Everything Under The Tropical Sun

Well, I didn’t come home today… we actually arrived last Sunday. Reality has sunk in hard yesterday. Though I did get to rest, it’s just sad that I have to go back to the daily grinds of my life. I know I said I loved my job and stuff… I just love the beach more. *sigh* … Better than nothing right? To top it all off, it’s my birthday today.

It’s not that I don’t like growing old… it’s the celebrating that gets to me. Why do I have to celebrate my birthday anyway? Are they really happy that I’m turning a year older? Having fun on my birthday for me begins at 10am, ordering room service (or having my own well-equipped kitchen and a world-class chef at my beck and call), and a personal masseuse. That’s it. Is it too much to ask?

In reality, I’m going to spend my birthday by going to meetings before and after lunch. A lunch blowout at the office, some (or maybe several) demanding calls in between and dinner with my family. After which, I’d be too tired and end up going home at around 10 PM (if I’m lucky, maybe earlier). I’d end up feeling like the day went by as if it were any other ordinary day.

But looking back a good ten years ago… Things were so different. I’d wake up really late. Skip work just because it was my birthday and nursing a hangover because friends decided to get me really drunk on the eve of my birthday. The type that I’d be crawling towards bed with my clothes on. I was surrounded by fake friends living a fake happy life. Everything that mattered to me then doesn’t matter to me now… and wasn’t important… ISN’T important.

I’m now surrounded by people I love and who genuinely care for me. I don’t have to go on a drinking spree just to feel like I mattered… I don’t have to drown my insecurities with alcohol. My life, this moment is easily the happiest I’ve ever been. Life is beautiful.

How I spend my birthday today may not be the way I would have wanted but it is the beginning of the way I want to spend the rest of my life.

It was my mother-in-law’s birthday last Monday but we celebrated it by having dinner last Saturday.

My husband looks more like Mama. They have the same nose and mouth… the shape of their faces are the same… and he got her morena skin tone. A lot of people would still mistake her for his older sister because she’s quite young to be my husband’s mother (she gave birth to him at 19 years old so that makes her 50 years old).

She loves to cook. I could only hope to become as great a cook as her. She’s not protective of her recipes either (like some monster-in-laws I know about). She taught me most of the recipes my husband likes. I can’t quite get them exactly as how she cooks it but I just console myself and say that I’ve put “my twist” in the recipe (which is obviously just an excuse).  He likes it all the same… but if we put the dishes side by side, I know he’d know the difference.

My favorite memory of her was when I first met her. She opened up to me told me that she’s so relieved to have met me and that from my name, she wasn’t sure if I was a girl or a boy. She’s been worried that since her son hasn’t had a girlfriend in over 4 years, that he might have turned gay. She said that there was nothing wrong with it if he was but it did make her feel better that I was a girl and that I was proof that her son didn’t turn gay on her. Imagine that… the first thing that she ever told me when I met her. I guess she was really grateful, huh? She made me feel so welcome right away. I didn’t feel like I had to tip toe around her. She’s awesome!

A happy and fabulous birthday to you, Mama!