Breaking the ice

Being single has taught me many things. It has taught me how to be a self-sufficient, independent and a no-nonsense kind of gal. It has also taught me to be a self-centered, stubborn and inconsiderate brat. Living on your own terms has its pros and cons. You set your own timetable, do your own thing, make decisions wherein the only person that matters is you, you and you. When you have built a life for yourself, a meticulously, charily manicured existence, then someone comes and takes up residency. Poof! you are no longer the only citizen in your sim city —what do you do?

It was like an unwanted pregnancy. Except that I wanted it. And I wasn’t pregnant. It simply was shocking and unexpected. And it required a major change in my lifestyle, though its hardly as consequential as having a baby. What happened? Well, Celini decided to give the relationship world another try. You know where it’s all "we," and "I" is sort of a bad word.

For quite some time, I have dated a few men but I basically held my own fort. Each relationship simply did not reach the "us" or "we" tier. It just never got there, you know. So imagine my surprise when one day I was talking to my friend Tim, who was asking me whether I would join him and a couple of friends for dinner, and I said "Okay, we’ll be there." Meaning me and a real guy. A guy whom I have shown my face cosmetic-free to, introduced to my folks and have thrown a tantrum to — I realized, wow, this is kinda something.

It dawned on me that I was in a "real-ationship." This was not a half-baked potato; a story whose conclusion I have already predicted. It was something solid with a lot of potential, something that was beyond being just another cautionary tale. It was something foreign. Something that I have already deemed unfathomable. You know the kind of thing where you don’t have to think twice whether you should call or not? And you don’t have to pop a Valium because he hasn’t called yet. The kind of thing that assures you won’t be alone on a Saturday.

Every loved one breathed a sigh of relief, saying that it was about time. I was doing the sigh of disbelief. Don’t get me wrong; he is wonderful. It was I who was full of wonder. It made me realize how life with all its tricks could mold us into becoming people we never expected to be.

I told my friend Francisco once that I believed that the year 2002 would be year of change for all of us. Well, call me Nostra-damn-it! True enough, just before 02 was getting cozy on our date books, people were getting hitched, moving away, changing careers, changing style preferences, etc. It was like that scene from Ghost where Patrick Swayze gets stabbed and doesn’t realize what’s going on until he sees his corpse and a sobbing Demi Moore. It was only then he realized he was dead. In my case, it was me looking for him in Orange making sure he was okay that I realized that I was part of a we.

What happened to us was smooth and easy. No 12 steps, no mind games, no drama. Just a cultivation of immediate trust, it was almost strange, really. In this complicated world, simplicity is almost a paradox to our way of living, but it happens and when it does I just have this talent of tangling it into a web of untenable questions and doubts. You see, I stopped being a romantic. I refused to be swept off my feet because of the fear of not knowing where I would land. However, this time, the mind and heart seemed to agree with one another, and for some reason it made no sense to me at all. No Shakespearean emotional conflicts and Maricel Soriano soliloquies. It just happened, like we understood each other all our lives. What was going on here? I never thought that such pure simplicity still existed in today’s modern dating world. My uncle once said that love is like a ghost — people have talked about it but in the end it remains unseen. Well, the ghost did show up and hollered a "boo"! Was I scared? Not really, just perplexed, which brings me back to my unwanted pregnancy feeling.

I got my first panic attack a few weeks ago. I was crazy mad with him over something. Then I cried. I startled myself as the first tear rolled down my cheek. Wait a minute, I wasn’t supposed to cry over any guy anymore! I freaked out even more. I realized that I wanted the laughter and hugs but none of the emotional rollercoaster drama. I turned my phone off and partied like an animal. I pretended to be the single girl again. However, the futility of my efforts could not be ignored. The spat did not bother me as much as I realized how much I cared for him. To include such a person in your life again was a commitment. I deliberated with myself if I could handle it. I then realized what the f___ is going on here? Me, Celini, the one who considers herself a pathological optimist, a commitment phobe? The question overload was getting to be too much, after an emotional outburst with my mom, I treated myself to a Stylnox and knocked myself into dreamland.

I woke up at a very unbecoming hour in the afternoon and as I walked out of my room, my hair was up and I was wearing sleeping clothes that would not even make it to a cheesy catalog. There, in his weary glory, I saw him waiting in the living room. I knew I still had mascara clumping my lashes and that I looked like something a vulture just spat out. But all I saw in his eyes was tenderness. He came up to me and hugged me and said "I never realized I could love and hate one person so much at the same time." It was then I realized that I had to make a choice. I could not live a life that was Merriam Webster perfect and be content with it. Perfection is about having a glossy surface. It bears no challenges nor consequences. It’s horribly constant and predictable. It’s what people think they want but deep in their hearts it’s not what they need. Mistakes, fears and a bit of scandal are what makes us the people we want to be. After all, a tell-all book on an eccentric tycoon with a checkered past is far more interesting than a press release, right?

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said that women who are not loved just have histories simply because it is an enumeration of events. A woman who knows love has a biography, something that has facets and depth. I choose to have a biography. What I had here, enveloped in my arms was something real and beautiful.

So I hugged him back, and cried without fear. I am afraid to swim. I am afraid to drive cars. I am afraid of heights. I am afraid of little fish in the ocean that might bite me. I am afraid of the dark. I am afraid of getting fat. But, goddamit, I can’t be afraid to love. Sometimes, it takes a teeny tiny crack in your perfectly chiseled life to let everything that matters come in and fill up your life and make it count.

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E-mail me at coffeetococktails@ hotmail.com.