Early Morning Blubbering

I can't sleep.

The humidity and heat is almost unbearable. I suppose global warming is catching up to us and it's a scary thought. Anyway, I'm bracing myself for a rather hot summer.

And when it's early morning, the ghosts of the past come rushing by. While I've learned not to reget the past, sometimes the naivete I had before just astounds me. 'Sigh' Don't you ever wish you possessed the wisdom you had right now when you were 16? 18? 23? Oh well, I guess some of the fun while growing up is in letting yourself make the mistakes you made. Sometimes, you never know when fate decides to smile on you and lead you to serendipity.

I should know. Or else I might not have met The One. =D

New Leaf

The company I worked for recently let go of several employees due to slow business and fortunately for me, I was one of them. It's a weird reaction, I know, but if you've worked there, it's actually the best thing to happen to me. Well, the check they gave me was the best thing to happen to my career so far. (hehe)

Well, lucky for me I still have my writing gig so I'm not exactly left with nothing to do. And I know I've a lot of marketable skills. I just hope I find a job soon. But then, working for myself isn't so bad as well. Who knows? I might just become an entrepreneur. =)

Murphy's Law - Quiquay Style

Can life get any weirder than it is right now?

Yup, the coffee-break friend (ex-boylet) strikes back and his proposition left me rather bewildered and staring at his back quizzically.

Did he or didn't he just ask me the unimaginable? (He did.)

Was he kidding? (He wasn't. He was serious.)

Why? (I honestly don't know. But we'll get to that later.)

It started when he asked me for the nth time when I was going to introduce him to the girls I knew, preferably those who were meantime-girl material. Exasperated, I told him bluntly that they were a rare breed (used to be one myself and it isn't exactly a pretty place to be). Most of the females I knew were looking for long-term relationships and I told him quite frankly it wasn't something he could offer.

This I knew from witnessing his latest mini-meltdown stemming from a simple chat with his ex-gf. In my rather unique brand of counselling, I told him that despite of what he thinks that he has moved on with his life, he's still stuck with the past. Unless he lets go of his sweet misery, he's never going to be free. Well, he does have a lot of things going against him - stemming from the fact that he is supposed to be unavailable - in short, he's leg shackled - lock, stock and barrel.

Okay, after that rather blunt set-down from me, he stared at me rather ponderingly and replied, "Then it'll have to be you then."

What???!!! Was he asking me out because he liked me or because he thought I was the last choice? While I was resolved not to let it go anywhere, I don't think I liked the fact that I was a last choice either.

I ignored that comment last week until I got a call from him early this week asking me if I was free to meet with him. I met him at the mall, curious about what he wanted. And it wasn't hard to figure it out once I got there. Still, I ought to be thankful for the ill-timing because even if I had the time, he didn't. (haha! I'm such a meanie.) Things weren't over yet because I needed to know why he would even ask me again knowing I couldn't anymore. Besides, I was not exactly in the best of shape.

So I asked him "Why me?" in my usual way - bluntly. Unfortunately, I didn't exactly get the answer I expected.

"Because you're my friend."

Now what is that supposed to mean?

Well, I didn't ask him further because it made sense to him - and no matter how he explained it, I still wouldn't get it.

Still, thank goodness for some quirky fate that messed up things that night. It wasn't exactly a path I wanted to take. Okay, I'm still tempted (he IS cute) but I would appreciate a little help in avoiding it. hehe.

Best Buddies - Post post P.S.

..... He asked me to coordinate his wedding.

WHAT???? He's getting married??? Is he kidding me??

('Sigh') Yup, it's him. That guy who once (nearly?) broke my heart. Is he nuts? Yes, we're still buddies. Yes, I had a fun, unique, quirky and organized wedding that my guests loved. Yes, I know many vendors that could be used. Yes, I have events management experience and I think I don't do that bad at it.

But this one takes the cake. Nothing prepared me for this sucker punch.

Only in my crazy world was this bound to happen.

Haha. The fates just had to give me this twist. Aaargh! (I better get paid good bucks here - but asa pa. More likely they'd ask me to do it for free. Grrrr. rubbing salt. )

Best Buddies (Old BC Blog)

(originally posted Oct. 8, 2005)

“Ano ba ang nakita mo sa kanya?”

My ex angrily asked me that question after we broke up. What did I see in my buddy anyway? I couldn’t give the ex an exact answer. Was it her eyes that twinkled when she smiled? Was it her fair skin? Or her katarayan ? I told her the only thing that came into my mind.

“It was Fate.”

Yes, fate. I noticed her a long time before I even knew her. All I knew was that she was this girl in her usual outfit of a baby t-shirt, short A-line skirt and sneakers darting in and out of your dormitory that summer. She always seemed to have a sense of purpose, walking ahead without looking around the lobby. Yeah, I found her cute. But she looked mataray. Summer ended and I forgot about her.

I joined this regional org since I wanted to find out more about my adopted province. I had some schoolmates applying too, mostly from the lower batch. It was orientation day when she walked in again, smiling and laughing with her orgmates. I couldn’t believe it. She was a member!
Bidding time for buddies came, and she wasn’t even there. I have been an applicant for more than two weeks now and I haven’t even talked to her yet. Most of my other co-applicants already got their buddies and there was a new one coming up. Impatiently, I bid the highest reasonable amount I could think of and bid for whoever my buddy would be. It went uncontested. Imagine my delight when I found out it was HER.

And still no sign of her. She showed up a week later while I was whiling away the time at the tambayan that afternoon, chatting with my co-apps. We had more chats (and spats) after that, including that eventful buddy date which both of us poured our guts out on hang-ups, angst and traumas to each other.

Sadly, my application didn’t push through, even if we did get declared best buddies on our Talent’s Night. Ironically, we weren’t on speaking terms that night due to a misunderstanding beforehand. You see, I told her my feelings.

One afternoon, days before the Talent’s Night, my co-apps were kidding me about my attraction to her. It so happened she had just arrived while they were at it.

“Hello! What’s up?” she asked.
“He wants to tell you something,” one of my companions pointed at me.
The rat. I’ll get him later.
“Well, what is it?” she looked at me inquiringly.

I tried to hedge and worm my way out of it for more than an hour but this girl knew me and stared at me and wouldn’t let me up. She knew it had something to do with us. And she wouldn’t give up until I told her. And I did. Full of hope and dread and excitement, I did.

I told her I liked her. Very much. And she said, not unkindly, “ I like you too, but as a friend. I’m not closing my doors though. If you’re willing to risk it then let’s see where this would go. But I can’t give you any guarantees.”

“I’m going to break up with my girlfriend”, I blurted out.

“I can’t let you do that just because of me and I can’t give you any assurance that there would be an “us” either.” I was too angry to see the sadness in her eyes. All I knew was that she was rejecting me.

We eventually patched things up and remained good friends even though I wasn’t able to continue my application to their org. I also stayed with my girlfriend. After her graduation, we kept in touch sporadically.

A year later, I broke up with my girlfriend. She was seeing another guy behind my back. Someone better-looking than I was. I was at a low point in my life when she popped up again just after the church service. As usual, she became my sounding board. The one person that didn’t give me bullsh*t, who told me it was going to be all right and who told me what was on her mind – except what she was feeling.

I asked her out a few days later. She finally said yes and we had a wonderful time. Two days later I was knocking at her door at 11:30 in the evening. I just had to tell her how I felt. Needless to say, it was a repeat of the previous conversation.

She didn’t shut her doors though. We went out a couple of more times in the next three weeks and had fun. But I was getting impatient. I didn’t read the signals right.

She’d call me every now and then. She’d hold my hand from time to time and play with it. She asking for a hug and me laughingly giving it to her. She embarrassedly confessed that she’d been having dreams of us kissing. Me actually teaching her how and her surprisingly sweet response. How she couldn’t get out of the car because her legs felt like “jello”. But she never said anything about how she felt. So I read a lot of things wrong. And I believed my ex.

“She likes you only as a friend, not even romantically. Why do you persist on pursuing her?” she told me angrily a few days after I told my buddy how I felt.

I thought about it again and decided that it was an exercise in futility. I gave up. And went out with other girls. More experienced and worldly females.

The next year, I got news that she just had a boyfriend. Well, good for her, I thought, as I dismissed her from my mind. Until we met again after the church service a few months later and she told me about my write-up, the music sheet for a piece she wanted to return and countless notes she wrote and never sent – all addressed to me.

I read them all. It told of a young lady who was falling for her buddy. How broken-hearted she was when he suddenly had a new girlfriend who was obviously prettier and richer than she was. How she was still hoping he’d come back. How he never came back – and she just resolved to be a good friend to him. How she loved and lost and finally moved on.

I think of the hits and misses, the miscommunications and the misunderstanding, the joy I felt when I finally had her in my arms and wish that I had known better. But Fate deemed it so. She’ll only be a friend I can lean on. In the meantime, I still search for The One. Or had I found her and just let her go?
###############

This is how I imagine my buddy would’ve written our story. I hope this will be your closure, as those letters I gave you had been mine before. I can’t think of anything more appropriate to say except (to borrow the words of a friend) - “ I loved you once, if for a while…”

Post Script to the post script:
I wrote this article more than a year ago under a different pseudonym, on a particularly down period of my life, but this story happened years before that. Anyway, I was surprised how this story is so like many other buddies out there. And how uncannily right on the dot to the guy's real story.

...For Better or Worse

....when I said those words during my wedding a few months ago, little did I know how soon the "worse" would come. It's nothing catastrophic or anything bad, but a gradual erosion of good intentions as the stress of everyday life wears us down.

The wedding, while not exactly the romantic dream I was hoping for, was funny and cute. We spent a considerable amount to make it right and exept for a few glitches, it was a nice and memorable one that people talked long after. However, a wedding and a marriage are two different things.

We mostly have good days but I'm afraid the bad days have started coming in increasing frequency. The strain of my having a career, the stress that comes from a challenging and demanding job and his lack of both (job and challenge) is beginning to wear him down. I'm trying to adjust to his needs, not being too demanding and shouldering all financial responsibilities. I have never thrown the fact that I'm the breadwinner right now, because I really appreciate the fact that he does all the housework I hate to do. But is it too much to ask for some time? To talk a walk at the park or at the mall so I could destress? Does he have to throw the fact that I earn a lot more than him to my face when I suggested we do something during the weekend.

Is it a woman's fault when she has a career and she's more successful than most men? I worked hard to be where I'm at and I grew up knowing there were no limits to what I can do, regardless of my gender. I'm not about to let any man, even if I love him very much, clip my wings. I will fly - and let him catch me. The way to a butterfly's heart is not by capturing it - but letting it fly free. He should know. He taught me in the first place.

The Queen's 'Blag!'

My friends know me as a someone to lean on; the strong one who will be there when they are weak; the level-headed girl who can be relied on to look for solutions to life's problems. Someone even compared me to the queen of chess pawns, able to hop anywhere in the board of moral ambiguity, the last one standing when everyone has surrendered, the strongest pawn of the game.

But when that strongest piece needs help, who can she turn to?