I am still here. That's as much as I can say about the last two months that flew by. I am catching up on living as it is on me. It could have been a year, really, if you asked me. I guess this is what makes being home different. You don't seem to have enough time for everything you have to do because you actually get to live, you know.

I am making up to my little girl. I can't say that it's a gigantic success but I'm gettting there. I'm relieved that she still remembers that I am mommy, though I'm not sure if she knows what it means or if she thinks that it is just my name. But beggars can't be choosers. So right now, I'm fine with that. I'll take whatever I can get. That is the price to be paid for the choice I made when I left. Somehow, there is still this comforting feeling that I am her mother no matter what, whether we both like it or not..

Santi and I are ok. I mean, we are together again. For his part, he never realized how far apart we were. Maybe, physically, yes. But I don't think he knew that in my heart, he was gone. I was gone. When I flew in, he basically just picked up his wife from the airport and got back to where we left off (which I'm not sure exactly where). We never talked about all the issues that tore us apart or whatever, we just got on. Gave Sofia a birthday party, enrolled her in toddler school, bought a condo, took vacations with my family, went out with our friends. I realized that I appreciate him more this time. It's not because he is different, more attentive, less serious--I still wish he is all these things. I think it's me, I am different. Not with my feelings towards my husband--that will never be the ideal kind for a marriage.
But towards myself. I know now it's easier to be with him than without him. Living becomes a normal, stable, un-frenetic sort. The kind I don't have when I choose to distance myself from him and think of my other what could-have-beens.When I choose to be complicated. That pretty much sums it up. So help me God.

On the career end, I landed a job a couple of days ago. After a string of horrible interviews with top corporations and banks in the country, I am now a humble court attorney for the city of Manila. I know that it was the right one when it literally landed on my lap. I didn't have to apply for it, I was requested for by the Judge's wife. The pay is a far cry from what I could have received if I had gone the corporate path, but it is an 8-5 stint with half the stress of my previous firm jobs. I am content and I can't wait to start.

I guess this entry will have a part 2. Sofia gets off from school in 10 minutes.

happy new year everybody! happy 2008 to me...

Aside from my own coma-inducing drama at home, I was hit by a lethal dose from another end that sent me reeling and asking, what the heck is going on?

Before I left, a couple of my dearest friends were involved with married men. Now there are three of them. All smart, beautiful and accomplished women. The latest addition to the club broke up with her boyfriend last weekend and is now in the process of sticking to her decision. I try to console her as any friend would but every time she takes a swig at her beer and asks, "Why, Minz? Why am I so unhappy when I did the right thing?", I sit there and say nothing for a while.

If I couldn't answer that same question for myself, I can't presumably do it for somebody else. All I can attempt to do is remember the details of my own brush with infidelity and how it felt before, during and after. I told her that sometimes there is no tangible prize for doing the right thing aside from it being right. Minsan walang premyo ang gumawa ng tama. Especially in this scenario--falling inlove with a married person. Sometimes, just sometimes, the only problem with married men is that their married.

My friend fell in love with one such guy. Intelligent, confident, supportive---a man who, she says, she loved most among all her past boyfriends. So much so that she wanted more of him and couldn't so she decided to go for a clean break. The guy, on the other hand, was more devastated in the sense that he finally realized his marriage was all but annulled. That it was doomed to fail from the very beginning. That he was head over heels in love with my friend. To some extent, I believe them both. I feel for them even. But I am biased, after all.

I am convinced that my friend deserves to be loved by someone who carries no baggage. One who can drop anything for her in a heartbeat. One who would raise their kids together and not his kids with an ex-wife. I feel this for all three of them which magnifies a particular train of thought here. Sometimes you just got to do the right thing first to get to something better. Eventually.

But even that can't help them get past the shitty part of un-loving, un-wanting, un-needing the other. I know this too darn well. Am I past the shitty part? Half the time, I think I am. The other half beats the hell out of me. What I know is that I want that something better and that desire keeps me going on.

As of this entry, my friend has asked me to join her in a soul-searching trip to Sagada, I promised to accompany her as soon as I finish moving to our new condo. I will join this trip for her and for myself.

As The Fray once sang, sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same.

I was writing about how JG Summit called me last week and offered me a six-figure job. About how I almost crashed the car I was driving while turning it down because I had accepted another offer. And how shitty I felt the whole week trying to rationalize why I did what I did just because I gave someone my word (though the Judge is not just someone--he is my best friend's brother-in law, but you know what I mean). And how I probably will think about this choice I made for a long time until all Robinsons' malls close shop or Cebu Pacific stops flying planes. So that amounts to forever.

I had written a bunch of paragraphs enunciating my pain, panghihinayang, and a shit-load of whys when I pressed something that erased my whole litany from the face of the effing compucter. That's just what happens to me all time. A comedy of errors. A Pinoy Mrs. Bean. Hysterically funny but catastrophic at the same time.

Can I not be that way anymore? just for one second. One.

One of the things my two year old is learning in toddler school is basic English. I have , since she was born, tried to speak to her this way thinking that it's best for her to learn it while she is still young and and a quick study. (Like many mothers, I was convinced that my kid is a promil baby/protege/genius and that learning a language is chicken feed.)I rejoice everytime she picks up a new phrase, expression, sentence and proudly demonstrates it to mommy.

Case In Point: A few days ago, while I was having breakfast:

SOFIA ( out in the garden, ): Mommy, open the door!

ME (elated, clapping my hands): Wow, that's new, anak!

SOFIA ( smiling, in mommy's lap, fiddling with a jar of peanut butter): Mommy, open the door!

ME (trying hard not to crack up): That's not a door, anak. That's the cover of the peanut butter!

SOFIA ( grabbing a nearby lunchbox): Mommy, please, open this door, too!

I rest my case.

At this rate, I'm bracing myself. I'll be opening a few "doors" in the next month or so.