After the Ecstasy, the Laundry

This book title caught my eye one day in The Not So Ordinary Bookstore in Glorietta (have I got the name of the bookstore right) and it stuck for a while. The truth of it packed a punch.

The reason why it caught my fancy and my imagination is because I grew up in the province with a grandma's influence. I could well remember her reminding me to stop laughing in the middle of a very hearty laugh for fear that my extreme happiness will invite the wrath of the gods that be... she is always sure that trouble is just at the heels of that. Tears, she said, is sure to follow. For her, moderation is always, always the way to go. Now grown-up, I have caught myself many times telling the youngs ones of the very same, minus the gods angle.

But putting some much needed reality into it, there are so many aspects in our lives where that could probably ring true. As far as ecstasy and merriment goes, I am four-five months away from my wedding and that definitely goes to the top of my list of HAPPY-- ecstasy to a T.

This is something that's going to happen only once in a lifetime, something that cannot be repeated or turned back and in the light of all these, and in the height of this ecstacy, there is much danger of going overboard.

There is the photography and video. Venue, church, catering, flowers, bridal gowns, ento gowns, the list could go on and on. I have heard people attest to the need to present only the best food. There are those who swear to the importance of wearing the best gown. And those who say that music and mood lights (mood lights? tsk) are the very essence of what will make or break it.

I am all for it.
All for the best, yes, yes, yes.
And it is so easy to be caught in the flight of all these fancy.

Who doesn't want the best?

I am always tantalized by how a little stretch here and a little stretch there, going from package A to package B can be an easy arm's reach. Just a few more thousands; and since you've gone all the way to package B, why not go to a more renowned supplier since it's just a little stretch from that point on, and begin again in package A then again be tempted to go up to package B or elsewhere. But, that's only for one supplier....

So much, so many, all at the same time.

_______________________________________________________

Let me draw my line here....

Let me hear the wisdom again....

AFTER ECSTASY, THE LAUNDRY.

If I am not careful, this has the ramifications of a lifetime's worth of laundry.

Love, love, love.

Sometimes I lay in bed and I am suffused with so much love for him. A feeling so deep and so great that I do not quite know where to place it all. Am I supposed to contain it? Put it in one place and let it keep still? But all this love I think will naturally overflow as it is brimming to begin with... what then?

I go from this point to another in this circle. Fear would follow and grip me. What if he goes? Him just going, just plain up and leave because after all life unfolds in funny ways, sometimes with no great personal respect at all to the one it happens to... or what if God takes him? Just say, enough with this story....

So much drama, I know.

But back to this love. It is overwhelming. Affecting. Sweet. And in our great tradition, poignant.

The only way to deal with it I think is to have a circle of friends around you to cushion your fall or to celebrate with you whichever the story goes. Us four girls have begun to understand that if love takes over one of us, we could only be there and accept and ride the tumult for that other who has fallen prey to this great power. I think that we have come to realize in many different situations we've faced together that to deal with love, we have to just continuously love that "ailing" friend, no questions asked. And maybe hope and pray that if our turn comes, our story would be as great or not as bad.
I think that as we go along we are starting to master this point in fact.

Love, love, love and it's many non-boundaries. In my story, I have come to understand that it is my weakest link. I have come to un-know myself-- there is absolutely nothing of myself that I can recognize and claim to be perfectly, typically me. In love, I have disappointed myself many times over. Lied to myself. Cheated myself....

I've become a warrior in a battle ground that I might even just have created on my own. Or not (here I defend myself).
To say the least, I've become my own worst enemy.

There it is. I look at it all, the long arduous, painful, tear-jerker journey, that purported to be my love story and get overwhelmed everytime by how events turned and still could not recognize me in it. With displaced humour you could even say that up to this point, I am still at large--.

But again, this is a circle you see, and so there is that point in that circle where I know exactly where I am and who I am and what I am at.

And so, there it is.

The Bug

I have not thought of myself as "the bride", gown, flowing material and all. Veil and flower. Make-up. Shoes.



But here I am.


I am in the exact place I've not thought myself to be and I wonder why life is like that, it seems to me that every direction mine has taken is off-kilter. Off my beat. Every little thing, the littlest detail is just plain opposite of the picture in my head.



I have never thought of myself as "the bride". I honor and respect the ritual, I quite understand the need for it, but not for me, no. I do not have the taste for it.



I've thought of myself married, yes. Living some happy wedded bliss well deserved by all those who take the plunge. Children? Oh, definitely. I know exactly the type of mom I will be. But the transition from here to that state was never clear to me. That part was always missing and I never thought to fill that blank.



But here I am.

A bride to be.

And being that I guess makes me all kinds of bride. I now epitomize all and every kind of bride there is, because if truth be told, I have now caught the bug. I admit that I spend most of my time playing The Sims 2 and Ravenhearst 2 rather than worrying about what color my entourage is going to wear or what my centerpieces are going to look like, but there it is, the bug has taken root and could not be shaken off. I now feel the excitement coursing through me and the thrill of being that girl on that day.

There is that day and I await it with great feeling. With very great feeling indeed.