sam" and I had to explain it was actually a Samantha, who was one of the volunteer leads.

Looking back on it now, I can't believe I became one of those.

Worse, I felt beneath him, that I didn't deserve him. And that he could see through the sham that I was and that wasn't as great as I thought myself to be. I don't recall any gaslighting - if anything, he always thought I had imposter syndrome. But I just remember feeling so small and simply not an equal. I was doing well in uni, but I got another job as a medical receptionist and I was struggling with it. Other than academics, everything in my life was feeling like a failure. I had never been not competent, even my worst had never really been bad before. I felt like I was constantly trying not to drown.

We broke up in February. I'm hazy on the details on how it happened, but I vaguely remember him kicking the clothes hamper and saying something like, "If you're so miserable then we should just end this!" 

My silence was my agreement. We had come to this point a few times before, and I hadn't wanted it to end. But I distinctly remember that moment, being numb and passive, seeing him enraged but not feeling panicked about it for the first time. I felt strangely detached, yet not indifferent, as if I were watching this unfold and happen to someone else and I was merely an observer. Inwardly, I asked myself - do I want to still feel like this when I'm 40? 

That decided it for me.

He was having second thoughts the following days, but I knew there was no going back for me. It was the right thing to do. He was kind enough not to throw me out. I moved into the spare bedroom and slept on an air mattress.

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I got a second job at a vegan restaurant in Newtown. I was liking this a lot better, and I was enjoying being a waitress. I thought, finally, things are looking up, I can do this.

Even the dynamic in the apartment shifted. It felt nicer and peaceful. They were some of the best days I had ever spent in that apartment. Not being together yet hanging out with B was relaxed and chill. We were better than we ever were. But I didn't want to be lulled into a false sense of security. I knew that it was a tentative and temporary truce and I had to keep my focus. I needed to save up and move out.

Then COVID-19 hit.

I lost that waitressing job, and though I hated being a medical receptionist, I counted myself among the very fortunate as clincs obviously remained open and I was considered a frontliner. 

But like at Super Dry, I could feel that most of the girls didn't like me. The head nurse didn't. One of the doctors sometimes treated me like I were an idiot for not knowing what she thought were common sense billings and procedures (they weren't). Sometimes it got catty. Most of the other receptionists were friends outside of work, too. This didn't bother me as much as it did feeling stupid and terrible at my job. Or maybe it was just that most of them made me feel that way - because when we got a new hire and she was doing similar mistakes I'd done in the beginning, they would just laugh it off, which was a far cry from what I got when I did them.  Whatever the case, feeling like I was the weakest link or have somebody clean up after my "mistakes" was the absolute pits.

I had to answer phone calls non-stop and I struggled deciphering English in an Aussie accent and getting DOBs (date of birth) to look for medical records in a completely different format than what I'd been used to for over 35 years. I had to figure out my way around the national healthcare system, something I'd never even experienced as a regular tax-paying citizen in the Philippines, and do it quickly. I was slow as fuck, and I was still often sleeping badly, which obviously didn't help my cognitive abilities. Sometimes I could feel the irritation from the other end of the line, and it was all I could do not to break down. One of the other receptionists, T, did that quite often, and she quit a few months after. I was sad about it because she was one of the only two girls in there that I liked. I doubt either of us were in the receptionists' real group chat. I know that new girl certainly was, so there was definitely a clique happening.

I knew I'm never going to take those who do admin work for granted ever again after this experience.

I stuck with it because I could finally afford doing groceries for the household, even though I still couldn't pay rent.

Mid-year, B had to fly back to Perth with a special exemption, to be with his mum for her final moments. I had the apartment to myself for a while.

It was tough for him, having just broken up with me, and now, losing his mum to cancer.

I had gotten a new placement from the medical centre as I was a casual hire, so I often filled in for other receptionists in other locations whenever it was needed. This one in Potts Point was brand new, though, so they required help for a month or so. I was hoping one of these other clinics would request for me to be permanently based there, because I didn't want to go back to the CBD location. All the other clincs were preferable to CBD's and its clique.

We were all new in that clinic. The nurse, the doctor (new owner, but not new to practice), I think even the physiotherapist. We were all sort of learning the ropes together and just trying to find our bearings. But that clinic had opened in the middle of lockdown, and Potts Point was considered a hotspot then, so foot traffic was extremely slow. I often had time to do my assignments while at work.

It was quiet, but it was a welcome break.

Business slowly picked up as the restrictions eased. People often mistook me for the doctor's wife for some reason (maybe because we were both Asian?). When this stint ended, I expected to be back at the CBD location. But after three weeks of not getting any shifts from the practice manager who didn't particularly like me, I decided to quit for good. 

I did have another job waitressing at a cafe near my uni, but I had just moved to an all-female sharehouse in Croydon to be closer to the CBD when this happened. Luckily, I could still afford the rent after getting my tax rebate and $2000 as COVID aid for international students in my university.

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I didn't know it then but I was starting to come alive after gaining back some sense of control in my life. I was picking up the pieces.

I was on my own now. My housemates barely talked to me (one of them was a bit friendly but she moved out soon after I arrived), it was like living with ghosts. But I barely noticed; it wasn't so different from the rest of my time in Sydney.

The sharehouse had an enormous backyard, and I remember one day in October, I spent some time lying down on the grass and enjoying the dandelions and thinking, wow I'm so happy. I felt hopeful. For the first time in a long time. I couldn't remember feeling that bliss at any time in my life before; it was so special that I could still picture that moment in my head to this day. I was alone but didn't feel lonely. I felt free to do whatever I wanted, spend time on things and causes that I cared about. I wanted to make a difference, and as soon as I graduated, I was going to find a sustainable way of doing it. There wasn't really anything special on that day, it was a moment I took for myself when I saw that an assignment due soon got an extension so I didn't have to do anything that day.

I enjoyed my time waitressing, and I liked my co-workers. I liked my tiny Vietnamese cafe manager who felt like an older sister (she probably fancied herself as mother hen to all, but she was probably around the same age as my actual sister). It may have been one-sided on my part, but they did feel like family. It was the closest thing to it, anyway. I wasn't a particularly good waitress (I often struggled with counting cash and change because these were all foreign bills and coins to me), but I soon found out that being happy and cheerful to customers made all the difference, and I could usually charm myself out of mistakes. Also, it was a small, neighbourhood cafe, where patrons mostly knew each other, so I didn't experience the horrors often spoken about in hectic city cafes.

I was hired as an all-rounder, so I would help open the cafe and set up the tables and roll out the heavy umbrellas. It was a workout, but I was pleased that I could do heavy lifting well.

A friend and classmate of mine who had been working there since the beginning hated it because it paid less than her other waitressing job and we always smelled like cooked meat and grease at the end of the day. 

But I thrived. I could even buy decent skincare at this point now. I was eating mostly plants-based and because of that, groceries were a lot cheaper. I was also called on for a temporary stint, as a favour to Dr C, the practice owner of the Potts Point clinic, because they had a difficult doctor whom everyone refused to work with and patients often complained about her rudeness. The weird thing was, she took a shine to me and I have no clue why - and told Dr C that he should keep me, and that I was the only one who wasn't an idiot (oof). But it was still a temporary arrangement until they hired new people. The extra shifts did help with my finances, though.

The sharehouse was inclusive of all bills - I even managed to negotiate the rent down to $20/week less at some point (citing COVID reasons - even though as a frontliner, I actually got more work). I was still struggling with sleep, though, and it took its toll on my body. I developed a wrist and elbow pain from carrying heavy plates the wrong way, and it hasn't fully gone away to this day.

Other than that, life was starting to get better. By the end of this year, I had the unpopular opinion - what with everyone else experiencing the ramifications of the pandemic in full swing - that this was my best year yet.

2021

There was some sense of normalcy as more restrictions were eased in NSW. Everyone still had to social distance, but public transport was slowly filling up again (I used to be one of the few handfuls - other frontliners - using the train just a year ago). It wasn't easy trying to do group work in uni, that's for sure, with roving people hired to keep everyone sitting or standing at a certain distance from each other, even if they came from the same household.

I had started working on a biodiversity project for one of the local councils a few months ago, and I was pretty much obsessed with it. I was very proud of our work, and I mostly acted as the main project manager and editor. I worked closely with a classmate whom I ended up having a friends-with-benefits thing with. I spent the new year at his place. 

New housemates arrived, and they were about 8-15 years younger than me. Up until then, I didn't know how pleasant it was to live with people you actually talked to and could be friendly with. Sometimes I did have to act like the arbitrator, but most days, co-existing with other humans wasn't so stressful. 

I remember at one point, L, the wild child, half-Vietnamese housemate from Newcastle, drunkenly knocked on my door at midnight while I was slaving away to finish an assignment, to tell me that I was her favourite housemate. She couldn't be more different from H, who moved to the big city from the Snowy Mountains, coming from a big family who didn't believe in birth control, was always on Centrelink, and was very religious. Another one was a former doctor from Bangladesh, she was married (her husband was still stuck at home with the borders closed) and closer to my age, and also worked as a receptionist. The two other OG housemates still rarely spoke to us, but the household was now much more pleasant than it used to be. Especially because I had also befriended a beautiful Russian Blue cat, "Blaze". who often visited me, and would appear whenever I was feeling a bit - dare I say it? - blue.

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And then, after a month of barely getting any sleep (I was probably clocking in an average of five hours per week - yes, not day), my body started breaking down. I could barely walk without pain that I had to pad my soles and my shoes just to get anywhere, and I had to wear a brace for my wrist. Dr C, who was now my GP, gave me anti-anxiety prescriptions to help me sleep, and he warned me that some people develop a dependence on it, but I never felt good taking them. It did help me get back on track somewhat, and all I needed was about two months of passable sleep to get my body to recover from chronic pain. I also had to have an iron infusion.

T, the receptionist I worked with from that first clinic (one of the only two girls I liked in the CBD location), reached out to see if I were interested in working at their COVID-19 testing centre and respiratory clinic in Bondi Junction. She was doing so well, and I was happy to see her, and though it sounded a bit risky at that time cos we still didn't have mass distributed vaccines yet and it meant being fully exposed to COVID patients. She was in full PPE gear and I barely recognised her when I came up for the interview.

I got the job, and unlike my previous stints as a medical receptionist, I was a lot better with this one. Possibly because my confidence was back, I was doing better with my mental health, or maybe, just maybe, I had more authority over people, mostly patients. There were rules to be followed, and I was good at keeping people in line. 

But it wasn't easy. The pandemic and the near daily change in regulations brought out the worst in people, and I was working in the Eastern suburbs which was arguably populated by some of the richest, most entitled people in Sydney. The clinic was also only one of the very few testing centres around that accepted infants and toddlers, and it was a respiratory clinic besides, which could provide a clean bill of health to be allowed anywhere - including other hospitals and health centres. It was often a busy, frenzied, place of work. I was often getting verbally abused, but I gave back as good as I got. Although some days, these encounters would really deflate me and I would need a break in one of the back rooms.

There were plenty of good, days, though. Plenty of patrons who would step in for me and berate other people for rudeness, or thank me for doing my job. A few would even go back to apologise, and people owning up to their mistakes was so new to me that it would change my demeanor completely and I would be quick to forgive. When people were nice, I would go out of my way to find them appointments and help them however possible. But if people were rude, I would tell them to get lost. I may have been the quickest tempered in there, but I am pleased to say I also got the most compliments and gifts from patrons for my help. I mirrored both kindness and shitty behaviour.

In March, Nio died.

To say that it was a shock was an understatement. He wasn't the first person I knew in my circles to have died during the pandemic, but he was the first whom I really cared for that deeply. Nio already had a lot of co-morbidities, that catching COVID pushed him over the edge. Testing was not as common in the Philippines, people still had to pay for it. It was not affordable, even for the middle class it was considered a bit steep. Not for the first time, I struggled with grief exacerbated by distance, and not being surrounded by people who knew him or could relate to what I was feeling. My anger at the situation in the Philippines was back in full force, which was something I had to sort of wean myself out of through counselling just a year ago. I was still working some shifts at the cafe when I suddenly burst into tears and had a panic attack. My manager quickly sat me down and handed me some tea to calm me.

Nio sent me a voice message a few hours before he coudn't be revived anymore, telling me that he loved me. I could hear how he struggled to get the words out.

We entered another lockdown that year and I stopped working at the cafe (also just to give my manager peace of mind, as she's always been very cautious and paranoid about COVID and I was constantly exposed, working in a testing centre). For my birthday, I got a whole case of beer as a gift from my cafe family and bottles of wine as a thank you gift for getting my friends their Pfizer vaccines early. They were timely gifts just as the second lockdown of NSW started.

The vaccination program rolled out in Australia, almost at the same time as in the Philippines, just a few weeks after Nio passed away. I often thought, if only it didn't happen that early, if only he could've stayed put or hold out until the vaccines were rolled out globally, it wouldn't have happened.

But it doesn't work that way, does it?

Life carried on, though my memories of lockdowns and restrictions weren't like everyone else's as nothing really changed for me much. However, I was stuck with a bridging visa and my Immi status didn't even say that my visa was active, only that it was going to be active when my student one ran out (and it already had). I needed a health assessment before transitioning to a graduate visa, and all the clinics that did these were closed due to the lockdown. Technically, I had already finished my degree and was considered a graduate, but with my Immi status looking sus in the official documents, I decided to wait it out before applying for full-time jobs. Nobody would want to hire someone with an unreliable visa status like that.

The clinic got extra busy, especially with the vaccine roll out. I got more shifts and a tiny pay rise. I was earning more so I was able to afford to move to a new place, in my dream apartment and neighbourhood, with another friend and former classmate. We both fell in love with it at first sight, even though it was $10/week more than my budget. We could only have a handful of friends to help us move, as it was still technically lockdown.

October 11th was announced to be Freedom Day - the end of lockdown for Sydney.

I started dating again. I had uninstalled the dating apps a while back after encountering a few anti-vaxxers. I went on Hinge, carefully picked my prompts and photos, hoping that I'd designed it in a way to stave off the unsavoury ones. I would look into my likes and automatically swipe left on anyone who didn't leave a message or liked my sexy photo (weird screening tactic, I know) unless they were women. I would hit it off with a few in chat, but didn't really like anyone in particular so I thought I would broaden who I'd respond to.

I began chatting with Boni for about a month or so before we even decided to meet. I'd been seeing other guys and the dates were pleasant enough. I was sort of resigned that maybe this was the way to go about it - slow and steady - and feelings would probably start to grow eventually. After my last relationship, I knew explosive chemistry didn't mean shit in the long run.

But I liked Boni instantly, and I was comfortable with him right away. I regretted scheduling other plans right after our first date (which I do on purpose as a sort of escape plan so dates didn't linger awkwardly). I bought him a beer because I was unexpectedly late, which apparently both surprised and impressed him, and for some reason we dove right into important discussions: LGBTQIA+ rights, religion, etc.

Little did I know this guy would be the love of my life.