Photo from 55th. (Happy 55th month,K. <3)

When you’ve been in a relationship for as long as I have been, you can’t go to any gathering without someone asking when you’re planning to get married. I admit there was a time when I was young (like, 16) that getting hitched was all I can focus on–the reason why I take my past relationships way too seriously and why most of them never worked out, haha. It may be odd to people who do not live here, but that kind of mentality is actually pretty common for teens here, most likely a result of a so-called patriarchal society. But that’s a topic for another post.

It’s not that I don’t want to get married, I do. But unlike then, I’m no longer in a hurry. It will come at the right time, and when it does, it will be sweeter than anything you have ever imagined. (Yes I can be a cheeseball too.)

All for now. Off to the beach in a few days!

I’ve been feeling this way a lot lately. Work has been really torturous, the ride home even more so, and by the time I get home I almost always make a beeline for my bed and flop down without even changing my clothes. I suppose this is also a downside of having a screwed-up body clock–I get tired more quickly. Ah well, my mind is more awake at night and I am nothing but a slave to the schedule it chooses to follow.

Not far from our office is a nice little corner where the trees, the sky, the houses, and the electric lines make a picturesque scene, or so I think. That corner is the photo above, of course, as seen through my eyes. Every afternoon, at sunset (at least on days I get off early enough to catch it), the scene is sometimes, for me, breathtaking.

It’s little slices of heaven like these that somehow, some way, make the stress of the day melt away–even for just a few moments.

There’s too much crap in the world to add your own–at least that’s how I see it. If you’re not careful, all the negativity everyone spews out can get through you and bring you down. Smile–even in the face of something really ugly, there will always be something to feel good about. The laughter of friends, the stolen glance of your lover. Choose the people you spend time with: keep the good in and repel the bad. Negative people can suck the energy right out of you before you even know what’s happening. Open your eyes. The reasons to be happy are all around you.

You just have to be open-minded enough to see it.

Ever felt like just dropping everything and sailing away to a place where it’s just you, the sun, the sand, and the sea?

I’m happy we got to spend our New Year here, which is our first in this neighborhood. It reminds me a lot of how my hometown celebrated the coming of a new year: everyone’s outside, screaming, making noises, lighting firecrackers, kids jumping about, and teens turning up their speakers. And of course, the fireworks. I need not say much. Pretty much anyone who knows me well knows how much I love them, and the fascination that I hold for them. For me, fireworks are lit to cheer me up. And they never fail.

I’ve expressed my sentiments about how the previous year is an epic fuck-up, and I’m a little surprised to see so many people echo my views. I probably should have guessed: this year brought a lot of tragedies that it makes one wonder why the forces of whatever’s out there is hell bent on taking a huge, steaming dump on the Philippines. But my reasons for wanting to end 2009 are more selfish. I guess, in some ways, everyone else’s reasons are a little selfish too.

But New Years are always happy: they symbolize what everyone needs a little dose of, sometimes–a new beginning. A clean slate. A fresh start. Never mind that anyone can have these anytime they want. Sometimes people need something to remind them that all the mistakes and hardships and shit will definitely end, that everything will end all right. That after this one last night, everyone gets a do-over.

Happy New Year guys. Let’s make this one rock!