Once, A Boat Was Sinking

Searching, for direction, for I regard myself as a floater at work, with no clear functions while the project I was asked to lead was put on hold. I was in no mood to get into trouble, and yet, there is no denial that this lack of clear purpose shows the shades I used to wear, when I used to be a chat agent, whose messy episodes at home, and at work afforded a life geared for a tailspin.

Previously, The Wanderer

I.

On a random day like this, I would take out my Metrobank ATM card from its hidden purse and insert it at a teller machine. The exercise was meant to count my money, or rather, what remains of it after unforeseen spending had once more, dwindled my savings. When my nephew, Diego got sick and had to be confined at a hospital, I used my savings to beef up my sister's cash reserves. Same thing happened when I could no longer set aside a portion of my salary to pay my credit card bills. I had to slash a thousand pesos from that bank account just to stave off my ballooning debts. 

II.

There had been repeated talks of a new project in the workplace, which would let us handle the email support of a music service provider in the US. The prospects of a business turnaround was promising, at a time when a downturn in our base accounts threaten to slash the remaining jobs for my colleagues. Negotiations between my boss and the client have been going since the beginning of the year, but a quarter had already passed and the nesting hasn't even begun yet. 

The team is getting restless, and I, anxious. Should this venture not push through, I was ready to give up and throw my career away, to look for employment elsewhere and start over with a clean slate.

When the training started after so much delay, it had to be postponed a few times because the trainer had to attend to some pressing business matters. Weeks went by and the team assembled for this account went home with nothing but empty promises. In one of these nights, I found myself getting acquainted with my past. A bottle of beer in Cubao before midnight, on a Tuesday, and in a place where people who have lost direction find themselves inebriated and belting, the narratives of their failed lives. 

III.

Battered and yet, refusing to accept being broken, very little was said about this life phase exactly a year ago. I had seen worse, when I was younger, and my constant presence at Elance meant that salvation was just a raketship away. A budding romance on the side softened the brooding thoughts. But love was no guarantee of a life getting fixed. The precariousness of being in suspended animation, without fortune, or accomplishment to speak of is a cause to go on a free-fall. But I didn't, and within a week, I would bear witness to a transformation that will change everything, and lift the siege that has been my life for as long as I can remember.