Months before my husband and I were to be married, we endured a period of time when we nurtured our relationship long-distance – it was a necessary evil due to his line of work. However, much like the picture above, his absence in my life was like a huge empty canyon – like a garden without flowers, like an uncolored coloring book, like Mp3 players without music, like a heart without a home.

Since then, no distance, not even canyons such as these could ever separate us.

Mahjong. It’s a game that takes its origins from a foreign culture but, since then, have been happily assimilated in our pinoy culture. Pinagpupuyatan pa!

It all starts with various tiles, enthusiastically mixed together, formed into straight rows by hopeful hands, and dealt. It takes a lot of patience, luck, and skill (including pagkakapa, if you’re that skilled) to set the tiles together to find the perfect pattern.

The winning hand. The perfect pair.

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Po-tey-to. Poh-tah-toh.
To-mey-to. Toh-mah-to.

For hubby and I, its simple: patatas and kamatis.

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Ninna blowing torotots with Lolo Tatay, while Lola Nanay looks on.

It’s true, you can’t choose who your parents will be. However, when it comes to parents-in-law, they can either be the deal-makers or the deal-breakers in any decision to get married.

In my case, though, if God gave me a million people to choose from, any couple at all – in a heartbeat – I would still choose them to be my Ninna’s grandparents.

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My wifely tip? Save every penny. :)

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This is how I would describe “The Day After”. Marriage is like riding a roller coaster – you know its scary, you know its harrowing, you know there will be highs and lows, and you know that the only thing that will save you from certain death is a flimsy harness – yet, even despite a long wait, we still go on it with our hands up in the air, heart on our sleeves.

Because, to me, what’s the point of going around and around in the circle of marriage without the thrill of a dip, a hairpin turn, or some corkscrews here and there? And, when the ride is over, you emerge from it as you want to emerge. Shaken? Sick? Stronger? Immortal.

Have you seen the movie Love Affair (starring Warren Beatty and Annette Bening)? Well, I have. And millions of times, hehe.

There’s one particular scene in the movie that I especially love – the one where Mike Gambril’s aunt (played by Katharine Hepburn) was telling Terry McKay about Mike being a duck. In this scene, Aunt Ginny explains how  certain birds (like the duck) can be very promiscous, as opposed to  some other birds that loves only one mate for the whole of its lifetime.

At one point in our lives, we must have thought ourselves a duck (but maybe not as promiscous, hehe!). But then, perhaps like Mike, we have all been looking for that one swan, lorikeet, or penguin – crippled or not – that we can love forever and ever.