-
Continue reading →: The Coffee Grinder, “Add to Cart” and the Sacred Heart
I got myself a vintage coffee grinder. Yes, grinder with an “e,” not the hook-up app. (Although, frankly, a machine with a built-in Grindr would have made mornings more interesting.) The grinder was a compromise in the ongoing cold war between me and my interior designer. I wanted an espresso…
-
Continue reading →: The Tita Files: Life, Lactose, and Things Hindi Masyadong Matamis
“Masarap siya, hindi masyadong mata…” I slowed down and lowered my voice when I realised what I was about to say, particularly because I was saying it in front of my much younger gay bestie. “…matamis.” He immediately laughed at the trentahin in me. He heard the hesitation, the careful…
-
Continue reading →: The Cheapskate from Ayala Alabang
“Will you pay for the breakfast and coffee of a poor fellow like me?” he asked, giving me his most shameless puppy-dog eyes. I rolled my eyes and said, “Fine.” Normally, I would have resisted on principle, but this was Apple Pay’s first day in the Philippines, and as the…
-
Continue reading →: Memories in Christmas Jazz
It is September in the Philippines, which means Christmas has already begun its slow takeover. Somewhere out there, Mariah Carey is being ceremoniously thawed from the Arctic ice, and “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has started leaking through every available speaker. I went to the mall the other…
-
Continue reading →: When an Ugly Shower Curtain made me Cry
Apart from the photo album, my tita who was sorting through my mom’s things handed me an ugly green shower curtain. It had butterflies and white lilies printed on it, the kind of design you only buy when you are in a rush or when the store has nothing else…
-
Continue reading →: How Puzzle Pieces Come Together
I once picked up a single puzzle piece and wondered where it was supposed to fit. On its own, it looked ordinary, just a weird shape with a bit of color. But a puzzle never makes sense one piece at a time. You only see the beauty when everything comes…
-
Continue reading →: Before Mom, After Mom
My mother sat on a chair, wearing her green duster, inside a cozy bungalow that felt achingly familiar. Her graying hair was combed away from her face, revealing the wide, familiar plane of her forehead. I knew she had cancer. The knowledge sat quietly between us, like another person in…
-
Continue reading →: Green Bones
When the funeral coordinator turned over my mother’s ashes, she handed us a small packet of fragments. For a moment, I thought they were implants I had never known about. She told us they were green bones. It is rare, she said, and many believe it to be a sign…
-
Continue reading →: The Last Breaths
I had just stepped out of work when my mom’s caregiver called. Her voice told me everything before the words even landed. I rushed home. I walked into the room and saw my mother taking her last breaths. And here’s the cruel part: I’m an anesthesiologist. I spend my life…
-
Continue reading →: Could have been a Nepo Baby
Yes, I am the son of a DPWH engineer. But my father was different. In the early ’90s, when Pampanga was battered by lahar and infrastructure projects were in demand, he could have profited from it. Instead, I saw him return bribes, ranging from baskets of mangoes to…
ETHER DIARIES
controlled breaths | uncontrolled thoughts
Hello,
I’m Macoy Cruz
I’m an obstetric anesthesiologist by training, and honestly, a satirist because it’s the only way to stay sane. Most days I’m tucked behind the drapes, dealing with misbehaving vitals, badly timed alarms, and patients who may or may not be fully committed to consciousness.
I was clinically diagnosed with depression in 2018, and it has been relapsing ever since. I look fine most of the time. I function. I teach. I work. Then the heaviness shows up again, stays for a while, and eventually lets go. It comes and goes in cycles, and I have learned to move with it even when it feels like it is pulling me under.
This blog has become part of how I cope. Writing helps me steady myself when the quiet depression returns. It gives me a place to breathe and make sense of the days when I feel like I am slipping beneath the surface.
So this space is my cool down zone. Part storytime, part rant, part emotional first aid kit. Expect thoughts on medicine, life, and the strange challenge of staying awake in a system that seems built to knock everyone out, figuratively and literally.
