Does attempting to write, count as ‘I’m still trying to write.?”

It’s easier now to simply take a photo to remember something by: the way the autumn sun feels and looks different. How your $500 sneakers matches your $300 pants. How standing in your backyard putting your laundry on the line feels like being back in Pangasinan.

Since 2012, I’ve taken over 45,000 images and wrote ZERO stories.

In my teens, I submitted short-stories for a women’s magazine (MOD) and was paid P500 per story. I wrote the story long-hand and had my dad’s secretary type it out.

I wanted to take up BS Psychology at UP Diliman because I thought I wanted to be a doctor. It was my dad who actually asked me to change it to English as a preparatory degree for law. I didn’t become either.

Nearly everyone in my high school batch took up nursing, which I thought was appropriate for dull people with no talent.

I switched majors in my sophomore year (Creative Writing), got accepted to the Philippine Collegian (and wrote racy, ambiguous fiction) and earned my drinking/SM Mall money proofreading on the side for a UP publishing house.

Worked in advertising out of uni and I fucking hated it. Ad people were egomaniacal, ugly narcissists. It reinforced my belief that if you did something just for the money, things wouldn’t end well. Never again.

Went back to Pangasinan to work for the local office of a national newspaper chain and managed to convince management to allow me to put out a weekend magazine that folded soon after launch. Realised that I was a maniacal, actually attractive narcissist.

Spent the next 10 years writing fiesta greetings for all 44 Pangasinan municipalities and wondering if perhaps, I should’ve taken up nursing instead. But in hindsight, I would have failed spectacularly at a job that required great people skills and a personality that is anything but dull.

Moved to New Zealand and ditched the writing. I realised that I had to choose between doing something that I was comfortable with or doing something that expanded that further and paid a bit more.

My niece and her fiance just bought a house in one of the most expensive (and overpriced) housing markets in the world. She’s barely 25, and she’s a nurse. Yes, I definitely should have taken up nursing.