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IT had
been a most unusual day.
I woke
up rather early, at
5 am, and couldn’t go back to sleep. I watched Cate Blanchett’s ‘Elizabeth:
The Golden Age’ while waiting for my sis to wake up so
we could have breakfast. Usually, it is she who wakes up
early and eats breakfast while she leaves me alone
lolling in Dreamland.
We were
in Boracay with Pangs for my birthday last weekend and
even before we arrived, the island had been suffering
from a spot of unusual weather, battered as we were by
strong gusty winds and intermittent rainshowers. Phooey!
There
were hardly any people awake as we went down to the
resort’s restaurant for our morning meal. We plunked
down in an empty cabana, and I stared at the breakfast
menu for the first time in three days since we arrived.
After
giving out our food orders, we stared at the dark heavy
clouds and shuddered in the cold winds. I wondered when
I would ever get to swim in the beach and if the sun
would ever sneak a peek from behind those billows in the
sky. Then the faint strains of some groovy ’70s Motown
music started wafting through the restaurant speakers,
feel-good doo-wops that my older siblings were singing
and dancing to back when I still toddled behind them.
Sis and I were like, “Wowwww!” Suddenly the gray morning
didn’t look so bad anymore.
As The
Moments’ “Love on a Two-way Street” played away, we
heartily dug into our bangus belly à la pobre and beef
lugao. We swayed and sung along as we laughed and
exchanged stories. We were amused at how these songs
from our childhood, tunes from Pangs’s CD as we later
found out, just put us in a freakishly good mood. They
just made us feel that everything was perfect and all
right in the world. Stories of Benjamin Abalos and his
$130-million cut, the raging controversy on the ZTE-NBN
deal just seemed so far away. It was as if these songs
held a promise of better things to come.
We were
not disappointed. As soon as we were done with our meal
and finished with our coffee, the pillow-like gray
clouds began to part, and the sun’s rays finally broke
through. Yay! The powdery white sand was finally
dotted with shadows from the beach umbrellas, the tables
and chairs, and the people walking. Salamat,
Lord!
Still,
the waters were just much too cold for swimming. I
froze my hefty buns off as soon as I set them down on
the water, which made me instantly leap up and run back
to shore. Brrrr!
But when
you get to be my age—for the record, it is 23
forever—you learn to appreciate the small stuff. At
least the sun was out, and although shaded by a huge
beach umbrella as I lounged on the beach bed, I was
enjoying a mild dose of vitamin D. I read my magazine,
spied on the young gorgeous European hunks nearby
playing volleyball, and sipped on my cool mango
shake...what more could I ask for?
I take
my birthdays very seriously. It is usually a time for me
to offer up my thanks to the Great Almighty above for
all the blessings in the past year, as I look forward to
another one full of exciting possibilities. It’s just
like celebrating the New Year, as my reflections take on
a more individual, closer-to-the-soul note.
Unfortunately, there are certain realities one cannot
escape as one rushes past 40.
Like, no
matter how my brain thinks I’m still in my 20s or 30s,
there are just some days I wake up in the morning with
the wind whistling through my bones. I am creaky all
over and feel too tired to get up. Of course, my age is
also an advantage, because this is probably the only
time in my life when I can actually declare that, fudge
all that! I shall stay in bed the entire day! If I were
in my 20s and 30s, I’d still get up, despite a hangover
or a fluish condition, and haul my carcass to the
office.
I can’t
hold my liquor as long as I used to. Time was when I
could start drinking from 6 pm until 4 am the next
morning, and still go to work the next morning. These
days, three glasses of red wine is cutting it too close
and the sulfites in my drink will deaden my brain right
up to next day. (Again, staying in bed is usually the
solution.)
My
forehead has two fine horizontal lines and I have dark
spots on my cheek that refuse to go away. No matter how
many antiaging creams I slather on my face, they just
sit there staring back at me from the mirror.
Unfortunately, my unpredictable cash flow won’t pay for
any Botox injections. Besides, I’m a coward when it
comes to needles and even if I had more financial
resources, I will probably spend the money on traveling
and good food rather than on my face.
I am now
prone to allergies. For some strange reason, some food
or beverages which I had no problem ingesting only a few
years ago, now give me a rash or a headache. Take
cheese, for example: I used to eat all my favorite nutty
and intense varieties at any time and any day. But now,
I noticed that as my period approaches (excuse me,
gentlemen), eating cheese gives me a migraine. Added to
that, the migraines sneak up on me more often than they
used to.
And as I
mentioned in this space two weeks ago, I am now on
maintenance pills to restrain my hypertension, a legacy
from both sides of my parents’ families. Thanks to mom
and dad, I have to watch what I eat, making sure I stay
away from Aling Mila’s lechon and Two Seasons Resort’s
sinfully good Crispy Pork and Char Shiu Rice forever. I
cannot afford to miss a single class of yoga, otherwise
my blood pressure may start hiking up a treacherous
path.
To top
it all, I hate exercising, and any effort spent on a
treadmill or stationary bike makes me feel cheap. I love
my body and I’m happy with it, but somehow I still feel
I need to conform to society’s standards of beauty and
wellness.
I don’t
have the patience to read books anymore. A bookworm
since I knew how to read, I now can’t sit still through
three pages of any novel, no matter how high up it was
on the New York Times bestseller list, without my mind
wandering off somewhere. I think of my schedule for the
entire week, the recipe I’ll be using at dinner, or what
I’ll wear to an interview I’m conducting the next day.
Maybe it’s because I already do a lot of reading on the
Internet that having pages of printed words on paper
just doesn’t hold my attention anymore as staring at my
computer. If I do read a book, it is usually a biography
or a collection of short stories. My favorite reading
materials now are magazines—Vanity Fair, Gourmet, Travel
+ Leisure, Interiors.
Finally,
I want someone to come home to other than the mother and
the maid. It doesn’t matter if it’s a man or a pet.
There are just days when you want to cuddle with someone
because you are feeling awful and need to feel secure or
comforted. Or just do the nasty with every night.
Because Johnny Depp is already hitched to that beyootch
Vanessa Paradis, I might have to get a cat instead.
But in
all things, I take the bad with the good. You can’t have
a happy sunny morning without going through some
voluminous rainclouds first. So, thank you, Lord! Thanks
for another fabulous birthday in Boracay with my best
buddies. Thanks for those relaxing massages I got.
Thanks for that gorgeous birthday spread and for all the
lovely meals we enjoyed. It feels great to be alive and
well, the sometimes creaky bones notwithstanding.
The
ultimate reality bite: It’s the little things in life
that count the most and make me happy. |
