The -Ber Months

(Putting my feet up at a friend's house in Anilau, along the southern coastline of Luzon island in the Philippines. I think I need a pedicure!)

The Philippines has the distinction of celebrating the longest Christmas season in the world. It begins on September 1st, when you've officially entered the -ber months (September, October, November, and December). The holiday franzy really heats up, though, the week or two before Christmas when the normally 20 minute drive into Alabang takes an hour, or the 45 minute drive into Manila takes up to three long, painful hours of inching along an "expressway." If there's a mall on your road or near the highway exit, you're toast--just put the tunes in the radio and sit back and relax because you're going nowhere quick. The last few days we've just surrendered and rarely left Laguna. But now it's Christmas eve and the pain is almost over, which means it may be a good time to review and reflect on this year of great change.

Rarely in life do you get the sense of making exactly the right decision for yourself and your family--especially when it is a better decision than you even could have known at the time. I'm in one of those rare moments now. And fully knowing that I may be risking some cosmic karmic retribution, let me dare to say that I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life. Why? I've narrowed it down to three reasons:

First, I have found a better balance between work and fun than ever before. I'm no slouch at work, and I don't think I ever will be one; yet, I've managed to largely leave my job behind me as I walk off campus at four or five o'clock. Despite the Saturday commitments during volleyball season, I've had more real weekends here than I remember in the last thirteen years. My nights in the city are cosmopolitan vacations--hanging out in a friend's pub that Stephen has been calling home for more than 15 years, going to hear live music at one of several hip clubs in Malate, or even just popping into our local Japanese restaurant where they don't even need to take our order anymore (sashimi set for two!). My colleagues are terrific, and I've managed to make quite a few close friends already, both expat and Filipino (and some who are both). I had not realized how much I had been starving for a social life. Now that I've woken from the semi-slumber of life at Groton, I'm so happy that I'm not wasting the rest of my 30s working 'round the clock.

Second, I'm healthier than I've been in a long time. Every day begins with bowl of fresh fruit salad made with--among other fabulous fruits--the most delicious pineapple, bananas, and mangoes in the world. My regular lunch (delivered to me at school--see next paragraph) is either a small salad or fresh kinilaw tanigue (fresh white fish "cooked" without heat in a mixture of vinegar or ginger) and rice. Pretty lean, whole food ingredients. I hardly ever eat anything made with high fructose corn syrup anymore (even Coke here is made with real sugar). In fact, there are very few processed foods in my diet at all. Stephen's been baking fresh bread, and he's become quite the chef, too, with his fresh linguine & clams or gradually increasing Thai repertoire. Without a constant all-you-can-eat buffet, I'm eating smaller portions as well. Meanwhile, with my new-found time, I'm training for the Philippine Marathon in February, which means regular 7-13 mile runs so far, and an occasional cross-training day in the pool, swimming a mile. All told, I've lost at least 10 pounds, maybe more, and some of my clothes need to be altered to fit properly. God, that's a good feeling.

Neither of these two changes would have been possible without the third one: I'm being better taken care of than ever in my adult life. Between the full-time helper who cleans the house, does the laundry, cooks my breakfast and lunches, delivers my lunches, walks the dog, and even caters our dinner parties; and my husband, who runs the whole household and is starting our farm for even fresher ingredients for his lovely meals; I hardly lift a finger when I get home. Occasionally I get hit with a wave of neo-colonial guilt, but I can't help loving the lifestyle, nevertheless. Not only do I work less for my employer, but I do far less at home. Cool.

For all these reasons, I think I manage my work-related stresses better because they literally vanish when I walk through my front door. We Americans have tied ourselves up in knots trying to be the most productive country in the world, and next to Japan, we may be. But what toll does it take on our family and personal lives? Oh sure, I'd heard this new age crap before, and I really thought I was taking enough time for myself, but I never realized how much I punished myself for it with my constant anxiety over the essays that needed to be graded pronto or the bathrooms that I really needed to clean this weekend. Of course, we foreign teachers can afford our current lifestyle because we earn US-based salaries, yet spend these dollars in a low-income country. And why are salaries so much higher in the US than the Philippines? Because it's a more productive, and therefore richer, country. So the rat race benefits me, I realize; it's the wave I've ridden to my current cushy lifestyle. At some point, though, don't you have to stop and smell the roses, like Ferdinand the bull in the beautiful children's story by Munro Leaf? Even if those roses are more like mint leaves, garlic, and ginger.