Nevergirl’s

Dear Tin,

I lost my temper today. I said something mean. I felt sorry afterwards but it was too late to take my words back. You never would have said what I said because you’re beautiful and amazing like that while I’m me. I’m impatient and graceless under emotional pressure, and it doesn’t matter how sorry I feel afterwards—I can’t change the fact that I lashed out, that I hurt.

Please teach me kindness that never loses its composure, patience that never pales. Teach me how to love without ever growing tired. I have blisters in my heart; show me how to wear them with grace.

Tin and Chin, Storytellers by the River (Photo by Aileen Siroy)

Fall in love with someone who looks at you like you’re magic.

You are.

Photo Credit: Aileen Siroy

It’s a good thing I rock at document management. I just might finish this inventory I’m doing before lunch. Yay! The weekend’s turning out to be much better than I thought. As much as possible, I try not do paperwork of the boring kind on weekends, but this one just had to be done. I cannot declare projects completed unless everything that people claim to have been done is well and truly accounted for in my books.

So yay, everything that should be accounted for is accounted for, and I can spend the rest of the day lazing in bed, with ice cream, potato chips, and all the kung fu DVDs I can watch in one lifetime.

In an entirely unrelated note, this was dinner with the girls about two weeks ago. I remember I ate dinner thrice that day. Then again, that’s not much of a surprise. I eat dinner twice every day — the first one at 6pm, the second one at midnight. Early dinners in the bukid is wreaking havoc on my waistline. But, I digress. Aren’t my girlfriends beautiful?

Dear Kara’s mom,

Your daughter tells me you brought home a pair of fish one day, called them Nala and Simba, and talk to them during breakfast. (Thankfully, you didn’t order them vitamins from www.bestmultivitamin.org but that you haven’t yet doesn’t mean you won’t ever.) You buy your nephews’ girlfriends flowers, give the bouquets to their girls, and make like they asked you to do it. Today, you asked your daughter’s friends to a madhatter breakfast in the garden.

I never got to tell you this before I left, but I find what you do–and you– amazing. At equal turns, you amuse and inspire. You make me look forward to turning 54, too, and rocking it as much as you.

Happy birthday, Nanay! May you have more funkeh birthday parties to throw, more countries to gallivant to, more amusing stories to tell, and more beautiful flowers to wear in your hair.

Lots of love, laughter, and light from the girl who never got to know her own mother but has her mother’s eyes,

Chin