You walk with tiny wings on your feet
Fluttering, flying, almost dancing as you go about
Your shadow is made of laughter
Bright, sunny side up soul you are

You hold hands with the sun,
In all its fierceness and warmth, you bask
Swimming on its fingers
Humming with its melody

Then the world folds into an amber sea
you succumb. like a cocoon you hide
That sad, round cratered face mocks you
With all it’s sarcasm and secrets

As it crawls on it's own time you cry
shivering from the cold palms of the night
screaming from the deafening silence
surrendering to the inevitable

Beryl Tejedor

Everyone has a right for cold feet, minutes, days before their wedding. Marriage as beautiful as it is, is a scary thing. Imagine committing in sharing your life with a total stranger, someone who is your total opposite or just the right fit, it doesn't matter, the fact that you are going to live with someone who can be anyone but the person you know and learned to love sure should give you goose bumps. I am not trying to scare anyone who is about to get married or change the mind of the ones who are. I am only writing down stuff that I have experienced and learned in the process. I've been married for more than a year now, some of my friends called it a hasty decision, some cried, some were happy I hope? If you have been an avid reader of my endless blogging, you should have an idea of what the first few steps of my marriage has been, happy and sad, glorious and frustrating, it's a mixture of things, needless to say, I am happy. However there are things that people don't realize about marriage until they are into one, as happy as I am, it can be exhausting at times, as most relationships are, however, I can say there is more weight to things that are happening and can happen now since you are tied to the promise and commitment and let's face it, the rollercoaster of this union.

True, I feel more secure now since he chose me over everyone else to be his partner for life, but there are things that I feel more strongly now than before, fear is a constant guest in my thoughts, blame it to the unfaithfuls who shattered my view of marriage, the women who just love to seduce married men, the ever BIG egoes of men that helps them cheat, or the "it's a guy thing" mentality of most men who just need to have a different variety of "things" every now and then.

Girls grow up thinking love is a fairytale, believe me, I still want to believe that, but when you have seen too much, heard enough,been through a lot more pain than necessary, it skews up your whole idea of love, marriage and relationships, trust becomes a foreign word. No matter what the effort of your partner is, it is so difficult to let your guard down, to leave it all to fate and hope he loves you enough to not do anything he knows will hurt you. That's when marriage becomes exhausting, when you are torn between believing and being careful. Between giving credit to his gestures and guarding yourself, between enjoying the moment and securing yourself, when does it stop? it doesn't I guess, it's not about the other having to do something more than he should, it's a self inflicted torture I confess, if there's a wife/girlfriend/partner out there who can say they trust their partner 100% without any doubt or the littlest fear of being deceived,cheated, lied at. Do us a favor. write a book. and please, get a publisher in Asia.

Beryl

Last week, in the middle of my class, one of the boys blurted out "I love you!" to me with his hands spread open followed with a childish smile, my heart laughed, I'm sure he meant "I appreciate your effort" or something to that effect, what with their limited English vocabulary.. 

Or maybe he did mean "I love you", whatever he meant by it, I said "thank you" and carried on with my lesson for the day, it's amazing how us, as kids perceive love in it's purest sense, saying it out loud so lightly, how easily we let it go, how often we say it and actually mean it to people that matters to us, no matter how little they have done to make us appreciate our existence.

And how sad it is that as we grow an inch or two, the three words seem to weigh more and more, how guys think that saying it means chopping off a pound of muscle off their sculpted bods and eventually doom their masculinity, whatever they perceive the word to be.. and even women as they age manage to associate expressing love as a sign of vulnerabilty and weakness.

How nice it would be if saying "I love you" was as innocent as a child's gesture of appreciation, as meaningful, and as sincere. When they say "there's always a child in everyone" may it be when we say those three words... and to serve it's one and only purpose, to get your message across...

To say hey, "I love you".

I saw a woman today, a nobody I think, a regular Filipina, but something was confusing about her face though, ahh, yeah! her eyes were blue! yup, like BLUE.. these things still disturb me, ok, we do need contacts if our eyes are bad, my husband can't live without it, some of my friends wear something brownish or hazel to bring out their eyes or to look more mestiza or a little fancy I guess since you'll look a bit foreign with lighter eyes...

But to go as extreme as green, or grey and blue when your skin and features screams 100% Malay... FILIPINO! it's just over reaching.. almost hilarious.. no offense, but what do people try to prove when they mask their ethnicity? that they would look better? I mean c'mon, it's not like having blue/green eyes is not supposed to come hand in hand with a pale-ish skin... errr...?

I know people have their right to their own decisions and choices as I am to my opinions, but it's just ridiculous, I always loved my sister's brown skin, and at some point I think I wanted that skin, why try to mask it? whew.. some people huh? don't give me that look now.. it's just an opinion.

Bow.       

For four years or so, I have lived my life like a robot, I ate,slept,worked, then back again, well, a little party here and there and a few hang overs sparked up an almost sedentary life every once in a while, thanks to insomnia and free booze from my friends, sorry I was always broke hehe..

My day would consist of late lunches, too much coffee, those handy karimans off mini stop for dinner, a shout from a prick for a boss, a rush from all the work load, a much needed cig stick after a long day, or should I say night.. then crashing to my bed at noon.. waking up at some days to pay for bills I dreaded paying coz it pretty much takes a big chunk off my pay but I needed to deal with anyway.

Let's just say, it was all about surviving and not living, but then again, I loved working, there's a certain high in accomplishing something at the end of the day, of knowing you are going to get payed by doing something you're good at, and you're not depending on someone to put food in your hungry mouth, I have always been independent and self sufficient that I once swore that I will never be a housewife, never.

Again, I was wrong.. it was hard at first, very hard. Chris had to teach me some stuff that a woman is supposed to know like how to iron clothes.. hehe... it wasn't the learning process that was hard, it was the unlearning; from the things I was used to doing to something else. Learning is always good

Well, after a few months of being my husband's housewife... let's say I am transformed to a real one now..   I can't stand a messy table anymore, dishes needs to be washed right away, no socks on the couch (we got a new one hehe) and all those scary stuff that wives do.. hahaha!

It's a pure choice, nobody bosses me around to clean the house.. blame it to my new found OCD.. ouch.. it's getting worse..

But what makes it all so fulfilling is when Chris comes home and hugs me and says "don't wash the dishes,i'll do it, just sit down and relax..you deserve it.." uh! what more can I ask? and he's got my favorite shrimp popcorn of course...

I'm gonna look for a job this month, I wonder what it's gonna be like to work again... as for now, I love taking care of the man who loves to take care of me..

MSN today pops up the moment I turn our laptop on which is annoying at times, and sometimes some topics just make me click away and read for the heck of it, one article I read recently was about exes, yeah, old flames. and if it is OK/healthy to look them up through the internet after you're married?, Myspace and Friendster being ever so helpful with not only looking up people but knowing what they look like now, so the temptation is always there to type the name of our "used to be's" right? the article discussed about how far should we go, should we just be content at knowing they are still alive? or do you always say "Hi.. wazzup?" when you do find them?

It said (at least the author did) that looking up an ex can mean many things, some people do it just to have to have a good laugh when they find out that their ex is now 30 pounds heavier, married to a girl who is not even 1/4 as pretty as you are, I confess to this sin.. this is how I make myself laugh sometimes hahahaha! BUT, it becomes a threat to your marriage when you start looking them up, spend a minute or two looking at their "now" picture and smile at your memories together and you start typing an email, when you want to get in touch again, the author said that it might seem harmless to some but in reality, when you start wanting to be in touch with an ex you haven't talked to in a long time, at the back of your head you wonder if maybe life would be better if you ended up with him/her, you're longing for something to happen that is not happening to you at the present.. meaning you're not happy..

I really wish I can remember the author's name so I can quote him and maybe copy some of his smart words hehe... Oh well... I'm just writing this because the moment I closed that window,a Yahoo bublle popped that I have an email from a name I never thought I'd still remember, yeah, an ex way way back in college, the email goes.. "It's me, how are you?" I replied "married and very happy" he replied again telling me that he's married too with two kids now and frequents my province coz of his line of work and was asking for pictures of me and my family, I just said "look me up in friendster" I don't even know how he got my email.. or what made him email me, it was the kind of relationship that when it ended, there's pretty much nothing to talk about anymore.. nothing. we didn't become friends during the relationship, and we can't start being one now, there are just exes that when they come back to your life they become an excess, you just don't need them.

oh well... whatever his reason is, i'm not saying more than hello back, what's over is over.

One of the things I want to do before I die is touch the clouds... last saturday, July 29th, I did. Where else but up in the trails of the monster Mt. Fuji, I always liked climbing/hiking what have you.. I used to climb a lot when I was younger and less wiser, but nothing prepared me for what this famous volcano had in store for us.

We started at the 5th station, the farthest the bus can take us, that's where the gate is too, we got there at around 6:00 am and started walking to a seemingly easy trail, Chris and I were still talking and laughing mimicking Frodo and Sam in LOTR since we felt like hobbits with our wooden sticks we got from the gate so we went on.. after about an hour we reached the 6th station, we were now at 2,500 meters above sea level, I thought to myself "it's not that hard after all.." oh yeah... haha! wait till we started heading off the the 7th station, it was an endless, steep zig zag trail of loose volcanic rocks that made the climb a lot harder, I was panting and sweating like a pig, the rubbery taste of the water from my camelback didn't help quinch my thirst at all, good thing Chris spared me his water..

After almost an hour of that torture, we got to the 7th station tired as hell, but we weren't even half way yet.. argh! we rested for a bit, took pictures of the most amazing view I've ever seen in my life... then we moved on with our challenge, the trail to the 8th station was even worse, at almost 3,000 meters ASL, the air was getting thin and cold, and I swear the trail looked like the one Frodo and Sam took going to Mordor.. ok, a little bit easier but it was just rocks and rocks and more steep rocks reaching to the top of the mountain that never seemed to end... I didn't feel like stopping, Chris and I swore we'll try to make it to the summit.

3,350 meters ASL, 8th station. our walking sticks were getting crowded with the stamps we got at every station and huts we stopped by for a breath or two, that's how you show off, you show your sticks, the more stamps you have on them, the higher you climbed, two more stations, 9 and 10, the summit! this time we stopped longer, when you reach the 8th station, you can touch the clouds, it just dances around you like cotton candy, it feels like a fog but a bit heavier, cooler... I never thought I'll be able to do that.... wow....

2 more stations... after a much deserved longer rest, we headed to the 9th station, that's when it started raining, we grabbed our raincoats and kept heading for the summit, it was really hot when we started that the rain came as a surprise, this time you can barely see where you're going because of the fog and the rain... the trail got even steeper, the soil even softer making us slow down, we struggled for a few more minutes trying to make one more step to the top until I couldn't feel my fingers from the cold, the rain started to hurt my face, I moved on anyway, Chris was ahead of me and looked back to grab my hand and saw the painful look on my face and asked me if I still want to pursue reaching the summit, I said "we have to!, we're almost there..!" "that't the spirit hun!" he said smiling... 

A few more hard steps and I found him staring at me with a worried look, he gently said "let's go down..., you're tired.." at that point I was exhausted and freezing so we started descending holding each other's hand of fear of sliding to the ground faster than necessary hehe... I started feeling nauseated, we had to stop at every bend so I can take a breath and keep myself from throwing up, after 4 long hours of downhill climb, we reached the 5th station, tired, sore,hungry,damp from the rain... we stopped at the very first resto we saw and tried to eat, I didn't finish my food, I ran to the nearest rest room and threw up like there was no tomorrow... we want back to the bus where I passed out for an hour and the first thing I saw when I woke up was Chris' face.. saying "you want something to drink Hun..?"  that was all I needed after that long, hot, cold, freezing,hard as hell climb.

It's always worth it, when you have someone to share it with

We're going back next year.

Let me be.. it's my birthday, right JV? it's our birthday happy birthday to us bunso!! mamayagpag ang magagandang nilalang sa lupa at magsulat ang kayang magsulat walang pipigil! hehehe

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Anyway, for some reason, I'm always broke on my birthdays.. well, I was always broke to start with hahaha! I just notice it more on my birthdays coz I need to buy a cake! hehe

So 2 birthdays ago, I was broke again, I didn't have a party or anything, I think I just slept through the day, I used to work at night, so I just crashed in my bed the moment I got home, my friends didn't forget to greet me so that made the day better.

I woke up around 7pm I think and I found a purple box tied with a pink ribbon at the foot of me bed... it was from my sister Zare-ann, I opened it and inside was a yellow journal painted with a butterfly and a butterfly picture frame.. and a note that said "Sorry this is all I can afford, I'm broke too, happy birthday Te, i love you mwah!"  I swear it made me cry...   little things like that illuminates a supposedly disappointing day, thank God for my sweet sisters. I miss you all