27 Years of Me

I celebrated my 27th year on July 19 but I had so much on my plate from a week before that up to a few hours ago that I never got around to blogging about my special day.

So how has it been for me for the last 27 years? Let me see if I can pinpoint the particular highlights of my life:

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1 year old - 3 years old  -  Nah... Haha. I was alive. I was a toddler. These were my development years. That's all there was to it. :)

4 years old  -  First year in school. Nursery Red PM (afternoon sched! haha) at Colegio de Santa Rosa Makati.

5 years old  -  Second year in school. Kinder Pink PM. Same school. I think this was the time I received my first ever salary (P100! Hah!) as a Batibot child star. ;)

6 years old  -  Pre-school graduation. I was part of the Green afternoon section (yes, pre-schoolers from nursery to prep had colors for sections). First time I wondered why I wasn't called more than once during the graduation ceremonies. I didn't want a medal. I just wanted to be called more than once. lol

7 years old  -  First grade. Camia, morning section (woohooo!! was getting tired of missing my afternoon TV shows). Same school but with different section names (apparently, colorful toddlers transform into fragrant flowers upon first grade... connection? none. I just made it up. lol). Got my first 90s ratings on my quiz results. This delighted my parents. Had me subconsciously pushing for more.

8 years old  -  We moved to Laguna because it was where dad was able to get a job as the chief of staff of Laguna's 2nd District congressman (Rodolfo Tingzon Sr.). I remember moving primarily because our landlord at our Mandaluyong apartment wanted to end our lease and use the space for something else other than a rental house. This year also marked my first time in a co-ed Catholic school called Canossa (Colegio de Santa Rosa is an exclusive Catholic school for girls) and my first time to be a part of the honors list (First Quarter, Top 10!).

9 years old  -  My first special award during the recognition day ceremonies. I think I also won in a quiz bee. I remember living for a year in a pink apartment.

10 years old  -  Frustrated that I still ended up with a certificate during the recognition day ceremonies. This time I wanted a medal. In the meantime, dad got what he had always wanted: a house and lot for the three of us.

11 years old  -  Finally got my first medal. I was in the Top 5 during that year, I think.

Valine, my bestfriend

12 years old  -  Graduated Salutatorian :) Became bestfriends with a really slim girl who has a golden voice named Marie Valine C. Alvarez.

13 years old  -  Had to transfer to Canossa School's rival educational institution in Santa Rosa, Laguna. First time in a non-sectarian co-ed school called Holy Rosary Academy (HRA; now Holy Rosary College). I think it was because 1) HRA was one of our printing press's clients; and 2) the school offered a 50% scholarship for me. I can't forget being criticized by a classmate for speaking in English. This year, aside from becoming the associate news editor of our school newspaper and becoming Miss Campus, I met my first boyfriend. Haha.

14 years old  -  Broke up with my first boyfriend because I met my first love at a provincial student leader gathering where I became the "Junior 1st District Board Member". My favorite subject was Biology. Recognition ceremonies had me marching to receive my medal for finishing the year as "Second Honor". I think it was also during this time that dad was diagnosed with diabetes. I felt it was something grave to the point that I actually cried. Dad just dismissed the thought.

15 years old  -  I became the school paper's editor in chief, the province's "Junior Vice Governor", the school's representative to a Chemistry contest (I won, surprisingly, as Chemistry's not really my best and favorite subject  -  I'm scared of the Math involved), the Junior-Senior Valentine's Party's "Star of the Night" and the girlfriend to my close friend who later dumped me for another girl. I also had a boyfriend during the same student leader gathering that gave me the title Junior Vice Governor. Oh yeah. I had a really looooong hair, if you know what I mean. ;)

Rosas ng Santa Rosa 1st Runner-Up 2001 (2nd to the right)

16 years old  -  Became the "honorary editor". Won in the Division Secondary Schools Press Conference but failed to grab a spot in the Regionals. Became the Student Government Mayor too. But I only won because the lower batch voted for me. I got only one vote in my batch  -  mine. Disappointed my dad that I didn't graduate the Valedictorian/Salutatorian or at least the 1st Honorable Mention (I ended up being the 4th Honorable Mention/6th Honor due to a lot of extracurricular activities). Regained dad's trust when I ended up becoming one of the three students from our school who passed the University of the Philippines College Admission Test (UPCAT). In the same year, I joined the Search for the Rosas of Santa Rosa (Rose of Santa Rosa/Miss Santa Rosa) and ended up first runner-up. The winner backed out from joining Miss Laguna and I was obviously next in line. My beauty pageant career was cut short due to a misunderstanding between my mom and the gay pageant coordinator. Hehe.

17 years old  -  2001 marked my freshman year in the Philippines' premier state university. I was very lucky to have gotten into the flagship campus (Diliman) that my parents rented an apartment in Pasig City to "guide" me during college. I also got into a course that was never really my first choice (my original choice was B.A. Broadcast Communication; people thought I spoke and looked like former Senator Loren Legarda). I later thanked my lucky stars for having chosen B.A. Speech Communication instead as it turns out to be the "mother" of all communication fields, Broadcast Communication, included. It was in this year that I found out that my last high school boyfriend had been cheating on me. The nerve to send a text message (or call) his other girlfriend using my mobile phone! He was stupid enough to have not thought of deleting the evidence. Prior to the end of the year, I met a guy from my circle of Chalk Magazine student correspondents colleagues. Yes. You guessed it right. Another boyfriend.

18 years old  -  My mom and dad didn't exactly tell me that they didn't have enough money for a proper debut party for me. P4000 shopping money instead of a party? I just knew. I wasn't complaining. For an October 2001 article in Chalk Magazine about a UP Diliman urban legend entitled "Red Eyes" (white lady with red eyes in the College of Education building), I appeared on the now-defunct TV show "Breakfast" on ABS-CBN's Studio 23. This was also the time I started working part-time as an administrative clerk at Speechpower in Espana, Manila.

19 years old  -  Relationship with boyfriend #5 was starting to go downhill. Met a dreamboat and broke up with #5. Dreamboat was a law student, an honor graduate of the school that I was then attending and for me, looked like John Lloyd Cruz during that time (WTH was I thinking?!). He was an alumnus of the art society organization of which I was president. Our relationship was tumultuous with numerous on and off episodes but I fell hard.

20 years old  -  Mom had always suffered from hypertension. One night, I heard dad trying to wake mom up. She was drenched in cold sweat and was unconscious. Dad's co-terminus post as staff member of another Laguna congressman had just ended but we still blindly rushed mom to expensive Medical City. Upon arriving at the ER, the doctors had to rush her to the CT scan room as her blood pressure shot through the roof, they feared she might go into coma. I locked myself up in the bathroom and cried. Half of me was scared that something grave might happen to mom, half of me cried for the situation dad was in. I knew he was just quietly taking it all in. He was, at the same time calmly telling me that his medical insurance as a legislative staff member might not be in effect anymore. I told him that since I was already in my senior year and that I had a few units left, I could work at a call center at night and go to school in the morning. Turns out dad's insurance was still in effect and I spent only a night as a call center employee (for Teleperformance... hehe). I got promoted to the position of trainer at Speechpower, graduated Cum Laude and became the only one from our course who got into the UP College of Law.

21 years old  -  We were fastly running out of money. Mom was diagnosed with dementia of the Alzheimer's Type. We went back to our house in Laguna. I was struggling with law school. It was harder than I had ever imagined especially when I was trying to balance a day like this:

• Wake up and take a shower at 3 AM


• Leave our house in Santa Rosa City, Laguna at 3:30 AM


• Arrive at Convergys Makati for my part-time call center job at 5 AM


• Stay in the office and take advantage of the free coffee to keep me awake while studying from 1 PM-4:30 PM


• Leave for UP Diliman at 4:30 PM


• Law classes from 6 PM-9 PM


• Back in Laguna at 11 PM.


• Study from 11 PM to 12:30 AM.

One word: E-X-H-A-U-S-T-I-O-N. All these I had to do for 5-6xs a week.

22 years old  -  Mom died due to complications. I can't remember if it were pneumonia or sepsis that took her life. I just remember her succumbing to diabetic coma and shedding two tears  -  one for dad and one for me  -  the moment she breathed her last. Caught boyfriend #6 with another girl. Relationship very much over. Followed by a series of crying episodes. Started to work full time as a sales and marketing coordinator. Certainly not the best of my career choices.

First property under my name.

23 years old  -  Finally became a full time call center language trainer! :) This meant that I had to give up law school though. It nevertheless turned out for the best as my being a trainer enabled me to use what I had studied in college. Met again this guy who was friends with boyfriend #6 and who had been beating himself hard for not courting me in the past. He was cute. But that's all there was to it. He was a smoker and during that time, still a college undergraduate (he's two years older than me!). I paid for our dates. And yet again, obviously not one of my best choices this time, relationship-wise. Broke up with him after seven months. I couldn't take the fact that while I was paying for our dates, I was also paying for my bank housing loan (dad and I had to let go of our Santa Rosa home  -  apparently we were way behind mortgage payments; good thing my salary was big enough for a loan that helped us move to a 2-BR low-rise Taguig condominium). I was also gunning up for a promotion and paying for dad's medical expenses while he was at his parents' home, playing DotA.

Sergs and I in Disneyworld

24 years old  -  After years of frogs and toads, I finally met the man God intended for me. Cheesy, I know. But who wouldn't believe in fairy tales again if one learned that this guy and I were born on July 18 and 19, respectively, and that we are both Cancerian Rats? He's boyfriend #8 and like the number, couldn't be any more perfect :) The same year in 2008, apart from having my first ever plane ride (business trip in Cebu; I was at a high  -  company's been sending me everywhere and I was in love!) and first ever trip to the US (vacation/international "date" in Walt Disney World <--- where dreams come true. hehe.), dad was diagnosed with kidney failure. For the first time since my bathroom episode in Medical City, I cried buckets due to a parent's deteriorating condition. Mom's saving grace was dad's medical insurance. Dad's saving grace was my medical insurance. My saving grace from an emotional breakdown was boyfriend #8's assurance of love in spite of and despite of who I was, am and will be. On December 25 of 2008 at 8 AM, Sergio Gabriel G. Prieto proposed.

25 years old  -  After almost three years at eTelecare Global Solutions (now Stream Global Services), I resigned. I was a month and a few weeks shy of reaching my third year in the company but it was all worth it. My reason? I donned a white dress and walked down the aisle to become Mrs. Maria Preciosa C. Prieto. :)

26 years old  -  I met my half sisters. Joy and Karen are older than me by two years and six months, respectively. I had always known their existence but it wasn't until dad's November 2010 hospitalization that I met them. The first few months were rocky between me and them. Things have improved so far and yes, there are still challenges but we're getting there as sisters.

Precious at 27

27 years old  -  For the past few weeks, I've been telling potential employers that though I'm fairly new to the Bay Area, I've been in and out of the US since 2008. It's merely to dispel the thought that, well, I'm a newcomer and completely clueless. Nevertheless, it's true. From 2008-2010, I had been in the US on a tourist visa. Now at 27 years old, in 2011, I'm back in South San Francisco on an immigrant visa. I'm more or less back to something close to a zero (I have yet to learn how to drive!) culture and career-wise, but it's an upgrade. Maybe a new lease on life. And though I have this void in me because of dad's health condition and because I can't really bring him to the US, the loneliness is balanced by the wonderful fact that I'm finally with the other man in my life, my husband, for good, and that we can already start our own family.

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I know. My storytelling isn't the most stellar. And I know there are times, depending on who's reading, that I might have crossed the invisible line and become the boastful ass.

So how do I explain 27 years of me to other people? Let's just say that I was the girl who had big dreams but not big enough to dream of someday meeting the perfect husband who loves her dad like his own and living with him somewhere other than good old Philippines. I'm not complaining. I still have big dreams. It's just I know that for all my self-righteousness and my imperfections, it never dawned on me that I'd be where I am now. One thing's for sure, each time I pray, I firmly and sincerely say "Lord, there's so much in my life that my human thinking tells me that I do not deserve but if You said I actually do, thank You, and that's what I would start to believe as true." Sounds familiar? Think of it as my version of "Lord I am not worthy to receive You but only say the Word and I shall be healed."