Picture perfect

A few days ago I was having a pleasant low-calorie snack when my mother walked into the room and gasped, "My God, you’re turning 23 in a few days! You’ll be running out of excuses soon!" Having said that, she pirouetted out of the breakfast nook.

I thought, "Well, gasp! You’re freaking 56, what’s your excuse?" But that was just a reaction. At 56, my mother has done a lot of things in her life. She has lived in Egypt, managed to captivate Michael Caine, married my father and stayed with him. She has worked to make Guimaras mangoes world-famous, helped people get their act together and once, she even threw a chair at a congressman who pissed her off. Yep, she has definitely lived a 360-degree life.

Birthdays do this to me all the time. I feel sad because I expect everyone to lick my toes on this special day. More often than not, they don’t so I contemplate my next step. This is when I have a Jerry Maguire breakdown-breakthrough moment. It has to do with my relationship with myself.

People whine about a lot of things — their job, a love affair, their home life, money, etc. These talk-show-material-drams put holes in the hulls of their otherwise stable vessels. God knows my favorite activity in the past was to whine while drinking wine.

In my Jerry Maguire moment, I realize that whatever happens to me is all my doing. In college, I had a major eating disorder, I was a little Karen Carpenter without the talent. The choices were: to eat then expel or not to eat at all. I perfected the art of clearing my teary eyes so it seemed like I just went to the bathroom to freshen up. This went on for two years, and now I have to admit that even if my trousers were already falling down, I still felt fat.

Issues, issues! I was also an uber basket case, going to a tired and pissed-off shrink three times a week and downing anti-depressants. I prayed they would take me back to when I was five and my only concern was watching Voltron on the tube. To top it off, I was then dating a guy who invented the word jerk. I was a fat, emotional mess with Lucifer as my escort. It was a boo-hoo fiesta carnival for me back then. I was a disaster and I fervently felt that the world owed it to me to make me feel better. Wrong!

As a child, my grandpa whom I grew up with, always told me that I was perfect. I mean, all I had to do was make "beautiful eyes" to earn myself a lovely Cerelac meal.

One day, I realized that life was no longer that simple. It came at a time when I thought I was perfect and life was easy. Cold hard slap on the face! Making "beautiful eyes" wasn’t enough anymore. The free coupons for a good life had run out. The dream of a charmed life was nothing but a fantasy. People with picture-perfect lives usually had the most repugnant skeletons in their closets. There was no such thing as a charmed life. There was such a thing as having a life.

During my dismal poor me wanted to make life perfect. I wanted to be thin, because thin girls got the boys and seemed more destined to lead a happy life. Food was my enemy and during my Quarter-Pounder-free-period, I was as sad as a Billie Holiday song. I staved my hunger by drinking, which as the habit progressed, staved me from feeling the realities of my self-created failures.

In addition, I imposed unrealistic expectations on myself. I wanted to be accepted by my peers, even if I myself coudn’t admit that I was an odd little thing. Just to fit in, I agreed to things that were contrary to my beliefs. I let people take advantage of me because I was afraid to be alone. The more weight I lost, the more I lost myself.

As children, we all make promises to ourselves. We each want to be a paragon of perfection — to be good, rich, beautiful, smart, loved and scandale-free. I did not want to disappoint the child in me. Later on I realized: What would life be without scandale? In the end, I broke my promise to myself by taking all the wrong turns. I was responsible for all my scandales. Everything turned noir and ugly because of the choices I had made.

Today, I let go of something that mattered to me. I let go of a relationship that was "picture perfect" but which, predictably, had skeletons in the closet. I was deliberating whether or not to hate this man for the scandale he committed.



I went through a tsunami of rage, but after a while I just got tired of hating — the world, my body, my lover. I realized it was an unfortunate waste of emotions. Today, I woke up and had a sort of eureka moment. All my feelings of resentment were replaced by the calm of forgiveness.

I did not take him back. It’s not because of pride or rage. I kissed him on the forehead and decided to go on with life. There is a distinction between being sentimental and being responsible for my own happiness. I used to wallow in my misfortune. Now I remember the good things and forget why we broke up in the first place.

Love is complicated. It is what sets the tone of life, regardless if you’re a romantic or a brick. To run love out of your life is to close the lights. You can’t see. Love comes in all forms and being together does not guarantee its existence. Just because it hurts doesn’t mean it’s wrong. It only gives poignancy to the experience.

To feel things good or bad is an affirmation that I am alive. I know I sound like Oprah, but hey, would she be this rich if she wasn’t thinking of all the right things? We don’t always get our just desserts, but there’s nothing wrong with that. This is life I’m leading here. Even with the disbelief of something sweet going terribly sour, I embrace it and accept it with all my heart. Maybe after a back massage I’ll feel better and know that this experience will make me less of a ditz (I hope).

To accept that life isn’t perfect is the closest I can get to achieving a perfect life. I will let my strengths buoy up my weaknesses. So what if I’m a 23-year-old Hawaiian-Tropic-coated, baked, spring chicken with a personality disorder? I choose to fight in my disco of Ate Vi drama land.

Here’s to another year of mistakes, scandale, implosions and along with that — a toast to a life that is never to be regretted.

P.S. When breaking up with someone, please look beautiful! I want to thank the kind people at 12 for making me stay even if they were already closed and for letting me down my martinis that were purr-fect! With my fogged-up shades and all — it’s always better to be tragic in style.