Grow Old With You

Like everybody else in this planet, I am afraid of growing old alone.

In the legal academe where we study the intricacies of the grounds and legal actions taken by couples whose marriage cannot work for them in one way or another, the hopeless romantic in me has never been forgotten nor forsaken. I pity them for having had to contract marriage out of any other reasons but love. For taking each other in paper only but in reality, that's just plain crappy and shitty.

I still believe that if you truly love the person whom you had promised to spend your life with, there will always be a way to settle indifferences and make up for your inequities. Otherwise, do not get married at all and add up to the statistic.

I love the idea of taking care of someone and being taken cared of just the same when you're both old and gray...

Funny how I usually imagine how I will look like -- gravity will take its toll on my skin and appearance yet that person can still get to say that I'm the most beautiful woman...

Our sense of hearing will fail us and we will have to shout at each other to convey what we want to say yet when we hold hands and look at each other's eyes, words need not be expressed... we just know that despite aging, our love is sheer timeless.

Then there will be times when our memories will have its lapses and continuously detoriate... True, it will be painful to see your partner becoming senile and all but therein goes the hope that love has created in our hearts -- the mind may forget but the heart never will.

Patience will surely run out, the house will be as tupsy turvy and as smelly as hell, embarrassing moments will occur more frequent and things will be remembered or often times -- otherwise but the vow to stick through thick or thin; for richer and for poorer and in sickness and in health remains unbroken.

On a personal note, I think that's the REAL essence of marriage -- it's not just about the union, the purpose to perpetuate and perform your marital obligations but to love one another unconditionally and without mental reservations. To love and marry, what your partner might become whether be it better or worse and not just for who he/she is now or how he/she looks.

I'd like to grow old with someone whom I truly love. Someone whom I'll look after and will do the same to me. Someone whom I'll be more than willing to trade the years I have left just so that person's life could be prolonged and that person's existence, though quite useless as others may opine, will surely be my moving reason to fulfill my marriage vow... to love and to cherish that person, til death do us part.

Age does not protect you from love.
But love, to some extent, protects you from age.

- Jeanne Moreau

As Simple As That...

I do not worry about my future -- other people do.

I study hard and work doubly harder. I am a self-confessed perfectionist and masochist at the same time. I am both a dreamer and a miracle-worker. I have no problem with the way I rule my life -- some people just can't be happy for me.

In this race that we call life, people tend to measure one's success through acquisition and amassing material wealth. Chief is the rule -- the more expensive it is, the better. Therein lies the conflict. I want to have a simple life. I do not intend to be neighbors with Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala nor be superfriends with rich and the elite class.

So how do I define a simple life?

A simple life need not be lived in a posh or exclusive village or condominium tower. I need not live in the metropolis as well. A laid back life is a welcome sight. A house fronting a body of water where I can have the view of everything money CAN'T buy.

Honestly, it's been years since I've been telling myself that should I graduate and pass the bar exams, I won't be practicing in Manila. I'd like to venture into the countryside and be a legal pain in the ass there...

I'm not much of an adventurist but having spent my entire screwed life here in the big city, I'd like to live somewhere traffic is unheard of, the air is unpolluted and where Php 50.00 goes a long way.

I know my thoughts are just too nuts. A lot of people from the province flock to Manila to seek greener pastures and here I am professing otherwise. My sanity has not escaped me yet (thank God!) and I know what I want.

I need not be a hot shot lawyer nor a famous legal counsel being interviewed in the TV every now and then for handling cases of well known persona. That's not me. Neither it is my dream to leave this land, settle and work abroad.

It has always been one of my principles that if I could make it here, there's no need for me to go out since it will be a piece of cake. The challenge is here. Just that, the bigger money is elsewhere. However, I can live with that.

I am not afraid of the competition nor I am running away from it. I live a different life and one of my goals in life is to create a change. Make a difference. In doing so, I have to look for anothr playing field. One that involves more effort, demands more time, more human interaction yet little compensation... I want to serve people in ways that I can. Have a modest source of income and live a simple yet comfortable life. That's not idealistic crap... That's just me.

A decent house. Food on the table. Beautiful and smart kids (I am predisposed to have kids like that -- blame genetics). A devoted and loving partner. Peaceful sleep at night. Refreshing morning.

Am I dreaming?

Nah. As I write this entry, I'm working on it, baby.