Two words: Hayden Christensen. Film critics can bash him all they want, but I’ll remain a stupid, dreamy girl at heart. It’s guys like these that turn any headstrong gal into soft mashed potatoes. Let’s just say he assuaged my broken spirit after rumors on Wentworth Miller’s homosexuality were started, circulated, and are now left in limbo. LOL.
Enough said.
Seven minutes from now it’s going to be midnight, which means that the day of cheesy hearts will be officially here. Welcome to the day when flowers are prized like expensive jewelry and the malls look like either there was a stampede or an absurdly long procession. It’s one of those rare frustrating days when suddenly you cannot find a decent place to eat because almost all of the couples have suddenly decided to join the kitschy bandawagon and show the world how smitten they are with each other. The restaurants, flower shops, dessert counters, and old reliable Hallmark are all shouting Hallelujahs in choruses, because now they can recover losses from the post-Holiday down slide.
And the worst evil of them all is that absurdly insane thing called Lovapalooza. It’s crazy to even try to understand why couples would like to group themselves into one screaming, touchy-feely crowd and kiss their partners in public just because they get some sort of badge from it. It’s bad enough that they’re kissing in public while touching elbows with other couples, the worse and very sad truth is that most of them do not even look good while doing so. I don’t intend to be mean here, but I think the very reason why kissing is meant to be a private thing aside from the fact that we are not as liberated as our Western neighbors, is that not all couples can pull off a decent looking smooch moment. Most of the Lovapalooza couples either end up looking like clumsy children or worse, like comatose patients.
Anyway. The funny, oft-complicated love thing is good, and while I can honestly say that I’m fiercely in love right now, there’s just very little that’s interesting about Valentine’s. Except perhaps a perfect gourmet dinner, or a delicious feet massage, or holding hands and laughing like it’s any other day. No matter how cheesy it sounds, it’s so true that everyday can be a red day when you’re in love. It doesn’t have to be on the 14th of the second month of the year when the traffic is so terrible and the flowers are grossly overpriced, you’d want to stay under the bed covers and forget that romance ever existed in this lovestruck little nation of ours.
These days, I find that I am always contradicting myself. I do not want to get married yet, that is an unconditional fact, but I already have my entire wedding exquisitely planned out in my mind. Some nights I would lie awake in bed thinking if marriage is really a blissful thing – and then I think of the life my mother had with my beloved father, and I am instantly assured that it actually is. However brief it was, and however painful towards the end, I knew that love existed, that love in marriages is not the stuff of fiction. They called each other cheesy names like sweetheart and darling, always had their occasional fights in silence, and had faith built on solid ground. When father died, mother wailed like a child even though she kept telling us she was prepared for anything. It was enough that she tended to him like a baby during his last days, and kept the rest of the family in cheerful spirits when our souls were already splintered to smithereens. But then again it wasn’t enough, theirs was a marriage envied by their friends but in the end one lost the other, and at such an ill-fated time.
They were wed in Cebu, a beautiful church wedding with photos I love to scan over and over again. Mother wore a svelte white gown and carried a chrysanthemum bouquet; Papa wore his signature moustache and eye-disappearing laughter with his formal barong. They were lovely. Even when I was young, I always wanted a beautiful wedding for myself, and these days I am both comforted and bothered by the fact that thoughts on matrimony keep me awake on late nights and early dawns.
Perhaps I fear that weddings may always be beautiful, but marriages aren’t always meant to be that way. My mom had a blissful one, yet it wasn’t very blissful towards the end. I watched her grieve her heart out on the first Valentine’s Day without Papa. Perhaps I fear the possibility of solitude after having dedicated my life to someone I was prepared to grow old with. Besides, marriages can never be too ideal, if it were so lawyers would be losing almost half their income on marriage lawsuits and divorces.
Yet my wedding gown is clearly mapped out in my mind- a simple strapless number, or a Grecian style flowing dress with a plunging neckline meant to show just a decent amount of cleavage. My invitations should have tiny rhinestones pasted on them, and if my mind does not change three years from now, I’ll have midnight blue and champagne yellow as my wedding’s color motif.
For all it’s worth, I do hope to get married someday. I know it’s not going to happen soon, nor do I expect a proposal with rose petals and fancy fireworks. I wish to get married, and to survive the days after the lovely pictures are compiled inside the albums. Love exists, I know, but in guises the human heart oftentimes finds too hard to handle. Marriage is every girl’s dream and it’s something all women deserve.
And if I’m not being selfish, the honeymoon’s definitely going to be where there are blazing sunsets, and kisses under yellow moonlight.
This so-called month of love, I might as well make an admission. I was a flirty toddler. My parents sent me to nursery school at the age of four, and while my pig-tailed and snot-nosed classmates amused themselves with colored clay and plastic animals, I had my eyes set on a third-grader who had unbelievably thick lashes and the most perfect smile. Mother was of course shocked when I told her I had a crush at school, thinking that I was just emulating what I saw on television. But I was the only one in my age group who had a crush back then, whenever I asked my milk-sucking friends who their crushes were they would simply stare at me over their strawed tumblers and go, “What’s a crush?”
My days at nursery were spent with sighs at the gwapo student next door, giggling at the sight of his shoes outside the school grounds. Imagine the fact that I was able to recognize his shod feet anywhere, when I was supposed to be mastering my ABC’s! Moreover, I did not have any concept of shame or mortification at that time because I always made an obvious point to the boy’s face that I liked him. Even at this age I am always appalled at the brazen way I had acted at the mere age of four, staring at the boy and smiling at him as if I knew him since birth. He was always courteous, perhaps thinking I was just a playful four-year old in black mary janes and beribboned ponytails. Little did he know there were actual butterflies fluttering inside my lactose-filled tummy.
It’s a sad thing that when I began to get older, I also lost my seeming confidence with boys and men. I couldn’t even speak sensible sentences in front of the attractive ones at school or at parties. Well, it’s a good thing still, at least I learned to exercise caution to a respectable degree. The parents did not allow me to date even in college (yeah, seriously), but it was fine, because hilariously enough I already had my fair share at early nursery school.
When I have a daughter in the future, I’ll tell her that crushes don’t exist in preschool, and it’s better she sticks to colored clay, pigtails, and ABC’s. Hope she doesn’t inherit my erstwhile gall, or my disgusting infantile confidence. The recollection however makes me laugh, every time.
The Juicy Couture City Girl Flower Purse. The bag that will totally put all the chocolates and roses to utter shame on Valentine’s Day. Give me this purse, and I’ll love you forever. If I had not accepted my latest project on writing ad campaigns for a U.S. website that sells designer handbags, I would not have known this kind of torment. Anything pink somehow gets to me, no matter how I try to struggle with it, and the velvety terry cloth material is like soft puppy cheeks. Then, the rose appliqués are oh-so-romantic, while the leather and gold chain handles downplay its saccharine sweetness.
Well, back to work. Perhaps if I take enough projects I’ll probably be able to increase my PayPal account, and then I can splurge on girlie luxuries such as these. Until then, I’ll sip coffee, take afternoon baths, sleep at early dawns, and write my hedonistic torments away.
 | nash on Crazy, Crazy Year End |
 | Aimee on Depression Leads to… |
| nash on Depression Leads to… |
| Aimee on Got It! |
| nash on Got It! |
| Aimee on A Chaotic But Fun Weekend |
 | Kristine on A Chaotic But Fun Weekend |
