Connections With The Past

I became a member of a popular online social networking website just recently and I was surprised at how easily I was able to find old friends and acquaintances from my distant past. I have lost touch with these people long before the use of chatrooms and cellphones flourished.

Responding to "How are you?" leaves me feeling quite sure about where I should start. With the change of marital status and family roles, of home and email addresses, of jobs held, and of the personal circumstances of my life, I simply could not think of a few sentences to bridge the difference between how they knew me and how I am now. Too much history to catch up with.

Unpleasant memories have also sprung up the moment I locate a faintly familiar name. Then I'd mull over clicking "Add As Friend", because the petty misunderstandings, heartbreak, and eventually indifference, were what kept the distance between this person and me. I'd let a day or two pass, then move on to invite the recipient, deciding that I should not take offence if he or she refuses.

And finally, once I learn of how fortune has deemed others more deserving than me, that's when the sense of lack and inadequacy feeds my inner critic. Couldn't I have enjoyed a little more career success? Seen more of the world? Gain more noteworthy achievements?

Admittedly, these feelings do pass, but all together are just a twinge and disappear underneath the wave of nostalgia and the eagerness to hear happy tales.

I have lived in 7 cities in one country and 3 states in another. What goes with having changed so many addresses in a lifetime, along with packing and unpacking my possessions, is dealing with the flood of suppressed memories when the past starts to catch up with me.

A Dose of Holiday Jitters

With four days left till Christmas, I am filled with a slight nervousness for the celebration up ahead. The house is decorated and the tree is trimmed and lighted, and most of the gifts intended to be given away are already wrapped. As for the anticipated Christmas feast, one more stop at the supermarket is all what is needed to follow my paella recipe. I have only so much time left to make the occasion into a memorable one for me and my family.

The Christmas that I have come to know now as a wife and a mother is different from how I remember it when I was younger. I grew up celebrating Christmas Eve with relatives at my grandparents' place. There was the midnight meal, and the opening of gifts right after it. It was hectic, full of noise and wholesome family fun. During the evenings leading up to the occasion, I would go caroling with my cousins and friends around the neighborhood. We'd sing our choruses with a handmade tambourine using a piece of wire and flattened bottlecaps. We'd see the fronts of houses decorated with blinking lights and lanterns that we call "parol". Sometimes, we would watch a community-sponsored Christmas show, and participate in an exchange-gift giving activity.

There have been changes in our family tradition, mainly in that Christmas is mostly celebrated mainly at home. Thus, I am now charged with the responsibilities of planning and readying our place for the big Christmas meal. Lately, I have been finding some unease being around crowded gatherings and so now I look forward to having quieter get-togethers. At least, I'd have the evening's program go according to the way I expected.

So now I find myself a bit off the edge, though excited just the same. Until every single thing is in its place, I won't be able to feel the sentiment behind "...all is calm, all is bright..."

Enjoying Time Alone

After ten wedding anniversaries (a couple of which were momentarily forgotten), my husband and I decided to plan an escape from the predictable weekend routine of home movies and pizza deliveries. We spent one night of absolute sensual indulgence at a themed hotel room nested among the cluster of love joints somewhere in the city.

In a span of twelve hours, we reclaimed the personal space that somehow become lost to us when the demands of work schedules only allowed us to be intimate twice, or even just once a month.

Before then, I could not recall the last time we spent time together without bothered by trivial annoyances. The intent to open up to each other would sometimes end up in baseless arguments.

It was a time to sanctify our private time as man and wife --- to reconnect and to draw strength, as we are sometimes afforded mere pockets of our waking hours to devote our attention to each other .