One Life Changed

One week of meetings and of course, Maan and I simply just got nauseous about it all on the last day. I took the week rather well, considering,  because I have not been out for conferences in a while. My boss told me he misses me, which is his way of asking me, 'what the hell have you been doing all this time we have not seen each other?!'. I was told that he passed by Vigan a few weeks back, and finding I was not there (I was in Manila for a training) and he asked my staff, 'where is she this time?!'. My staff told him where I was, then it dawned upon him he was supposed to know, he signed my authority to travel, but of course he forgot.😜

The days I was supposed to have been missing I spent exactly where I should have: working in Ilocos Sur. So I took to facebook, saved all the pictures, wrote reports about all that I did evidenced by the pictures, and flooded the email of my boss with them. See, facebook has this other use; I even read that a suspect in a murder was tracked down through his posts. When my boss and I met in Baguio last Monday, he acknowledged all my emails and admitted he could not open some of the files from me any longer as there were sooooo many. He noted that I probably sent all the reports and pictures because of his comment about me being missing-in-action in the province. I simply said, yes. 

That is how I am. I always do all in good faith. I try my very best to be truthful (yes) even if it is ugly, or regardless of how others may squirm about the reality I present.  I hate hypocrisy. I was raised to always be in acknowledgement of what is, and not what is supposed to be. So I shoot my mouth off (literally and through this ever reliable tablet where all the words running like trains in my brain are stored) and more often than not, dig my own grave with my own mouth. I do my job, and not tell everyone about it, yet when confronted with questions, I bury the questions with answers and explanations more than what is asked, and I get in trouble. 

I recall how I became truly sad about this one person who confronted me with questions, to which I merely replied with the truth. She said two things I will never, ever forget in this lifetime, and I will quote this everyday if I have to: 'The truth will not save you.' And 'The reality is not allowed where we live.'. I wanted retort: 'Oh, I am sorry. I thought we were after the truth.'. I did not even dare. 

I have profound respect for anyone in public service who gets the job done not only promptly,  but sincerely. One of our resource speakers this week described our service in the DAR as 'not touch-and-go', and 'with a heart'.  How aptly he described our work, I told myself. It made me think, yes, we are all 'heart', too much of it so often that we forget we do not live in a fairy tale world where joy over small victories is allowed. We get confused by which yardstick we are to measure 'victories' in the first place. In the years that I have devoted to this service, my heart tied a noose around my neck and took me to places where I basked in the happiness of knowing I was able to change one life. Yet, my heart also pushed me to places where cynicism, betrayal, self-interests, judgement and hypocrisy reside. 

But. I changed one farmer's life. One life changed. That is the truth I cling to. That is enough for me to hold me head high, despite my need to flood emails of bosses, my insecurities gnawing at me each night, my never-ending rants and the concomitant search for validation. One life changed. Not many can cling to that truth.