Family Affair

For five days, my parents and my lil bro came over my place to attend the wedding of my cousin Joey. of course, me and my sister, cynthia, was so thrilled!never mind the exhaustion of preparing our "shitty hole" and touring them around.

Mama and papa did some serious shopping for our place, they bought groceries that could last for half a year!!! isn't it great when your parents are around? they also bought us some things like clothes, shoes and etc.

the best part of their visit is the time i got to spend with my bro, patrick. Fatso was born when i was 11 years old, so i really witnessed, in an adult mind, how he grew into a talented little fella. we watched a movie, i shopped with him, we slept together....we talked a whole lot! he gave me a spongebob stuff toy, which i snuggle beside me when i go to bed.

he's now 11 years old, and so big! i think he could outgrow me when he gains 3 inches of height. he's wearing glasses and his fingers are as long as mine. where was that baby i used to carry in my arms????

my boyfriend also spent time with my parents, treating them out to lunch and all that. it was great and im sorry that it's only for five days!

i brought them to the airport, and god, it was so sad.

parting is such a sweet sorrow, right?

when i saw fatso crying, i cried too.

i want to be with my bro again.

NOTHING LASTS FOREVER

nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky.......


Mel, we shall meet again. you rest in peace, my dear friend. there will be no goodbyes, nor farewells... we are going to be friends forever. i was your friend until you died...and you will remain my very good friend until my last breath. i shall be calling out to you mel, as i always do. i will ask you from time to time if you are alright, and what are you up to. and i pray, dear melrose, that you will answer my questions.


i love you. may eternal light shine upon you.

THAT THING CALLED LONG DISTANCE AFFAIR

I am not a believer of long distance relationships.... first of all, how can you call it a relationship if you can't see each other physically? second of all, how can one be a witness to the other's ever changing lifestyle, which is a huge deal if you want to spend your entire life with that person? third of all..... well, there are just so many reasons why that kind of relationship is a big, huge, gigantic NO for me.

Imagine this. your partner is somewhere out there, millions of miles away from you.... while he's gone, a lot of things happened to you....you meet a lot of new people, done a lot of things which he never imagined you can etc etc! these things will make you a new person. and when you two meet again, you are not the same person he left behind. now, how can he understand you if he had never witnessed those changes that happened to you because he was gone?

yeah, true love waits. but just look at the results of waiting.... everybody will change......

its so hard to explain..... if this will happen to me, i am sure as hell that the relationship will go pfffffftt!!!!!

NO GOODBYES

If Melrose can see me now, I don't know what she's going to say to me. It's hard to believe that she's gone...... that i will never see her again, or hear her voice once more....

just how do you comprehend with death?

would you just accept it right away? Or linger on its sadness, cry a whole lot, and then stay there?

I lost a very close friend. And until now, i just couldn't accept it. I can't find the right words to exactly describe how i feel.

I can still hear her laughter, her jokes, her singing.....i can still see her smiling face, those crying eyes.... i can still feel the giddiness of being close with her, sharing jokes and stories.

there will be no good byes for mel and me. i will not say fare well or so long. She will remain alive and kicking in my heart and mind.

a letter for melrose

dear melrose,

life has been so empty.

i think last friday was the worst day of my life so far. and i wish i wasn't able to experience that friday.

mel, do you remember when we were in high school? we were so crazy! our freshman year was not really the year for us because we were not yet close. i remember, you were always with rosario while i was with hilda and cristy. but i have noticed you. you were such a good singer. i like to especially hear you sing during the first friday masses our school required us to attend. i was a bad girl then...always getting into trouble with our teachers, and i was a regular visitor at the principal's office (ha!ha!). my parents too! and then, near the end of that year, we were talking, you, me, coney, and rosario about dormitories. and then we suddenly have this urge to be in a dormitory all through out the school year so we decided to list at the school dorm.

our school dorm was pretty spooky, don't you think?? that large, white, imposing house....with big rooms but small toilets. yet we were so excited to try dormitory life, and we were only what, 13? 14? we lived together all through out sophomore year! and we had this very cool barkada....with coney and wella. the four of us, we called ourselves "friends-for-the-moment" because we would always fight, but still get together in the end. only wella doesn't lived in the dorm because her house was only ten minutes away from our school. i remember so well how we used to gang up against rosario. we would always find imperfections in her perfect, immaculate ways. we always thought that we were right! we hate the way she acted as if she knew everything... it still did not stop us from getting close to her anyways. And remember ate lori??? our "landlady" whom we thought was the "aswang" because of the strange noises we hear in her room. we hated her so much for forcing us to clean our rooms, say the rosary, be in good terms with other dorm people. she was so strict, and i was always her target.

there was also the issue of getting to the bathroom first. we always beat the others, but rosario had evil plans.... so what we did was slept outside our rooms with our uniforms in order to leave the dorm first! we seem to have enemies everywhere, don't you think??? hahahahaha! we hated the same teachers!

and of course, our tastes when it comes to music was the same. we loved the grin department, eraserheads, rivermaya, goo goo dolls, alanis morissette and many more. we used to spent so much time together just listening to the radio and our tapes.

we had escapades the school didn't approved of. we used to cram together ten hours before the exams. we spend recess together eating buko pie with softdrinks. and you, coney, wella and rosario has spent so many times sleeping over my house. and it was always the best time! didn't rosario found her first boyfriend in my place??? yeah, she fell in love with my cousin! and when they broke up, we used to tease her about her brief love affair. also, we used to link you to my neighbor JR. that fat, albino guy you hated so much! was it because he was always wering her red polka dots shorts???? we started calling you Polka, and you would get so mad at us that you won't speak to us until the end of the day.

and oh yes. the agriculture class. our teacher made us plant peanuts, and ours wasn't as helathy as our classmates' plants. do you remember that after school, we would go to the field and "kill" our clasmates' plants by jumping on it? ha!ha!ha! also, we learned how to cook rice together. But i must admit, it was only until i graduated in college that i perfected my cooking rice.

sadly, after our second year in high school, i wasn't able to stay. i have to move to a different school and i still remember the pain of being seperated from you guys. how we cried! i still remember, i was sitting at the school's front steps with you and coney. i was holding all the letters you guys sent and we were just quiet. we were looking at each other. we were so torn because wella also has to transfer to a different school.

after that day, ive only seen wella once. she turned out to be bacolod's beauty queen, right? i also saw her on tv. all your letters that has reached me during our seperation are still with me.... i think we met again in college, where we would meet from time to time. the first movie we watched was Scary Movie. oh how we laughed til our sides ached! and then you introduced me to dairy queens blueberry cheesecake blizzard!

yes mel.... college was no fun. you went to med school and we only get together once in a blue moon.... and then i went to manila to try my luck and last year, when i returned in our province, we got together.... i was so happy mel. you were in my house again, and it felt like i was 13 again. we ate so much coffee crumble ice cream, talked a whole lot.... and we even talked about our love lives! your face never changed...your laughter still sounded the same.... everything's the same mel. i had so many friends, but with you... i can be as crazy as i can be, and you would just let me. that's what i like about our friendship.

mel, i never thought that it would be the last time that we will be together. i remember, we ate pizza and you brought me to the jeepney stop. we said goodbyes, laughed a lot.....and then you sent me a text message. you said, goodluck pau.... see u again.....

mel, that was over a year ago.... and then last friday, rosario called me and told me you were dead. Dead. You. Melrose.

i went numb mel. how could a 23 year old died?

we still have so much to do together mel.

i missed you so much! mel, had i known that you were about to die, i would go back there and spend some time with you.

im not pepared for this mel. i have to stop writing.

WHAT IS THE WORST DAY OF YOUR LIFE?

LAST NIGHT, I WATCHED AN OLD RERUN OF THE OPRAH SHOW, THE OPENING QUESTION WAS THE TITLE I USED. ONE GUEST WAS A MOTHER OF FOUR....3 TEENS AND A LITTLE GIRL AGED THREE. HER WORST DAY WAS ONE EARLY MORNING, SHE WENT OUT TO DO HER DAILY WALK AND WHEN SHE CAME BACK, ALL HER CHILDREN WERE KILLED BY HER EX HUSBAND. I CANNOT FORGET THE FACE OF HER DAUGHTER, A FIFTEEN YEAR OLD BUDDING BALLERINA.... WHAT COULD BE WORSE THAN THIS??? HER CHILDREN'S LIVES WERE JUST BEGINNING, AND ALL OF A SUDDEN, THEIR LIVES WERE TAKEN AWAY IN A NON SENSE MANNER. I CRIED TIL THE SHOW ENDED. ONE GUEST HAS ALSO A SIMILAR CASE. A YOUNG MOTHER OF THREE LITTLE BOYS NEVER THOUGHT THAT SENDING HER CHILDREN ON A CAMP WITH THEIR DADDY WOULD BE THE LAST TIME THAT SHE WILL SEE THEM ALIVE. THEIR FATHER KILLED THEIR SONS TOO, AND THEN SHOT HIMSELF TO DEATH......... UNTIL NOW, THE MOM SAID, SHE DIDN'T RETURNED TO THEIR OLD HOME. MEMORIES WERE JUST TOO PAINFUL TO BEAR.

AFTER WATCHING THE SHOW, IT MADE ME THINK OF A LOT OF THINGS CONCERNING THE WAY I LOOK AT MY OWN LIFE. EVERYDAY, IM COMPLAINING THAT UNHAPPINESS IS ALWAYS HOVERING AROUND ME. I THOUGHT THERE'S NOTHING THAT I COULD BE THANKFUL ABOUT. IT MADE ME REALIZE THAT I HAVE THIS GIFT OF LIFE....

a world filled with worries

i wasn't able to sleep well last night. i was thinking about the comforts my life in negros has offered me. i thought of my bed, with its soft mattress and fluffy pillows and warm blankets.... i thought of the food at home, hearty soup, rich deserts, first class viands, simple foods, junk foods.... every gastronomic delight a home can produce! i thought of my parents' house in general. everything i could ever want for is there..... so why am i here in a place called recoletos, sleeping in a lumpy bed, making do of a toilet without an automatic flush, cooking canned foods everyday?

i was awake until 5 am....and i came to a decision. i will leave manila next year, maybe around march or april.

i just wanna be home.

its not only because of the material comforst that i wanna be back.....

manila is not a friendly place. i was robbed here, my jewelries were stolen here.....rush hour is hell especially if you don't have a car, and the pollution! the air is always black! its scary to come home late at night. commuting is terrible and the food is expensive.

it seems that having my boyfriend here in manila is not worthy enough to stay.

tin and nog

if you are in love with someone, and he doesn't know about it... would you let him know (a perennial question)?

what about if that person is a good friend of yours? would you risk putting your friendship in hot waters?

it happened to me before. and i was so bold and courageous enough to meet him at the school's gym and told him that i got something going on for him. you know what he did???

he just smiled and told me im being funny. and from that day on, i feel uncomfortable whenever we're together. though we still remain to be good friends..... everytime i remember what i did, i feel so embarrassed!

so for me...... the best example would be my friend tin.... she's just quiet about her feelings. although ahlf of the people in the office knows about who her crush is, she remains cool and mysterious.

i wouldn't blab my feelings again.

the art of doing nothing when you're doing something...

im in my cubicle here in the office. im supposed to do my work, but i guess i can stray a little.... so, as a telemarketer, one is supposed to sit for 6 hours and talk over the phone, selling what have yous.... and that's what im supposed to do at this minute...... but, i got few people on the contact list....so.... im doing nothing!

pretty boring here.

this is the time for day dreaming.

wish i could fit in my jeans again.

wish jo is here with me.