Matandang Dalaga

It's 1:45 am, Saturday. The only noise I hear is the humming of my old laptop. It's 4 years old. I bought if for Php25,000 after I resigned from my advertising agency job. It has earned me hundreds of thousands. I don't want it to conk out just yet but I also won't take it against it if it does. After all, I think I've pretty much gotten my money back... and then some. It has been with me in the most important turning points in my life - when I quit my high paying advertising job to pursue writing full time and when I decided to leave the Philippines and move here in the U.S. This laptop knows my thoughts, the struggles I went through before I finally made this life altering decisions. No, this is not a post about my laptop. I'm just amazed at how such a seemingly insignificant thing can become so much a part of us. One of the things that I wrote about often is happiness. I think it really is the point of all these. At the end of the day, we do the t

I am approaching my first year in the US. As usual, muni muni ng mga naganap sa isang taon. Ano na ng aba? Parang ang bilis. I remember not being sure why I am moving to the US. I just decided to leave. When I went here and people started asking me why I left my relatively successful career in screenwriting and advertising, I told them I don’t know and I wasn’t lying. For months, I never attempted to answer the question. I just went with the flow. I never really planned on answering it. I wanted things to just happen. However, 365 days of being away from home has a way of forcing you back into a corner. It forces you in a place where you have no choice but to see everything for all that it is. Being in the middle of my 30s, alone and in a country that isn’t my own forces me to realize that maybe I always knew why I left. I was turning 34 then. The only other single cousin I had got married. I just found out my ex-boyfriend got married and my first boyfriend had a

God gave me a great gift, the natural ability deal with the now and not dwell on the past or future. Maybe it is survival instincts. Maybe it is a defensive mechanism. Whatever it is, it is helping me survive the incredible loneliness that comes with being away from my family. For the most part, I get to coast through everyday pretty painlessly. Facebook helps. I get to talk with my family almost everyday and still get updated with their life even when they don't tell me every little detail. One of the things I need to learn, though, is really try and appreciate the advantages of being a matandang dalaga because I really have no choice. It's not like someone else can be miserable for me. It's not bad, when you think about it. Click here to read 10 things worse than a heartbreak. 1. You Get to Define Who You Are You are given the perfect excuse and perfect platform to know what really makes you happy without being dependent on someone else. You find the nitty g