Gifter’s Sacrifices – How It Intensified My Burden

Yesterday, I told you about the musical brutality of a mysterious guy from Davao, and how he changed my life in a truly monumental way. Here’s the continuation of my career-building journey with him.

Moving here in my town is an extremely tough decision for him, I have to do my part.

During our earliest days of building our companionship, honing our playing skills everyday for 3 to 4 hours is really grueling. It’s a good thing though that he reduced it to 5 days a week. Still, it’s a pill that’s very hard to swallow.

Eventually, I find it really enjoyable and now that we don’t see each other as often as we do, I kinda miss the feeling of playing music with him every day. During our breaks, we would talk endlessly about the strategy we need to execute to break through the noise in cyberspace.

I’m really amazed at how strategic and innovative he is. This guy is really dead serious with his dreams in music, I thought. I’ve never encountered a person with that extreme level of dedication for the sake of attaining one’s dreams.

Realizing that, I did my best to keep up with his pacing and his fierce devotion. This guy left his family, friends, and everyone else he loves in Davao just to team up with me… I have to do my part willingly and wholeheartedly, I told myself.

His friends and family disliked me... initially

His decision to move here to Bukidnon got him in trouble with his pals in Davao and even his family. Apparently, they hate the idea of their headstrong kin to live in a distant place where he’s got no relatives, no friends, and literally, nobody… but me.

As a son of parents who were both Pastors, Gifter is the kind of guy who’s always around with people.

I heard that he handled a music ministry team of a church somewhere in Davao during the last quarter of the previous year. He was supposed to move here since September 2021, but due to his social and familial obligations, work on our album got too delayed.

What would you be doing there?

Would your new job there be enough to give you a comfortable life?

What if you get sick again? Are you willing to be bedridden again for more than a year?

Such were the questions that his loved ones threw at him when he decided to move to a city 200 kilometers away from his hometown. Being the stubborn and headstrong guy that he is, he ignored all of those who tried to stop him from making our tandem a reality.

To elaborate on that fourth question, Yes. Gifter was bedridden and was severely ill for nearly 2 years. As he was recovering, he joined Read.cash, and it’s where we found each other.

“There’s nothing for me here in Davao anymore, I’m going there to be with you.”

That’s what he told me when he revealed his plans to launch a music career with me. The interesting thing about the 2 of us is that we were both former teachers, teaching computer education to some younglings. But due to his “bone-muscle” illness that made him a bed prisoner for many months, he lost his teaching career. His savings got depleted, and his body became nearly skeletal.

To make matters worse, he got dumped by the woman he planned to marry. Such events sent him into a “deep-soul searching mode.” As he was recovering, he weighed things carefully and made a decision… to pursue his long-lost dream in music… and to make it happen with me.

Gifter’s social life is ruined… because of me.

Since he moved here in Bukidnon, Gifter removed himself from the previous social life that he’s been so immersed with. For most of his days, he did mostly nothing but stay indoors doing nothing but write songs and record them on his laptop.

As a typical “moreno-skinned” guy, I began to notice that he’s gone paler with each passing month. Aside from the fact that Bukidnon is an area that’s thrift with sunlight, there are days when Gifter doesn’t go outside his rented room.

He just writes songs, records them, rewrites them, and re-records them. He’s becoming like a digital-age hermit without the long beard and long robes. I began to worry about how this dream of ours might affect his health, mentally, and otherwise.

He needs human connection, and I have to oblige.

Though I have a high level of respect and admiration for Gifter, there are times when I want to avoid him. Why? Because there are those moments when he talks about random things that have nothing to do with our dreams of making it big in the music industry. As an introvert, I find it too draining to listen to all of his stories and diverse ideas about science, movies, religion, and whatnot.

To tell you the truth, Gifter could be at times, a cocksure braggart who thinks highly of himself – He would occasionally boast about how plenty of girls used to chase and worship him in the past. He made it clear though that, he is now a changed man, and that his bad deeds during the previous years were due to his “being young stupid” at that time.

As I listened to him babble non-stop about random stuff, I began to realize something… that I have to lend my ear to this guy whenever I can. It suddenly re-dawned on me that apart from me and my dog, he has nobody else. Like a stranger in my city, he needs human connection… and I have to be that human connection he needs.

Thanks for reading.

Keep safe everyone!