LP: Pag-iisang Dibdib

Mga apat na taong nakalipas, eto kami noon.

Translation: A photo from our wedding four years ago. When I look at this shot -or my wedding pics, I can't help but feel tickled. I still remember the stress of the wedding preparation. But there's nothing like the stress of wearing a gown, a three-inch sandals and an itchy veil. Plus, plus the stress of smiling before the camera bazillion of times!

Lasting...

My other entry is here. For more participants, visit 5minutesformom.

The Other Wacko

I was tagged by Cheh to do this Meme.

Here are the guidelines :

1. First name
2. How and where did you meet?
3. Characteristics
4. Your plans 20 to 30 years from now.

***

1. Let's just call him "Cris" - but I have never used this or his birthname when I speak with him. I used to call him Tiyoy (a term referring to someone old or has similar characteristics; and yes, he calls me Tiyay, too) and alternately, Honey. Now, it's Pops (short for Papa).

2. We were classmates in College, but we had a one-or-two-sentences-to-each-other relationship. When I moved out of our town to work elsewhere and he moved to the same location where I was working (after his short teaching stint), we both remained reserved. Ummm, despite seeing each other regularly during group gatherings. It was only when I returned home (and he remained in that other town) that the calls and text messages started to come. ;D

3. He is the exact opposite of me. I'm more of a chatterbox, he is not. He is calm and patient, I am not. He has the slow-and-easy attitude on everything that almost always drives me nuts!

Here's the ONLY pic I have with hub when we were in College.

(And I only became "aware" that he was in the pic when I scanned old pics for our wedding!)

4) Lots. But at 50 or so, I would like to see us still holding hands. We'd be real Tiyoy and Tiyay by then but I pray the love would still be smoldering.

Not Anything But Everything

I just had the most unusual date with my husband last night. Unusual as it was very ordinary, very unromantic, very not sweet and very not fancy.

After giving birth to Matt, our regular movie-house dates have shifted to grocery dates; romantic dinner dates to practical eat-at-home dates. I am far from complaining though, because I’d much rather that we both finish the hundred and one household chores while he’s with us than we gallivant around town and I will be left to tackle the chores after he’s left home.

Anyway, this one was not any of those practical or regular dates.

The venue was the most neutral and unromantic place – the office. My frigid (temperature-wise) office.

With my mother’s prodding, I had asked my husband out. I had asked him to accompany me because for some funny and very irrational reason, I didn't want to work alone on graveyard shift last night. And luckily for us, work, maybe because of the holiday, was non-existent.

So there we- both in our rattiest shirts- were hanging out in a frigid and sterile Control room, chatting quietly, talking nonsense. I swear we were not making any sense but I certainly wouldn’t mind spending yet another lifetime talking nonsense with my husband!

There were long but comfortable silent moments, with each one occupied with his own private thoughts. Parental-guidance moment, there was absolutely none. Nevertheless, it felt too good just to be with each other; a chair apart, not touching yet feeling the warmth and security of being loved all the same.

In the wee hour of the morning, we found ourselves sipping hot oat-cereal drink while laughing over Chuck and Larry’s movie.

And as we made our separate makeshift beds, by lining and joining gray ergo chairs, it dawned on me that it's not the food, the setting, the price, the get-up and the physical intimacy that measure the quality of a date. But it's the states of the mind and the heart.

We can have the perfect date but we may still feel discontented. But when we establish intimacy in the mind and harmony in the heart, everything just fall in all the right places. And we feel nothing less than wonderful. That was how I felt last night.

And before I gave in to peaceful sleep, I felt like we are two wackos who are really meant to spend the lifetime together.