Seriously wala naman tayong maboteng pinagsamahan, no, I don’t even remember your 17 years back until you reminded me. Mas maalala ko si Florante mainly because it struck me that he apologized to me that night over his brother’s impregnating and abandoning a first cousin’s cousin. Takot siguro isumbong sa hukbo hahaha. By that time, 1993, nangamatay na lahat ng hukbo ko kaya wala nang babaril sa kanya, ako na lang.
Kung minsan nasusuka na ako. And I just tell my friends, puwede ba you settle accounts with your men? Mga problema nyo sa mga lalaki ninyo huwag nyo na dalhin sa akin. Mga anak nila puro reklamo na kesyo they’re being turned into pawns sa fights ng mga parents nila. Kung minsan mas matatalino pa iyong mga anak nila telling them to divorce if they like and live their lives as they like my mistakes are my own you can’t live my life for me, Mom.
Parang yung sa kanta ni Carly Simon, my friends from college they're all married now, their children hate them for the things they're not, they hate themselves for what they are, and yet they drink they laugh, close the wounds hide the scars, but that's the way I've always heard it should be, so it's time we move in together, so let's drown in love's debris.
But no. Some of my friends they're actually happily remarried, four or five to men getting their second chance at post-revolution family life. Some are into lesbian relationships. The root of their pain now, as often happens when the new spouse doesn't have an expat salary to buffer the hard crunch, the refusal of their exes to take financial responsibility for the children's upkeep. Iyong ibang lalaki kasi iyon na lang paraan nila to get back at their ex-wives who they see as better off after the divorce. Kaya pagdating sa singilan ng pangtuition pahirapan talaga. Nakakapagod makinig. Leche at bakit sa akin ninyo dinudulog yan, ano ako, family court? Or can’t you at least keep the ledgers to yourselves?
Men and their horse-hung romance. From persuasion to blackmail. Meron pa iba diyan, tinenkyu mo lang at pinauwi ng bahay, pupromote pa bigla mga sarili nila: from spurned lover to literary critic. Why all pains? Why all resentments? Sabi nung isa, in bad grammatical construction at that. Why not write about joy? Sa Legaspi Street, sa San Pedro at sa Claveria marami akong Joys na kilala, ikako, gusto mo ipakilala kita? Twenty years in America and right now on psychoanalysis, babalikan ka lang para hingan ng joy and peace and love? Ano ko, Parish Bulletin?
Writing is about one last thing that when I do it, sabi nga ni Lia Lopez-Chua na seryusly wala naman kami, I feel more, rather than less, of myself.
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