Lost choices

As I grow older, many doors seem closing on me. On the other hand, several arrows point to different exits, giving me some residual feeling of free choice. I only hope life is not simply humoring me.

In our middle age, even the wildest dreams seemed still possible. We fought the pull of gravity—that natural downward progression of age—and surprised even ourselves.

A former classmate and dear friend is a surprise of surprises. When all her four children had families of their own, she went on to pursue a law degree—at 57. She died before the pandemic, in her late 70s, but she had a good, selfless run of law practice, serving our barangay as a volunteer counsel.

I had my own chance at a fresh start, just after turning 40. When my marriage broke up, I tried to have a go at a career in journalism, the undergraduate major, as it happened. I took some advanced subjects and was sent into newspaper apprenticeship. I had been little more than mother, although even then my children, though grown, were not close to marrying age.

Useful experience

I may have acquired some amount of useful experience and sophistication for a career. Still, I must have stuck out like a sore thumb; whenever I went, tagging along with the veteran crime reporter, I surprised or perhaps annoyed him seeing me treated like a guest—coffee and bright-red hotdog sandwich were the regular fare—in the air-conditioned office.

He’d go about his business, and when done, knew where to find me and ask, “May nakuha ka?” He’d be referring to promising entries in the police blotter. I’d smile, flashing pink teeth, guiltily holding coffee cup in one hand and sandwich in the other, obviously too occupied for chores.

My tutor reporter didn’t quite know what to do with me. He had always warned me to wear pants to work and no espadrilles, but I had never appreciated his practical wisdom until my apprenticeship took us to the legendary dump of Smoky Mountain.

Although I finally learned what to wear, a newspaper career proved rather a bit late for this matron. Serendipitously, I found a newspaperman for a second husband, who encouraged and continued shepherding me in a suitable allied career.

Sheer age qualified me for a job as a weekly columnist on senior concerns in the Lifestyle section of this newspaper. Telling my story has become a source of cathartic joy for me. For the first time in my life and, even during the pandemic, I had a job.

But nothing could prevent the erosion over time of what used to be sole authority over myself and my freedom of choice. Indeed, I find myself more dependent on those I once upon a time ruled. The pandemic has even hastened my loss of control over a lot of things.

There’s my husband, who is stricter than me about my going out, and there are our two sets of children who rule over both of us, one a doctor herself—not to mention doctor friends ever generous with their advice. Even grandchildren chime in, one a medical student just two years away from a double doctor’s degree.

Recent additions

Still, I shouldn’t complain; at least our aqua exercises have resumed. Three times a week we’re in the water and under the sun, with pleasant companions.

Home life itself could have been more isolated without two recent additions—a son and a granddaughter.

Things are, comparatively, not really that bad for us seniors. For one thing, being among the most vulnerable to COVID-19, we are prioritized for vaccination. But if I thought that would earn us the best vaccines, I was wrong. Like most everybody else, we get what we’re given.

So Sinovac, from China, the obvious state preference, it was—or nothing. Put that way, Sinovac is, of course, better than nothing.

I have gotten my own two doses of Sinovac. The consuelo de bobo, coming after the fact, is that the vaccine has finally received the approval of the World Health Organization, the international imprimatur that might allow the Sinovac-vaccinated to travel out of their countries.

Indeed, that should lessen our anxieties, but, again, if I thought the vaccine would allow me more freedom of movement, it doesn’t seem the case. Along with unvaccinated minors, we’re not favored by the logic behind vaccines—immunization. If the idea had been to keep us at home anyway, the nation’s workforce and students should have been given a higher priority, right next to the front-liners.

Alas, logic and common sense are not among this government’s strong suits. But that’s another story altogether.

A former classmate and dear friend went on to pursue a law degree—at 57