Finding

Sometimes I catch myself thinking where you had been all these years. But I guess we had different lives and needed them to learn about ourselves, individually, and the world we are in.  And then there are other days when I think how it would all make for a good ensemble movie, of people moving around in close circles and yet never meeting until the credit rolls in.  I mean, we were officemates.  And I had worked many times in the same floor and in the same area where you have been. You were probably not a few feet away from me all those times. But we had other concerns then.  You had your mind and your heart staring at other lands while I was staring at the computer monitor.  Until it was almost closing time and then you found me, picked me up on the streets, then dropped me off again after a night out with your friends, which were innocent enough for me to think that that's all there was.

And then you gave a hundred reasons, which if I were to remove all the numbers where I was smiling would reduce the list to half. I thought about my reasons, if ever I have one, on the technicalities and specifics of finding and falling for you.  As if love will reveal its core truths when put under a microscope.  But I've never had a checklist when falling in love.  There were no requirements on the physical well-being and financial health of whoever I was looking for.  There are a thousand reasons, but there's also no reason. I could do a hundred and maybe more, right from your toes until the tip of your hair, from all the cheese you have told me and everything else that you have shown me, literally and figuratively. But there's also no reason why I love you.  I just do.  Just as mankind continues to find meaning in their existence, so will I continue finding reasons in loving you.

Falling

The car radio turned on as soon as I started the car and I heard Alanis singing, you treat me like I'm a princess.  Well, not exactly, I said to myself.  I wouldn't know how a princess is treated. Maybe, not with whips and chains, although I would have liked the idea. But it was exactly the song that was perfect for the times.

I know I say all the craziest things when you say something cheesy or romantic and I have never been too serious when I hear fluffy words.  I'm not used to liking that.  Used to being the operative word.

So I guess this is falling.  I learn to appreciate the things that make me cringe before.  Not that I will turn into mush, but you've already won me over in spite of me.  So don't be alarmed if I fall head over feet.  I couldn't help it; it's all your fault.

Of course, I have to blame you.  If you weren't sweet, if you weren't patient, if you didn't state your case time and again, maybe it would have been different.  But you are all that, so don't be surprised if I love you for all that you are.

Dreaming

I get these strange visions of how I imagine things could be.  Watching you sleep, waiting for you while you work, whether it's for lunch or an after-work thing.  Listening to you rant, observing as you get frazzled and distracted.  Calming you when you're close to panic or a heart attack.  Laughing at you as you fumble through life, the epic fails and cockeyed moments.  Hearing your stories about your day, your work, your family, your friends and their love lives, their prospects or the lack of one.

They are small things, details, really.  They play so vividly in my mind, as if I were living it already.  Yet I stop myself from continuously conjuring up these images.  A part of me aches that they may never happen, so I temper my imaginings with a million things that could go wrong.

I've been down that road already.  Having plans, having dreams, imagining how life will turn out, only to have it all come crashing down.  Everything was swept away and I had lived dreamless and without expectations.  Neither surprised nor disappointed in life.

I've dreamed about these things before, but not as formed as I do now.  There were these dreams, but I could not imagine anyone in it.  Something changed, either through your sheer persistence or how real you are to me.  These dreams surreptitiously had you in it.  It opens a lot of things and I guess that's why I am scared and there's a pang that I might lose something before I could even have it.  I know what I'm dreaming of and I know who I want.  I don't want the fairies, I just want the fairy tale.

Breathing

You're there, in my head.  Not in a way that I'm thinking of you all the time, but as a sort of consciousness that exists.  I could go all Neruda and say I love you without knowing how or when or from where, because I could not say it's been nine months since I felt it.  It wasn't a feeling I fell into all of a sudden.  It was gradual, not in leaps and bounds, but continuous and steady like the passage of time or the way day breaks.

It was those little things and gestures, the assurances and even the cheeses that go with them, that made me feel like I'm standing on firmer ground.  I have my doubts, because who knows if I'm walking myself into a quicksand or, as most relationships of our nature tend to go, shifting sands that change with every wind and wave.  But you're all over my head and maybe my heart and for the meantime it feels good, for the meantime I could live with this feeling, for the meantime I am sure what I feel for you.  Certain enough that falling (in love) feels like flying and loving (you) is as natural as breathing.  Without which life, my life, is impossible.

Gambling

When was that moment I knew? The moment I woke up and just knew what I've never been sure with anybody else?  It was only recently when so many things were happening, most of them online.  I could have gone in different ways and I did consider the lack of sensibility of it.  I could have flown to New York and met up with my ex or I could have considered somebody's surprise decision of moving here.  With me.  All the way from the Philippines.  But I didn't.  And some friends were banging their invisible frying pans in my head for being quite insensible.

It was there, even before, earlier, but I have been non-committal because it wasn't the most practical thing in the world.  You wanted this, no matter the distance, but I was hesitant, not because it would limit my option, but because I don't want to shackle you into a relationship that requires jet skiing across the Pacific.  Maybe in bed, but that's a different set of chains.  I thought it was too early before, because there wasn't much for a foundation, except your daily makeup and mascara. And I thought it would putter out after the cocoas are gone.

Maybe it will, maybe it won't.  I guess that's the gamble and the risk.  But I'm sure of going down this way and foregoing the others.  I would regret it the most if I had given all this up without even knowing and trying .  You're different from the others, and not just because you don't take a bath.  Different in a way that's wonderful and maybe a little cheesy and romantic, which are good things because I'm pragmatic.  Sort of balance things out.

This is going to be a journal of all things us.  Maybe it will reach that date, March 25, maybe not.  Maybe there'll be a hundred more March 25 with you.  Hopefully, there'll be.  I did not choose this date.  You did.  So at least I don't get the blame for all the waiting until we become "official."  As if we need to be sworn in just so I could tell the world that I love you.