awhile

awhile, (adv.)

I love the vagueness of words that involve time.

It took him awhile to come back — it could be a matter of minutes or hours, days or years.

It is easy for me to say it took me awhile to know. That is about as accurate as I can get. There were sneak previews of knowing for sure. Instances that made me feel, oh, this could be right. But the moment I shifted from a hope that needed to be proven to a certainty that would be continually challenged? There’s no pinpointing that.

Perhaps it never happened. Perhaps it happened while I was asleep. Most likely, there’s no signal event. There’s just the steady accumulation of awhile.

~ The Lover’s Dictionary, David Levithan

it never ceases to amaze me how unpredictable life can turn out to be. one minute, i’m feeling despondent about J’s lack of communication to the next minute being held in his arms and having him tell me everything’s going to turn out okay to yet another minute of having him gone again.

date a girl who… heck, date me!

if you’re updated on internet memes then you must be familiar with the “date a girl” fever that’s going around. it all started with Charles Warnke’s article, You Should Date An Illiterate Girl, which is a beautiful piece of prose written by a guy who has had his heart broken by a girl who reads. “A girl who reads lays claim to a vocabulary that distinguishes between the specious and soulless rhetoric of someone who cannot love her, and the inarticulate desperation of someone who loves her too much.”

this triggered a response, Date A Girl Who Reads.  i am unsure if the author of this “response” actually got the point of the original article but in my opinion it doesn’t come close at all. the original article is actually a compliment to girls who read since “[A girl who reads] will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being storied.” the girl the author was dating obviously walked out on him and it is safe to assume that he is bitter and hurt. “So out with you, girl who reads. Take the next southbound train and take your Hemingway with you. I hate you. I really, really, really hate you.”

throughout the past few weeks, a bunch of these articles have been popping up online. here’s what i found so far: Date A Girl Who Blogs, Date A Girl Who Runs, Date A Girl Who Takes Photographs and Date A Girl Who Loves Music. a funny thought that entered my mind after reading each of these articles is, hey! that’s me! i blog (hello?!). i love taking pictures, not lately though because i’ve been uninspired. i love music so much that if you ask me what i couldn’t live without, music would be it. i run albeit only when i’m chasing a frisbee disc or marking a girl who is chasing a disc. and most importantly i read. so i guess to summarize what people are saying online, date me! sorry for the shameless plugging guys but it’s my blog, after all.

i, myself, would like to date a guy who reads, runs, writes, takes photographs and loves music. if you know someone who fits that criteria and is single (very important as well!) then please send him my way. 😛

the alchemist by paulo coelho

i bought this book along with by the river piedra i sat down and wept way back in college. it’s been in my bookshelf since then and i only got the urge to read it last week.

this inspirational story is all about a boy’s journey to follow his dream. it’s about overcoming personal obstacles, finding strength in God and finally achieving his Personal Legend. he meets some strange characters along the way that help him learn important truths and continue on his journey.

oh, and he falls in love somewhere in between too. and for some reason, this is where i related to the book. haha! he, of course, has to leave her while he’s still hasn’t found his treasure and she promises to wait for him…

From that day on, it was the desert that would be important. She would look to it every day, and would try to guess which star the boy was following in search of his treasure. She would have to send her kisses on the wind, hoping that the wind would touch the boy’s face, and would tell him that she was alive. That she was waiting for him, a woman waiting a courageous man in search of his treasure. From that day on, the desert would represent only one thing to her: the hope for his return.

as the boy keeps thinking whether it was right or wrong to leave the love of his life behind (in the meantime), the alchemist tells him…

“If what one finds is made of pure matter, it will never spoil. And one can always come back. If what you had found was only a moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you would find nothing on your return.”

but my favorite line of the entire book is this… “So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.” it should feel that way, shouldn’t it?

right now, i feel as though i am the desert woman, waiting for the return of a boy in search of his treasure. i only hope that what was there was pure matter and not just a moment of light.

warning: chick flicks are hazardous to your (emotional) health

it’s been a pretty gloomy weekend. i think it’s been raining nonstop since saturday… the perfect weather for staying in and watching chick flicks which unsuprisingly is what i ended up doing this past weekend. throughout the past couple of months, nina and i have been slowly going through my personal chick flick collection. on days where we don’t feel like going out clubbing we normally end up staying in and watching a chick flick or two. i’ve actually been spending a lot of time with nina recently, be it clubbing, hanging out at my house watching dvds or grabbing a bite to eat after work. i swear if we weren’t both such girly-girls and really into men we could already been considered a couple. 😛

here are a few movies we’ve watched together already…

While You Were Sleeping. Mrs. Winterbourne. How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days. Two Weeks Notice. Someone Like You. Sweet Home Alabama.

and here are the movies we ended up watching just this weekend…

The Way We Were. Pretty Woman. The Mirror Has Two Faces. Strictly Ballroom. Notting Hill.

i don’t think we’re even halfway through my collection yet though. there still are a lot left with my favorite romantic movie scenes and other personal movie favorites like Cutting Edge, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, Ever After and many more. (if you’re wondering what all the links are for, they’re imdb links in case you’re interested to know the stories of each.)

after a significant amount of junk food and coca-cola consumed, a few tissues disgarded and somewhere in between julia roberts and hugh grant’s famous scene, i had to hit nina with a throw pillow to say, “we shouldn’t be watching stuff like this anymore!!!”

*sigh*

we’ve actually got some pretty good theories off some of these movies like it could take just 10 days to fall in love with someone (How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days) or that sometimes you can get engaged to a rich, handsome guy even if you’re chubby and just gave birth to a baby fathered by a drug-addict (Mrs. Winterbourne). yes, chick flicks are realistic, dontchathink? hahaha! we’ve actually had some pretty funny conversations where we convince ourselves that time is not an enemy for us anymore. ask my sister, she’s been privy to some of our really deep, intense ones. 😛

chick flicks are very much like fairy tales. they make us believe in happily-ever-afters, a concept which is intangible and really hard to grasp. don’t get me wrong, i believe in happily-ever-afters. after all, i am a product of my mom and dad’s very own happily-ever-after. more and more of my friends are finding their own happily-ever-afters and are getting married (much to my dismay, only because i’m not one of them yet). i guess it’s just kinda impossible to believe since i haven’t found my own yet.

chick flicks can be deceiving. where are all these wonderful, perfect men in real life? do they really exist or do they just exist in movies and fairy tales? if they do exist in real life, where are they? can someone point me in their general direction? even Hugh Jackman’s character in Someone Like You ended up to be such a gem after being an asshole in the beginning…

Eddie: It’s over. Why can’t you just let it go?
Jane: I can’t.
Eddie: Why?
Jane: Because I was happy. Because if this theory is wrong, men don’t leave all women, Eddie, they leave me.
Eddie: I know it hurts. I know. It’s so hard to believe that something that wonderful can ever happen to us again.

*tear*

not all chick flicks have happy endings though. The Way We Were, Closer and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are just a few examples of those brutally true movies that just hit straight to the heart. and i love each one of them just as much as all the others. i ended up sharing The Way We Were last weekend with nina and she loved it. i haven’t watched it in a while so i ended up crying along with her. of course immediately after that, we ended up watching a happier movie. we really didn’t want our optimism to be overshadowed by brutal reality.

perhaps there’s nothing so wrong with wanting to be in-love in a movie. it worked for Meg Ryan, didn’t it? ;P

wedding blues

i can hardly believe it. i’ve finally gotten to that age, where a bunch of your friends are getting serious with their lives and settling down by getting married and having kids. my emotions are a mixture of envy and wonder. you see, i still feel so new at being an adult like i’m still a kid playing house making decisions that are way bigger than me. so while i am a hopeless romantic, it still is a constant wonder for someone my age to decide to spend the rest of their life with another person. to be honest, i’ve always imagined myself engaged at my age then married by around 27. but now that i’m actually living the “adult” life, i realize goals are a bit harder than what they seemed to be when i was still young and idealistic. finding your perfect match/soulmate/one true love isn’t as easy as it seems in fairy tales and chick flicks. don’t get me wrong, i believe all of my friends who are getting married or are already married are truly in-love. therein lies my envy. i keep wondering when love will deign to grant me an audience but in the meantime i’m truly content seeing that it exists in other couples.

however will all that said, being the hopeless romantic that i am, i do have a dream wedding. it’s changed throughout the years, bits and pieces as i grow older and undergo changes in my own lifestyle. so here’s a sneak peak on how i envision my dream wedding…

the setting

Flickr #1 The Smith-Smith Wedding Party Jump originally uploaded by capturingreallife

i used to want a garden wedding during dusk so that my future husband and i say our i do‘s by the sunset. this was when i still hated the beach. yes, once when i was younger and i hated getting darker, i did hate the beach. 😛 it’s very different now though because i love the beach so much! after i started playing ultimate there really was no point to hate going to the beach anymore as i got darker from playing. plus, it’s so much fun to get drunk at the beach. haha! so now, i dream of a beach wedding. jc gonzalez, bianca gonzalez’s brother (ya, ‘coz you know, i’m so showbiz this way), had a beach wedding and it seemed like lots of fun. i’m actually attending a beach wedding next year and i can’t wait to take pictures there! haha!

the vows

i’ve always joked that i wanted a broadway type wedding where my groom and i will be singing our marriage vows. when lea salonga sang her vows in her own wedding, i wanted it even more. now, all i need to do is find a groom who can sing. 🙂

here’s the concert version of the song:

i couldn’t find the youtube video footage of the wedding which i could embed but here it is if you want to check it out.

the photographs

as i’ve mentioned before, i really love tumblr. i’m glad i’ve even got a few of my friends addicted to it too. 😉 that’s where i discovered this photographer couple whose photos i really love. i secretly want to fly them over to anywhere i’m getting married so that they can take my wedding pictures. i love the fact that they added me as a contact on flickr too. i like this other photographer couple, too. in the local scene, redsheepphotography takes pretty amazing pictures. yeah, i think i’m spending too much time checking out wedding photography online. but it’s really fun to look at wedding pictures. everyone looks so happy, it truly is a celebration of love.

despite the fact that brad pitt and jennifer aniston have gotten divorced, this remains to be one of my favorite wedding pictures ever.

the groom

<pic to follow>

i was actually planning to post a pic of some hot celebrity i fantasize about marrying. but then as i was googling different crushes of mine, i realized that i never really imagined marrying any of them. yep, it’s true! unlike some other girls, specifically those stalking rpatzz (rob pattinson) everywhere, i can differentiate between fantasy and reality. and for some weird reason, i’ve never imagined myself married to a celebrity. hahahaha! so i guess this part of my dream wedding will have to wait.

the passage

i’m re-reading The Time Traveler’s Wife right now so that my memory will be refreshed before the movie comes out. it’s a beautiful book so read it if you haven’t yet. this quote, which is actually from Possession but is quoted in the book, really made me an impression on me…

“What is it? My dear?”
“Ah, how can we bear it?”
“Bear what?”
“This. For so short a time. How can we sleep this time away?”
“We can be quiet together, and pretend – since it is only the beginning – that we have all the time in the world.”
“And every day we shall have less. And then none.”
“Would you rather, therefore, have had nothing at all?”
“No. This is where I have always been coming to. Since my time began. And when I go away from here, this will be the mid-point, to which everything ran, before, and from which everything will run. But now, my love, we are here, we are now, and those other times are running elsewhere.”
~ A.S. Byatt, Possession

during my recent daydreams, i’ve been writing my wedding vows in my head. this is a bit embarrassing to admit but given the number of weddings i have to attend within the next couple of years, you have to cut me some slack. 😛 anyway, somehow the fact that i’ve been waiting my whole life for this moment (of getting married) makes it’s way into the vows. and as i read this quote in the book i had to pause and think. that last paragraph is beautiful. it may not seem like a marriage vow but i think it’s absolutely lovely. if ever i end up not singing my vow, i’d like to read this paragraph as part of my vow because i know that’s how it’ll feel… as though my life would’ve started from the moment i say i do.