On timing, what's meant to be, and, still, waiting

To cap a weekend full of service-oriented activities, I planted myself in front of the television late Sunday night, tuned in to Star Movies, and caught a movie I'd seen once, in a friend's car, as we were driving to Zambales: The Rebound. The film stars Catherine Zeta-Jones as Sandy, a 40-year-old newly single mom with two kids, and Justin Bartha as Aram, a 25-year-old newly single man who seems to be experiencing a quarter-life crisis. Yes, it's a cougar romance–one that is surprisingly, pleasantly, unforgettably insightful.

Sandy catches her husband having an affair with a neighbor, divorces him, and moves to New York with her two young children to start over. She ends up living in the apartment near Aram's workplace, a cozy little coffee shop, and somehow convinces him to babysit her kids and, eventually, become their full-time nanny. Soon, the two fall into an apparently trouble-free relationship—until reality bites them in the form of a pregnancy.

I'm writing about this film now because this time, part of what it is about hit home: timing. After getting pregnant, Sandy suddenly wakes up from their romance's dreamy state: "What are we doing? What future could we possibly have?" she asks Aram, who says something like, "Can't we just find out?"

When Sandy walks away, I found myself part feeling what she was feeling (at my age, I now have a tendency to want to invest more in certainties) and part feeling what Aram was feeling (also at my age, I've learned that there really is nothing certain in life). Their break-up, while completely foolish to the romantic, is quite understandable to the pragmatic. With 16 years between them, surely she has already grown up in ways he had to?

There were also outside factors to be considered. Aram's parents are quite concerned about his lack of direction. He is a college graduate who is working as a nanny, after all. Sandy is still in the thick of a divorce and putting a life of her own design in order. They both still have a long way to go to—to use the cliche–find themselves before they could find each other all over again.

How effortless it happens when they are both ready for each other–she builds a career, he travels the world and starts his own family–is what elevates what could have been yet another feel-good movie.

As credits rolled, I remembered my last romance. He had just broken up with a girlfriend after five years, still rebuilding his life and patching a broken heart. I was young and idealistic, but still nowhere near identifying what I wanted to do with my life. I thought I just wanted to be with him, that that was all it would take to make me happy. He thought I could fix him. It was a disaster in the making. Sure, the timing was off. And it also wasn't the real thing.

Years later, he would tell me his love story, and I would have forgiven him enough to be sincerely happy for him and the girl who would become his wife. The ease with which they got together, surprisingly, is something that continually inspires me to wait for my own love story to unfold.

The issue of timing, too, is fresh on my mind because the friend I drove to Zambales with recently talked to me about his own romance. Boy meets girl some years ago, girl falls in love with another. Girl contacts him again years later, boy falls again. Girl asks him to wait, citing so many reasons why they can't be together, even if she feels the same way. Maybe the timing is off, or maybe it's not the real thing. Whatever it is – he is learning to wait. He is actively learning the art of effortless waiting.

To uncover what's meant to be, I'm learning, entails a lot of waiting. For the perfect timing.

Email your comments to [email protected]. You can also visit my personal blog at http://althearicardo.blogspot.com. You can text your comments again to (63)917-9164421.