Are we really doing this?” I ask The Boyfriend. There was a pregnant silence, a screaming hesitation accompanied by an odd silent glee. We were there taking the next step.
“It’s just too cheesy,” The Boyfriend said.
“I would laugh at people who did this,” I added.
We looked at each other. It had been another one of those quiet nights we loved, just being together. He was reading work papers, I was reading US Weekly, in the hope that navel gazing would melt my writer’s block. We were a well-rounded couple. Then we got bored and decided to pull out the laptop.
It was then and there we decided in our languid state of mind to be a Facebook couple.
So we did buckle under, and did the “In a relationship with…” thing. I tried to look calm as I was typing in my info hoping my gobstopper eyes of horror would not betray me. Luckily I looked towards him and I swear he was sweating Velveeta cheese. Never has being grossed out been such a lovely thing!
So instead we decided to put up those couple photos — something that I never quite got until the moment I put mine up. Sure it was cheesy, but it was also so normal. So normal. Beyond pedestrian, it was a royale with cheese.
The past two years have been a frantic search, figuring out where to sit my ass. My passport could now literally pass for the Encyclopedia Britannica because it was so thick. I knew it was getting too much when the Cathay agent by the counter said, “Oh, it’s you again, Ms. Lopez.”
Yup, me again.
There was the London option. The Boston option. The New York option. Each city not very Caligula (my dog) welcoming. It was like the poor Pomeranian had to file these extensive papers to seek political asylum. Then there were the questions.
What would happen to “YStyle”? What would happen to Suri (my house named after Tom Cruise’s baby… in the tradition of naming my dwellings after celebrity babies)? What would happen to Joy (my housekeeper)? What would I do for work? Will I take yet another course? Will the course “Introduction to Memoirs” in my Harvard writing class be beneficial to my career? Who will my dad eat with? Who will my mom talk to? What if I miss out when my best friends finally have their baby?
Listen, I never said I was Margaret Mead, but those questions are what constituted my little life at the time. In the end, I found my way back home — literally. The day my course packet from Boston arrived, I knew everything outside my little world was quite irrelevant. Here I was searching for a more worldly life.
Here’s the thing. I’m not effin’ worldly.
I can’t speak French despite six years of classes. Add Spanish and Italian, too. I make it a point to try every McDonald’s and KFC in every country I’m in. I really hate it that I got used to doing that pretentious two-cheeked air kiss. I was more of a “Hi,” lift-your-eyebrows kind of girl. I gawk at celebrities, who may be at the same dinner table as I am. Making me the awkward guest as always. And seriously, nothing is ever too cool for me. I get excited over anything. I’m a total nipper.
Having a Botoxed soul is a must for every worldly person. Every obscure thing about every country is ‘heavenly,’ and every touristy thing about any country always entertains an ‘Are you serious?’ eyebrow from my chic friends. One of my Chelsea girls (my girls in London) once commanded me to go to this pedicurist in Paris named Bastian, of whom she says: “He will make you want to suck your own toes like scampi in Venice.” When she asked me if I went to see the foot guy, I told her I went to the Eiffel Tower instead. “What the eff is wrong with you?” she BBM’d. I could feel her cringe across the Eurostar border.
I’m a damn nipper. My father once went nuts looking for Korean BBQ in Paris. Like father, I need to have dim sum and know where each Chinatown is in every major city so I can go for cheap massages. I hate fancy spa massages. They literally just apply cream on my severely knotted back, which usually needs some serious Tarantino action. And when I find a Filipino grocery store, it’s over. My neighbors cry foul as I cook adobo which reeks up the entire hallway. My mother is exactly the same. It’s a nipper version of On the Road with the Lopezes.
So yes, it’s safe to say I’m glad to be home. Glad to be five minutes away from my parents. Glad to wake up next to Caligula every day. Glad to keep tabs on Joy’s love life. Glad to have my cheap massages. Most of all I’m glad I’m here now.
The floods have made it more evident that every Filipino needs to be a Filipino. So being part of the process of helping out makes me proud of the resiliency of our country. It makes me glad I’m not being a pretentious brat in the South of France air-kissing people twice on the cheek.
There is lucky and there is blessed. To have my family, my home, The Boyfriend, the gang and being able to be here in such a crucial time in our country is a blessing.
I was eating a simple meal with The Boyfriend at home last Monday when my mother sent half a dozen bins of popcorn (much to The Boyfriend’s delight). We laughed at Caligula raping his newest toy as we planned what we were going to do for the week. I looked at him and said, “I love us.”
I know: 500 Days of Summer rip-off. But still, I really did. I loved everything in my little world and what I could bring to the real world, all in the comfort of my real home.