TRIBUTE

Now this is what you call a tribute:

A devoted farmer painstakingly planted a tribute to his late wife, Janet, using 6,000 oak trees to etch out a giant heart in the middle of his field in South Gloucestershire, England. Howes, 70, and a gardener spent weeks planning and setting out each oak after his wife died suddenly 15 years ago. He planted the fledgling trees across a six-acre field after carefully marking out a heart shape in one half of the grass, with the heart pointing in the direction of her childhood home. The stunning crop was captured in its full beauty after a balloonist sailed over the farmhouse and photographed the field from the air. (Yahoo)

And this is mine... hopefully:

She'll lead you down a path
There'll be tenderness in the air
Shell let you come just far enough
So you know she's really there
She'll look at you and smile
And her eyes will say
She's got a secret garden
Where everything you want
Where everything you need
Will always stay
A million miles away

Vows

I finished writing my wedding vows a few days ago.

I'd known what to write while I was drunk. It literally came to me like an already completed speech, fluid and eloquent. And it sounded nothing like all the wedding vows I'd youtubed and googled. Which I think is pretty cool. Because (and I don't mean to hate)... your husband or wife is NEVER your "bestfriend." They can be "one of your closest friends" or your "partner" for sure since there's a mutualism (prenup optional) involved. But bestfriends --- they're people you share your deepest, darkest secrets with. The guilty pleasures, the unthinkable thoughts, the unspeakable nuances. (Like seriously, do you tell your "bestfriend spouse" about you crushing on someone else? Do you tell them things about your past that you might have enjoyed much to their chagrin?) And you don't have to feel awkward about it cuz you don't share the same bed and have to see them the next day. =)

(Oh f*ck, I just googled "do you really marry your bestfriend" and all the frikkin' sites say "yeah! marry your best friend tralala, the person you most respect and love tralala." *smacks forehead*

Well, good thing I was able to write my vows from memory lest I allow myself to be corrupted by what everybody else is saying. (Sh*t, did I get it wrong??? Am I that completely clueless? Whatever.)

And those are the best epiphanies, I think. The unguarded, outtanowhere, spontaneous ones. It was so clear in my mind, I began to cry just hearing it being read to me in my head. (That was when I wished I had one of those transcribers built in my head who could read back to me what I had just said in my thoughts, in case I forgot my point.)

I don't even bother to edit it anymore lest I end up f*cking it up by trying to be too clever.

And if it's the only speech I'll end up sharing publicly, I'll make sure it's my best work yet. =)

the pains of being pure at heart

The other day I felt like absolute sh*t, I had my hands to my face and I wanted to crawl into a dark hole and just... disappear, it wasn't anything serious really, I just felt during those moments, I hated myself, like really hated myself, and I hated what was happening to me, hated the limbo I was in, I hated feeling the way I did, hated the exact position I was in, from the very coordinates of my existence, I hated being "almost 29" and learning that for the Chinese it's considered the unluckiest number, I hated having to deal with knowing that, I hated thinking that I had to deal with anything since I knew how petty I was being, I hated that I could think of all my blessings and still feel like shit, I hated how my heart was dropping, I hated that I needed to go to bed because it was late and I couldn't sleep and I couldn't just get up and go to some bar and drink by myself at 3 in the morning, and I hated how people believed in me and I couldn't deliver somehow, I hated that I was on Facebook and how not even Facebook and all the friends adding me could save me from that moment when I felt like shit, and I tried to remember all the other times I've felt this way about anything, and I know I have, countless times, yet I hated how the feeling of feeling like absolute shit seemed so foreign and new to me and it was terrible and painful and pitiful and it hurt... and I hated that I was hurting.

......


The very next day, I was completely fine.

And that's usually the case isn't it.

Only this time, I was completely aware that I was completely fine the next day and I was aware I had just about hated on so many things some hours before (also because I was sober when it happened)... and I finally figured that when people say "it's gonna be ok" ... it really is. And that's actually quite scary because then, you're made to realize that perhaps all those pains you felt, no matter how much you wanna overdramatize it, weren't really all that bad.

Then you feel stupid afterwards.

Why it pays to be second.

Good thing I loved Johnny first... and Pao second. =P

Because the best things in life are FREE

"A freelance life, a life in the arts, is sometimes like putting messages in bottles, on a desert island, and hoping that someone will find one of your bottles and open it and read it, and put something in a bottle that will wash its way back to you: appreciation, or a commission, or money, or love. And you have to accept that you may put out a hundred things for every bottle that winds up coming back."

"People keep working, in a freelance world, and more and more of today's world is freelance, because their work is good, and because they are easy to get along with, and because they deliver the work on time. And you don't even need all three. Two out of three is fine. People will tolerate how unpleasant you are if your work is good and you deliver it on time. They'll forgive the lateness of the work if it's good, and if they like you. And you don't have to be as good as the others if you're on time and it's always a pleasure to hear from you."

--- NEIL GAIMAN

The couple who defies death together...

Stays together.

Authenticity over Authority

So yes... I have a new job. A job that will allow me to stay at home and go to the office only ONCE a month for editorial meetings. A job that will allow me to say what I want to say, in MY own voice, and not the voice people dictate me to have.

A job that will allow me to work BUCK NEKKID if I wanted to. Let alone in shorts. The same offensive shorts people seemed really insecure around (but we won't get into that... today =).

But all of that is not even the point.

Because while being non-employed for the first time in 6 years and having left without so much as a backup plan is indeed frightening (and quite dangerously, recklessly fun)... I suppose those type-scares you have to go through in life make it all worth it when you know you've got someone willing to hold your hand through the proverbial "dark" and be the voice you follow as you climb out of the depths of the unknown in search of light.

It's fucking cliche to say my family is my light, I fucking know that.

But after asking my husband to print out a copy of my (emailed) editorial schedule and deadlines (because I no longer work at an office with a printer at my disposal), he goes off and emails me a PDF file of a "calendarized" version of it, which he made himself.

And I just think that's so cool and so random and just so thoughtful. To do something that will make my already easy-breezy life so much easier.

It's such a light-bringing thing to do.

And if there's anything I know and like about being married to someone like him, it's that it feels really really REALLY good to know that this person's existence alone already assures you that everything will be ok, no matter how scary and unstable things get (and since I'm a virgo, you know I'm afraid of unstable shit). Because that kind of peace of mind is such a luxury these days and I'm just fucking happy I have it. Peace of mind.

And a job, of course.


......

I hope people find the time to realize that about someone they love, today and everyday.