defy gravity!

have i ever told you i loved you?

i wish i had told you more often that i love(d) you. 

it would have probably reinforced my feelings for you and made things easier.

you would have probably been more confident and sure of your place in my heart.

i wish i had been able to show you that i love you. 
it would have probably made things lighter, more pleasant and the journey more enjoyable.

i wish i had been able to teach you what love is.

it would have probably bore fruit by now
and i would have already gained a hundredfold from it.

i wish i had been able to speak my mind of what i thought of love.

i should have been more courageous and not been such a coward.

for this, i’m truly very sorry, but i will try my best to work on it.

i wish i had the strength to ask you what your thoughts were on love.
so that i may know and be aware that i am worth something to you.

i wish that with all my childhood fantasies and notions on love,

that you dont break my spirit.instead help me make them a reality.

and that you would love me for my free spirit and not what i could give you.

i wish that i could learn from your love of self.
but not so much as i have the tendency to forget to tell you that i love you.

lest, i become greedy and not worth loving anymore for i have changed.

i wish i could tell you to be more self-less and less selfish.

i wish i could be more tolerable of you.

i wish i could enjoy your company more
and not feel like i brought so much baggage with me with so much regret.

i pray for you, my love. 
that my love will not die.

(this was written by my twin sister Ysabel, which is probably why it says everything I feel now. i never knew she could write like this, love does have an amazing effect on everything)

bleeding in public is a nasty, even altogether ugly, exercise. cathartic? yes, because you need to know what people think of your pain. misery, after all, loves company.

i’ve been a mystery, emotionally, to most everyone in my life. although i am known for my boisterous laughter (a genetic legacy from my mother), and devil-may-care-attitude, i am cursed with a heart that sometimes, to its own detriment, cares too damn much.

going out with friends last night made me rethink what i had become. people find it uncomfortable when i am silent because their mental image of me is the kinetic lifeforce of every gathering…the vortex of all the guffaws…hey, this way to the fun! i had become what i had feared most…the very image of my father. sad frown, stooped posture,and heavy spirit. i was no longer fun.

i know this is a temporary thing. i’m burdened with a Dirty Secret that longs to bleed itself (publicly or otherwise), the pus of its Dirt polluting the otherwise ebullient I. i worry about someone who is feeling the enviable invulnerability of his enviable youth. i worry that i may have not done enough to respond to that cry for help.i worry that he will change and not be What Was Before any longer (and i so miss him from that Time). i worry.

i should be celebrating now. the television program on major network tv that bears my name is turning a year old this month, the book i co-wrote still flies off the shelf from National Bookstore, i still get congratulated for a play i did recently, and the newspaper job i love still loves me back (i checked just now and discovered that my name is on the staffbox, hurrah). but i’m so worried about you.

ps thank you to those people i should be worrying about for not giving me reasons to at this time. i love you e!

it’s not what you think. well, it is…only a bit more. i don’t hurt easy; i haven’t come to where i am without developing a thick hide…not that i’m jaded, but i am more careful, more guarded.

but i crumble when people i love have to go through a tough time. i cannot take it. i want to take the blow for them. i cannot stand by and see you like this. but what is there for me to do? it would surprise you, if you were to read this in some near future (by some miracle) that although you joke i do not believe in a God, i pray for you every single day.

what do i say? keep him safe, my Lord. for i can do so little, even with so much love. (what business have i telling everyone what goes on in my heart? because i cannot take it any more) Lord, let me hurt this way, spare him. but in the end, Your will be done.

you see, i pray. a whole lot now because of you. i am helpless, but this is a fight i am determined to stand by you with. but i need you to fight it with me.

choose your weapon carefully. thank you, mama and papa, for arming me early on with prayer.

funerals are tricky.  how does one end? is there a program that builds up to a moment of finality? a definite closing, an announcement that it is over? or does one just stare with bloodshot eyes as the dusty man in the ratty shirt lathers cement on top of the seal over your husband’s coffin until you cannot take it anymore.

the kids (carlos, 7; anton,5; and kim,4) greet me with: my papa is dead, he’s there (anton points to the freshly-opened ground). kim screams: titooooo juuuuude and proceeds to "eat" me (he’s the crocodile-headed gorilla monster of our daytime horror stories). Carlos, the brave little mini-me of his papa, is suffocating in his mother’s iron embrace, half-drowning in her tears, but manages to point to Cattski and myself across the room (beyond the casket) as if to say: look who’s here, mama!but there were no tears from any of them.

later in the evening, Carlos tells Bingbing: "Mama I’ll stay with while Papa is not around yet." She stops, and our little world in the bedroom adjacent to where Chuck died peacefully, at 37, in his slumber becomes deathly still. it is as if the air in the room was sucked out as she slowly says: "Papa is not coming back ever, Carlos." And trusting kids to be resilient, there isn’t even time for a dramatic pause as the oldest son responds: "I know." and we all go back to watching our cartoons (duck dodgers was on).

death is tricky. i was always raised to think of it as a release, so i deal with it a little differently than others. but i do not know how i would react to losing a loved one that way. if i loved him so much to marry him and have three kids with him, if i laughed with him and fought with him and made love with him and cried with, over, and because of him. i’m scared of loving someone so much because i do not want that to end. and when death comes to part your ways, you often forget that it is just for a moment.

she will be crying again when she is alone. i tell her to miss him as much as she can, scream if she has to, bawl her eyes out if need be. but bingbing is an amazing woman. "sus, you came pa but he’s already dead, " she deadpans when i approach her right after the lowering of the casket into the yawning ground. we laugh as we embrace. she proceeds to introduce me to her friends and ends it with: "Oh, ano masasabi mo sa asawa niya?" referring to her friend’s hunky choice of mate.

humor will be our saviour. God’s gift to buffer us from searing pain. as long as you can laugh, bing…you are all right. and chuck will need not turn in his grave. well, unless it’s for a somersault because your kinetic lifeforce (yours and the kids) is so darn contagious