fall in love... and it will decide everything

Nothing is more practical than finding God,
that is, than falling in love
in a quite absolute, final way.

What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination,
will affect everything.
It will decide what will get you
out of bed in the morning,
what you will do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read, who you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.

Fall in love; stay in love,
and it will decide everything.

- Pedro Arrupe, SJ

Arrupe speaks of loving God in this piece but many couples have found this quite inspirational for their relationships. I personally do not find a dichotomy between loving a person and loving God.

When I finally realized that my heart's desire for a vocation was to have a family, I prayed that I find a relationship that will make me realize that I am constantly in God's love. And true enough, I wake up each day and sleep each night knowing in my heart that I am constantly embraced in God's love having found a loving husband in J. I know we will be more blessed because we are bound in His love. :)

mishu

for the first four years of our relationship, married life included, the hubby and i spent our time mostly apart. people ask me how we were able to maintain the long-distance relationship. i ask myself that too. we were just able to. despite the fact that we don't get to talk every day.

but now that we get to spend every day together, i actually tend to miss him more. i feel it strange to leave the house without him going with me. so when we see each other again (even if it was just a matter of three or four hours) i feel so excited to be with him again.

another cheesy moment. but i guess that's why they call the first two years the "honeymoon period." but i demand an extension given that we spent 13 months apart during our first 19 months. ;p

looking forward

photo taken from here.

When we go out, I would usually point out the old couples holding hands that we see and tell J, "that's what I want us to be."

There is something about senior citizen couples who walk hand-in-hand that makes me all kilig. I would tell J that I sometimes imagine us in our 70's holding hands in the mall walking slowly. One of us would turn to the other and ask, "where are we supposed to go?" and the other would answer, "I forgot." And because we don't know where we were supposed to go, we just keep on walking following wherever our shaky knees would take us.,

I once told En about this. I told her that I think if people want to find the one they want to spend forever with, they should try imagining themselves farther into the future when faces and bodies hardly matter anymore... when all you have are conversations and explorations, would he still be the person that you choose to talk to and walk with. If the image looks fine, then that person might be worth a shot.

I did it for J and I didn't mind the image at all. :)

to sleep perchance to dream

Prior to getting married, I would sleep six to eight hours and still feel exhausted upon waking up. It was one of those post-wedding days when I realized how much more restful my sleep has become.

This has become more evident when I was away for my studies. My bed was comfortable, my pillow okay, yet I slept light and restless. It was not because I was away from home. I have slept in so many beds for most of my life given my job so it could not be a case of 'namamahay.' When he was finally able to come to Netherlands, I again had the gift of restful sleep no matter how tired my day was.

Now I'm back home. Sleep is still good. It must be because my only source of stress is thinking about what time I need to farm. But I still attribute it mostly to having someone's hand to hold before dozing off. Cheesy but true.

five years

It was the 19th of January of 2005. We were walking towards my favorite spot in school. Well, I walked and he limped. We sat on a giant slab of stone underneath a large tree. I don't remember our conversation but for some reason it steered towards defining the 'relationship.' We held hands, went out every night for two weeks and went home real late. I told myself to just go with the flow. Defining the relations was a question I did not think of asking so early in the relationship. But he asked. Strange thing for a guy to do. I wasn't expecting to leave Manila with a change of friendster status (friendster was the in social networking then). But after around 10.30PM, from 'single' I became 'in a relationship.'

Five years ago since we became a couple. I only knew him for a couple of months prior to that. Too fast I thought. But then he said something to the effect of why wait when you know it's what you want. Maybe I did not know if that was what I wanted but then I thought, "what the heck?!"

And so here we are five years since that night. He, lying in bed and snoring his tiredness away as I sit by his side typing away on the laptop as I reminisce a night I almost forgot if M did not remind us today after our Zombieland laugh trip.

Five years. It seems so long ago but it is short compared to the years ahead of us. :)