HOMING INSTINCT
by An Mercado-Alcantara, Working Mom, February 2003

SHARON CUNETA IS MOVING OUT. She's been packing for three months now, living half out of boxes, half out of rooms mercifully spared from the disrepair her home has fallen into. It is a fairly new house, mind you; only five years since she moved in for what she thought would be a long stay in, finally, her dream home.

But things have a way of taking the unexpected turn, even for the megastar. This time it's come in the form of leaking ceilings, moisture steeped walls, cracked plaster, and repair work so massive she and her family will have to vacate.

It's a nightmare for any working mom, but Sharon's tackled enough unforeseen upheavals in her life to know that there is more to this than meets the eye. Just as she has time and again, she knows char this sudden uprooting will teach her a new way of looking at life.

So she grins and bears it, even if it means being roused out of bed at mid-morning (after an all nighter that only allowed her to snooze at five AM) so that the movers can cart her bed away. Even if it means taking twice longer to get her things together, "I don't know in what box they scored them away," she says. And even if it means spending the last few days of the year that saw her splendidly marking her 25th anniversary in showbiz digging through the "junk" she's accumulated over the years and deciding which ones she'll keep and what she'll throw out: "I don't know why it has come to this," she confesses, "why have I become such a bag lady. I have a problem letting go of things, especially those that have sentimental value to me."

Making room for life

The situation she finds herself in is an apt metaphor for what she's set herself out to do in the year ahead. In 2003, she plans to scale down, go back to the basics, and enjoy more.

It will be a major lifestyle renovation for her, especially after she crammed the last two years with a relentless schedule that had her pushing new ground on all fronts of her career: concerts, movies, TV, recording, and product endorsements. She did more activities last year than most celebrities do in five years.

To restore her inner home, she'll have to pack up many commitments, store away her compulsion to work, and do the repair work her spirit needs to make room for change. The result of the clear out, she hopes, is enough room in her life to tackle another pregnancy. Yes, she wants another child. "Two more, in fact, if the Lord permits

It is in the attic where Sharon has the most of her clearing out. Spanning three-fourths the floor area of her home, the upper floor has been described by friends as a veritable department store, stocked with thingd she's bought over the years. One can imagine there are bags and shoes, and all kinds of goodies of high value and quality. But it is not over these that she is fretting. It is the other stuff, things with no value to anyone except her - the napkin her husband for Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan once scribbled a love note on, concert tickets, gifts of people, dear to her. "I now realize that I will always have these memories in my heart, I don't have to actually keep the things. Besides I rarely have the time to sort through all the tangible memmories," she admits. "But still, it's difficult to let go."

Letting go has, in fact, become a recurring theme in her life, especially since her father died a little over two years ago. Subsequently, the horror of 9-11 and the sudeen death of Rico Yan have given her an acute sense that we all live on borrowed time. She's become determined to clear out the attic of her own mind, pushing out the clutter of other people's opinion and expectations so that she can live out every precious moment without regret.

To thine own self be true

Having grown up in the public eye, Sharon learned to measure her every move against the expectations of the people around her. "If most people grow up trying to live up to the expectations of their parents, I had to grow up living up to the expectations of fans." Her decisions were carefully measured to make sure she lived up to an image, rather than to her own hopes. "But as I got older," Sharon admits, "I looked back at the decisions that I have made decisions that mostly took into consideration what people will say, what they expect from me then I realized, why did I do that? That's not what I really wanted to do."

When her first marriage broke up, she felt alone and yet so crowded in. "Nobody was staying up with me when I was crying alone at night," she recalls. Yet, people were feasting on her heartache day in and day out - everybody had something to say, everybody had an opinion, an expectation, a disappointment. "It was such a struggle. I kept thinking of what people were saying, when all I wanted to do was get on with my life. But people would just keep talking, until it drove you crazy, then after a couple of weeks, they would just move on to another celebrity."

"After 9-11, I realized, life is too short. Why did I care [about what other people said]? In the end, you only have to be true to yourself and to the people that matter most to you."

It's a drastic yet necessary step for someone who's been raised to please. She's always been a self-confessed Daddy's girl. She once said: "If my Dad asked me to jump out of a building, I would only ask: from what floor, Dad?" In fact, there's a childhood memory, too personal to recount in detail, which could offer a peek into why she is how she is. As an impressionable little girl, she onced chanced upon her mother crumpled on the floor weeping. She didn't know why and didn't have to ask; but her resolve was quick and lasting: she vowed never to be the cause of any pain to her parents.

To this day, pleasing her father and mother is still the force that drives her. It could be very well be the secret to her success. Yet, in a business built on the backs of crowd pleasers, the demands can be punishing if you don't know where to draw the line. That's what she's learning to do.

"It was only a couple of years ago when I learned to say No," Sharon admits. "I used to have a hard time turning people down. But if you do something for someone and you're not naman happy, what's the use? It's not about being selfish; it's about being true. If only I could, I would accomodate everybody. I wish I could help everybody. I wish I could do 10 movies for 10 diferent producers. I wish I could be in 10 pplaces all at the same time. But it's just not possible - for anybody. It took me some time to admit to myself that I could not make everybody happy."

Guilt shadows such a decision, but she's decided not to be burdened by that. Without emotional hooks, the shift is most sensible. "Kawawa naman ako kung lahat kayo happy, ako hindi. I would be even more useless. If I'm miserable, wala na akong saysay. Kahit kayo hindi magiging happy [with me around]." It is a conclusion all working moms must someday arrive at: to be the best mothers we can be, we have to do all we can to take care of ourselves. That means even throwing open windows of our own spiritual attics, where the great expectations reside, and letting the sunshine through.

Maximizing each moment

"My biological clock is synchronized with my leading lady clock. SO I am trying ot maximize."

Maximize is Sharon's favorite word these days. It explains why she sticks to a grueling work schedule despite all that she has already achieved. She's set a goal for herself: she's front loading all the work, assembling a body of work that will keep her fans happy for a good while, so that she can pull away from the scene. "I hope to slow down. I want to be pregnant again. That's what keeps me going. I'll do a movie or two before I stop. Di ba I had a difficult time with Frankie, since I'm older, I'm pretty sure it will be just as difficult, if nor more difficult. So, I will stop and rest.

"I look forward to the day I will have blanks in my Filofax. Right now, every single day I have something to do. there are not enough days to do what I have to do." It's the balancing act on a mega scale. And it's a skill Sharon took years to learn.

"After all these years, I've onlylearned to live now. Before, I was so afraid to take a day off. Nanghihinayang ako. Then after I got married, and we started taking vacations. I told myself: "Ah, this is how it is to live pala. Before, I was just existing. Work was my life. I didn't know you could simply take off and enjoy."

Now, she's learning to be kinder to herself. After the Mega Concert last year, she took off for Bangkok and had a vacation with "just me lang," she says. "I stayed in the hotel the whole time, slept,r ead, and had massages." It's her idea of pampering. "I've always had simple joys - keep me in the house with my books, pen and paper, I'll be happy."

She'll probably take the same formula when she takes even more time off at the end of the year. Even now, she's excited to discover how she will evolve as a mother. "KC got the best of my youth. When she was born, I was making a name for myslef. I was working to make money because I didn't have money, but I was also young enough to run around with her. With Frankie, everything that I wanted to get with KC, I already had." Now, when she's pregnant with, hopefully, her thrid full-term child, she will be at the point in her life when she's aching to simplify. "It's funny, for many years you work your butt off only to realize that when you have it all, all you really want is to go back to the basics."

And there, in the simple life she so craves for, may await true success. Going back to the basics, after all, means taking root only in what matters most, in its distilled and purest form. Moving out of the limelight, packing off expectations, throwing out the uinnecessary, to make room for new life, Sharon may yet discover what George Bernard Shaw found: "The real moment of success is not the moment apparent to the crowd."