Unwanted Days

Saturdays are usually my personal day for decluttering my stuff. Lately, I've been preoccupied with a lot of things, so my bed really looks like it's in a war zone—it's totally messy. So that Saturday, I was really looking forward to spending the day cleaning my bed, but something came up. My mother and both of my siblings decided to attend our local government unit health caravan. They wanted to have their defective teeth extracted, so since there are free tooth extractions, they decided to go early to avail of the possible services.

I wanted to join them, but my aunt asked us if there was anyone available to look for my cousin. For days, she'd been suffering from a toothaches, so she decided to finally get her aching tooth extracted. I was hesitant at first, but my mother asked me to just accept the task since the tooth extraction usually doesn't last the whole day. I somehow didn't really want to, but I guess I have no choice. I went to my aunt's house to look for my 1-year-old cousin.

She's asking to be carried.

She already knows how to walk, but her walking was really unstable, and that's one of the reasons why I was quite hesitant to babysit her. I'm afraid that she'll lose balance and get injured, but anyway, I have no choice but to really watch her closely. I was always at her back whenever she walked, and she's really unbothered whenever she almost trips her way. I almost had a mini-heart attack whenever I saw her almost stumbling, so when the first symptoms of her sleepiness appeared, I immediately put her in the hammock, and I lulled her to sleep.

I wanted to do other stuff while she was asleep, but she's really a light sleeper. Even the tiniest noise can stir her up, so even in her sleep, I really watched her closely. There's also been a lot of mosquitoes lately, so I also look out for those nasty insects. After almost two hours of sleep, she finally woke up. I was starting to feel quite tired at that time, but I brush it off because her mom hasn't yet arrived.

After drinking the milk, I thought she'd go back to her unstable walking again, but surprisingly, she just sat on their sofa and later laid down there. That was really a relief for me because I'm quite tired at that time. We were comfortably seated on the sofa when the door opened. It's her mother, and I was really glad to see her, but I remembered that she just had her tooth extracted! It's the fact that I somehow overlooked the morning I accepted the babysitting task.

She is still not allowed to lift heavy things at that time, so obviously she can't look for my cousin yet. I'm really starting to feel tired, but I have to endure it until my uncle comes. My aunt proceeds to their room to take a rest, while I carry my cousin towards my grandma's house to distract her because she's been non-stop bawling since the moment she saw her mother. I realized that being a mother is really hard, and it's still half of the day.

Her magikarp face expression really annoyed the hell out of me.

The hours passed slowly, and as the night draws near, my patience for my other cousin's bratty behavior is at its limit. She's the older sister of the baby I'm babysitting, but she's a lot more difficult to handle because she's really a bratty child. She really has a sharp tongue, and whenever she's with me, my patience quickly runs out. I usually send her out because her impish actions are getting out of hand. She sometimes does things that involve almost harming her younger sister, and I think it's really a childish way to look for attention.

She's still a child, though, and I can't help but feel annoyed—and sometimes angry—by that impish behavior of her. Anyway, I somehow tried to understand her, so I controlled my anger issues and lengthened my patience. Evening came, and her father arrived. He gave me some compensation for my whole day's work. I didn't want to accept it, but he immediately gave it to me, and I'm really tired of arguing further. I immediately laid down in bed when I arrived at our house. I'm really tired and sleepy at that time, so I decided to sleep for a few minutes. I woke up later and did the housework I'm supposed to do that day.

As that day came to an end, I realized many things. I realized how tedious it is to be a parent. It's really tiring to look for my cousins the whole day, so it baffles me how they're able to withstand the ordeals of being parents for years. Further, I also realized how hard it is to do things I don't want to do. I don't really want to babysit that day, so it's really hard for me to dedicate myself to whatever I do that day.

But when I think about it hard, I realize that my life is mostly made up of those moments. Things that I usually don't want to do came up, and that leaves me no choice but to try and do them. Doing it doesn't mean I like it, but doing it becomes a way for me to improve myself further. I know my life will give me more moments like that, but remembering the saying I've learned from my previous adviser way back in my high school year: "We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.", I realized that's how life truly operates.

We don't have utter control over what will happen next in our life, but we certainly have control over how we react to it and what decisions we are going to make. Life is certainly riddled with disappointments, uncertainties, and even unwanted days—but let's always try our best to navigate our way to the best possible versions of ourselves we can think of.