Today’s my dad’s birthday. He’d have been 79 years old. I thought I’d get back to a story I left hanging a few months back. I mentioned before that we, meaning the men of the Librero family, are not particularly showy when it comes to affection towards loved ones. Me and my dad certainly were…

(aka Racha of Jam-Polka) One more loss to cap off the year. We got Roxie right after I got married. The poor girl was about 10 weeks old, caged and on display in the veterinary supply store next to where I work — the last of her litter to not have a home. I had…

I’ve been slowly sorting through some of the old stuff in the house, figuring out what to keep and what to dispose of. Today, I found this in one of the boxes in the storage room. And around it is a personal story. After graduating from college, I couldn’t get a job. It was the…

March 16, 2021 — My day was just about done. It was around 9:30PM and an email to my thesis supervisor was my final task before I can try and get some sleep. In between space-outs, I’d been getting paperwork done and contacting people. Calling people and sending messages induces anxiety for me, but I…

It’s Aidan’s 6th birthday. It was supposed to be part of an extended stay with my family in the UK which I had been planning for since early last year. Unfortunately, the trip had to be cancelled. Instead we are over a month into the quarantine of the Philippines, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. We…

Every now and then, I write something for my blog which snowballs into a huge personal rant that exposes me emotionally in manners that I might regret. I end up not posting these blogs. Even before I started typing this, it somehow felt like this was going to be another one of those. But I…

Yes, each year hardly turns out being the same. But the past ones haven’t really been all that different from each other either. The milestones were different. The routine… not so much. But even that changes this year. The last few years were a buildup for this one. And they were rough. It has been…

I had strong second thoughts about attending my high school alumni homecoming last December 8. I always do, because I have mixed feelings towards my time in UP Rural High School. I don’t hate it. But I didn’t particularly enjoy it, either. However, one of the few things about high school that I cherish to…

I love traveling to Europe. I’ve been lucky enough to make the trip a number of times, and they all leave lasting memories for me to fondly remember. But what I do hate is the preparation. After the initial excitement fades, the weeks leading to the actual departure is riddled with anxiety and second thoughts…

I thought writing about one’s father would be relatively easy. That’s why I took my time, thinking the process would be quick when the thoughts start flowing freely. It has always been the method that felt natural to me. It’s how my best work comes about. Then I realized what’s behind my difficulty. It’s easy…

I’m not here to preach about how you should always persevere and never quit, that tomorrow is a better day, or that God loves you and will always be with you, going ra-ra with fluffy pom-poms and all that. If you know me at all, you would know it would all be bullshit, coming from…

Taichung City, Taiwan, March 2016 I brought my family to Taiwan. We offered to help out a friend who was working on an art installation in the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung City. It was a relatively short trip that had its share of ups and downs. But what loomed over my…

It is in this trip where it occurred to me that I can now start to live vicariously through my son. I didn’t think it would come so early. He’s years away from shooting his first hoop or playing his first three guitar chords. From start to finish, there was always something. He was quite…