The Wedding Hater

I hate weddings.

Maybe because it is a grim reminder for me of the inevitability of growing old.
I am in a stage of my life where I should have already settled in.

I hate hearing crap from the older folks asking .. “so when would be your turn?”. It seemed a foregone conclusion that it’s my turn next or that inevitably I’d end up there.

I hate coming up with lame excuses.
How can you argue with the cycle of life ?... It’s just how things go… You go to high school. You graduate with flying colors. You transfer to Manila to get a degree. You graduate from college. You find a job that assures you of a good future. You find a wife and then you settle down.

That progression is the typical expectation for a great majority of my generation. And more so probably for a great majority of my friends ( probinsyanos, intelligent, middle-income families) .

Fortunately a great niche of my friends are surprisingly atypical. But then even the atypical ones settle down one by one

I detest weddings maybe because I am averse to commitments

Wedding marks a quantum leap in the flow of life. It’s hello to marriage. It’s goodbye to singleness, to freedom, to independence.

I love adventure. For as long as I can remember I have had this lust of going to far flung places I have never dreamed of. This ache, this yearning to commune with the unknown, this insatiable lust for travel has defined me as a person. I have always equated this with the sense of being free.

I love the feeling of going wherever my heart leads me to, of throwing caution to the wind, without worrying about tomorrow, without thinking of anything or anyone.

There is something about marriage that is stifling, constricting. It’s like being tied up to another soul. Decisions that used to be so easy, would now have to be made together. That would definitely be inertia to all life’s adventures.

No.. I love my freedom so much to embrace the married life.

Or maybe I abhor weddings because I have turned cynical.

Oh yes.. Once in my life, I had that epiphany. I met the girl whom I thought would be the mother of my kids. I’ve had a great vision of me spending the rest of my life with her. The images seemed so real and palpable, even as I recall them now. She, reclining on the wooden armchair, watching the sea and the sunset, her long hair billowing in the wind ; Our kids flying their kites on the shores of my childhood.

She had been the singular turning point of my life, my anchor, my compass. She had defined my future.

For that magical moment it would seem that my destiny was forged.
And yet as some love stories go it was never a happy ending. She was THE ONE that never became the one.

My faith and optimism were shaken. I have turned jaded and cynical.

But yesterday something changed. I attended the wedding of a good friend. It was by far the best wedding I have attended. The celebration was not lavish. The number of guests was not astounding. The decoration was not opulent.

It was a ceremony stunning in its simplicity yet intimate. You could feel the sincerity of two souls making a commitment of becoming one. This is what a marriage ceremony is supposed to be.

I admit I almost got teary-eyed when she read her piece during the ceremony. She has been a great friend and I have been a silent witness to her tumultuous relationships in the past. I have seen her cry many times through her heartaches. I have seen her turn jaded and given up almost completely on love.

To see her finally getting her wishes come true was so much overwhelming. So much that my heart would seem to burst.

I am guy who loves happy endings. To see one of my best friends get her well-deserved happy ending was moving enough for me.

I guess deep inside me, no matter how much I deny it , there is still that part that believes in the magic of marriage.

Reminiscing Europe

Next week I will be celebrating my 5th month with my new company. The world of EHS as I came to know has now faded in the background. And I have somehow gotten used to seeing my former colleagues leave my old company. It’s a fact of life: people come and go.

One thing I truly miss about my previous job is the opportunity to travel. I thank GE because it has given me the chance to be in London 3 years back, my first European visit. Looking at the photo right now of the one taken in River Thames, I can’t help but feel nostalgic.

I miss the excitement of being in a new place. Of seeing a new environment for the first time. There is the wonderment of a child for a whole new experience.

It’s this very reason that I am gearing up for my European backpack adventure next year..

My Life According to Eraserheads

My facebook notes page has a farraginous assortment of wacky Q&As, moving essays and whatnot. Here's my favorite of the bunch. the limiting latitude challenges the responder to be more creative. Enjoy..

Time to let those creative juices flowing.

Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, answer these questions. Pass it on to 20 people including me. Try not to repeat a song title. Repost as ‘My Life According to (Artist)’ “



Are you male or female? Pare Ko

Describe yourself: Kaliwete

How do you feel: Futuristic

Describe where you currently live: Alapaap

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Trip to Jerusalem

Your favorite form of transportation: Para Sa Masa

Your best friends are: Maalalahanin

Your favorite color is: Butterscotch

What's the weather like: Ha ha ha

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called: Overdrive

What is life to you: Ligaya

Your current relationship: Waiting for the Bus

Breaking up: Huwag Mo Nang Itanong

Looking for: Milk and Money

Wouldn’t mind: Sembreak

Your fear: Poorman's Grave

What is the best advice you have to give: Easy Ka Lang

If you could change your name, you would change it to: Yoko

Thought for the Day: Fill Her

How would you like to die: With A Smile

Bigger picture

There are those scenes that simply enrapture you and make you long that you were part of it. And even for a moment, however flitting, you feel a sense of surrender, of connection, of relaxation. I unearthed this photo while browsing through my files in the hard drive. It was taken in January 2008 when I made a side trip to Yosemite Park, after our annual conference in my previous company.

Four months have passed since I transferred to my new job. Time as always just seemed to whizz by. The chasm that splits my present with the immediate past has now become unleapable. I miss the side trips and mini-adventures that my previous job had to offer but I guess they are all now a thing of the past.

The various aspects that I shudder upon during my first few days in the new company have now woven intricately into the fabric of my daily life. I guess all those life-changing decisions I’ve made in the past made me more resilient.

My current job can be taxing in a lot of ways and there is always that danger of getting too self-absorbed that one misses out the bigger picture.

This photo turned out to be an eye-opener of sorts. I realized I needed that occasional dose of getting unleashed from the daily trappings of life and being thrown out there.

And so I made a pact with myself, that before the year ends, I would definitely have a “step-back-and-look-at-the-great-picture” adventure.

Video of our Bantay Pawikan Activity 2008

Sigh... one of my fondest memories in GE ... A volunteers activity where we released endangered marine turtles..

Goodbye GE

It has terribly been a long while since I posted something here on my blog.

Anyway I am about to cap off a 4 and a half year journey with GE. I look back with much fondness at all the memories I've had. But it's time to move on...

Have a hard a time explaining to my friends but if there would be 3 takeways from this change it would be these...

1. Some goodbyes are tougher than others
2. You can take a person out of GE but never GE out of the person
3. Sometimes you have to make a decision not just for yourself

I will expound more on these when I have the time..

A glimpse

I am a bit contemplative right now. Or maybe just nostalgic. I miss Kalsangi. The place that had been my refuge when I ran away from Manila. For two years I have stayed there. It had been my sanctum in the raging storms of life.

I came there with a lot of questions. Not all questions have been answered though. But I guess in life we don’t force to seek out the answers that remain elusive. We must learn to live with the questions and be glad for the ones that have been answered.

I miss the lad that I was when I first came there. Bright-eyed and bushy tailed, it seemed I had a game plan of how I would craft the future.

But honestly now I am not so sure.

Have I deviated from plans that I’ve held close to my heart when I left the place?

I would like to believe I found closure when I went there. I would like to believe that time had healed the wounds. I would like to believe that I have embraced the pain of the past.

And yet there is something about that place that makes me yearn to go back and rediscover the journey that I took.

I miss the person that I was ten years ago.