Serendipity
A day in the life of a 'plain' housewife
Before I go into my usual spiel, I’d like to warn you first that this write up today is actually all about a day in my life. I’m not really the egomaniac you think I am considering that I’m now admonishing you to stop reading this very minute because the subject is me, I, myself, moi. I’m actually not going to talk about some famous housewife like say, Cory Aquino (she did admit she was one when she was catapulted to power back in ’86, right?) or one of the desperate ones in Wisteria Lane. So if I were you, read the column above or below me before I waste any more of your time.
The fact that you’re still reading up to this point means: a) you like me and my articles (this is short of me saying you’re my greatest fan); b) you hate me but you have to read me because I might be writing about you or your kind (meaning we have mutual hate for each other); c) you neither love or hate me, but the truth is, this paper was the only reading material you could get your hands on before going to the john (and you’re constipated which means you’ll be in there for a long time – obviously, long enough to read all the columns); and d) you’re a close relative or the editor of this paper (that’s you, Erl), so you really have no choice.
Enough with the chitchat. I’m actually trying to be sarcastic by calling myself a “‘plain’ housewife”. I think plain housewives died long before Cory Aquino became president of this country. Nowadays, if anyone calls you a “plain” housewife, it only means one thing: you’re being insulted. Because according to my trusty thesaurus, one of the definitions of “plain” is “lacking in physical beauty or proportion” – a euphemism for “ugly” if you ask me. Sometimes it’s just so irritating when people ask me what I do and when I say, “I work at home as a freelance writer while doing some marketing and events management on the side,”; they would say, "So, you're a housewife...”, like they didn’t hear the rest of my sentence (as if being a housewife was a bad, evil thing in the first place). Anyway, I’m jumping the gun here. I’m actually going to write more about this topic (“De-plaining the housewife” to borrow a friend’s words) in the near future, so watch out for that.
So, what’s a typical day like for me? I usually sleep at around 2 a.m. because I do most of my writing at home and at night (right now I have 4 writing projects) and wake up every few hours to feed my baby daughter. So I compensate by waking up pretty late. Let’s just say you’re having lunch while I’m still having REM (rapid eye movement sleep not the band). I have coffee while I mentally list the things I have to accomplish for the day. Usually, I get jolted to action not by the caffeine but by the long list of ‘to-dos’ and this mental list prompts me to start harassing people (ok, my husband) in the house. After eating lunch, while my husband brings our son to school, I make phone calls or answer text messages (so people, there’s really no use texting me before 11 a.m. unless I have a meeting scheduled in the morning, then that means I’m awake and therefore, can text you back) and feed my daughter (my friends know that I have made a career out of breastfeeding). Then off to the shower I go, make a big mess of my bathroom, and an even bigger mess of my closet (I’m a slave of fashion, what can I say?). If there are no fashion emergencies, like say, a missing pair of shoes that I have to find or if I suddenly feel the urge to change outfits for whatever vain reason; I’m usually out of the house by 1 pm.
And the nightmare begins. First I go check how things are in the office that my dad and I will soon be sharing (the space is under construction / renovation: half of the space is my dad’s law office and the other half is mine and my husband’s ad shop – we’re doing desktop publishing, marketing and events management – which means I won’t be working at home all the time anymore); then I either go to the bank or buy whatever it is I need for the house, office, or my sanity and do other small errands that I can squeeze in. If I have meetings with clients I usually do it at this time and by 4 pm I have to run off to pick up my son from school (when my husband can’t do it). I go back to my house to drop off my son (or he goes with me if I’m not meeting anyone) and rush to my “other” office (I’m editor of a relatively new lifestyle magazine) or to another meeting. By 7 pm, if I don’t have to meet anyone for dinner, I scoot over to check another family business if it’s still running or not (or my mom will kill me). The last thing I usually do before trudging home is check my daily planner if I missed doing anything. Then I call it a day.
Well, now you know what a day in the life of a typical “plain” housewife is. Talk about multi-tasking. Sometimes there are variations here and there. But just because I “work at home” and I don’t have a 9 to 5 job or a boss, I have it easy. Heck, I even do more than what a typical office employee does by the looks of it. In fact I’ve even failed to mention that I have 3 more projects in the offing -- over and above what I have just written here. But hey, I’m not complaining. In fact, I’m truly grateful because this means that there are so many people who believe in me and in what I can do. Sure there are days when my schedule is really crazy but there are also days when I have time to get a pedicure in between my errands. Sometimes I have abysmally bad days when everything just goes pfft, but I don’t fret or obsess about them. Because when I go home to my ever-supportive and loving husband and two beautiful kids, I realize that, if there are days when I just can’t seem to win, at the very least, I can also never, ever entirely lose.