Post-LDR Weirdnesses

Raise your hand if, like me, you're in complete disbelief that it's already friggin' April.

This message Emmy left on the bathroom mirror is a month old now 0.o

Wha---?

That means I met him sixty-five months ago now, and he's been living ~on shore~ (lol) for nine months by next week!

That's four (and a half) times as long as any other time that we've been together in our five year long relationship.

Life has been tough and it hasn't been all butterflies and rainbows, but the thing is, it doesn't have to be for love to be awesome. In fact, that's how it gets a chance to prove its awesomeness - when life gets tough around you, and your love, instead of crumbling in the pressure, just gets tougher and denser in the thick of it all too.

*cue cheesy picture with light effects pa*

But check yourself if you imagined the process to be a dramatic one - heroic struggles with knights, villains, and romantic suffering. If there's anything I've learned about love standing the test of time, it's that it does so through ease and lightheartedness, in moments of silliness and laughing at the same things. In being very good in talking, experiencing little moments together, and being each other's best friend.

I don't know why but I just felt like this picture of a cute potato seal we found while grocery shopping together belonged here.

 Over time, I found that in the imaginary venn diagram of things we find funny, Beardy's circle and my circle have progressively converged more and more, and for the areas where they couldn't, our circles made up for it by straining new space in the middle for things that shouldn't even be considered as funny to make way for gems including:

• horrible, HORRIBLE puns in all languages possible
• intendedly incorrect exchanges that we do for fun/out of habit (ex: "i love you so much!" "I love you too, so much!" ; "thank you, please" "thank you too, please." -maybe these don't seem too strange, but we have a special accent for them that I noticed we use on each other a lot)
• etc (that's all I'm going to say because I don't think it's proper to elaborate on how much we talk about poop)

this pun, not intended. i just think this, too, belongs here somehow.

So yeah. Overall, we might be struggling on the life front, but I'm happily learning that even though life can give you many reasons to be dramatic, love doesn't have to be one of those things. I wish I could reach out to my younger self to tell her this, because I could have saved myself so many tears, insecurity, and time spent yearning for a perfect romantic scenario, which, to be honest, as I see it now, doesn't look at all that fun in the end.

You don't have to be each other's everything, but you can be each other's person-to-share-everything-with. You don't have to fight about differences or ignore them altogether but instead develop a healthy habit of talking and arguing constructively. You don't have to figure everything else in your life out before being together. Just be responsible, and encourage each other to do be better and to pursue what's fulfilling and makes each other happy. It might be near impossible to get a perfect scenario, but keep looking to work on a better scenario each and every time.

What you lack in natural attitude tendencies, make up for with a willingness to understand and accommodate each other's shortcomings. Keep working on your communication skills.

And lastly, instead of trying to be perfect for one another, just choose to be the unconditional, lucky witness and celebrator of each other's type of weird.

What Love Could Feel Like

Guess what! Beardy and I are celebrating our Fifth Year Anniversary today!!! Yes, five whole years of being in each other's lives. It's a little crazy to think about! To celebrate, we filmed a vlog together doing The Boyfriend/Relationship Tag:

And on my own, I want to share some insights that I've gathered and observed to be things that need the most sharing from people who have experienced a nurturing, stable kind of love to people who are looking, or have been perhaps going after the kind of love that isn't really what they want in the end. In things that are common among us humans, we need to have a better line of communication in order to guide each other. That's what I think.

And love is a pretty common goal in people's lives. Humans are vastly preoccupied with romantic love. Not everyone, of course - but a lot of us are. We can philosophize about why this is so, but for most of us it's a very real, very deep-seated need, and done the right way, it can do a lot of good to a person. But it's as if we are used to being preoccupied with only the stage where it is sought, and when we have it, we are preoccupied with fixing it because a lot of the love we find is broken. I observe this a lot in the way that we often speak about love. How it feels. How it hurts. It's lead me to think that maybe we are made to have the wrong expectations about what it is, what it should be. I feel like maybe in a large extent, we are being made to look for the wrong kind of feeling in our search for love. I sure had the wrong expectations before befriending Beardy. I was looking for, and kept crashing head-on towards an idea of it that was simply unsustainable. Luckily, even without realising it at the time, starting a friendship with Beardy five years ago today eventually led me away from a long, painful path towards a really nice easy-going one so that I could, you know... Start worrying about other things. Life is about so much more than finding a partner after all.

Like being able to act like dumdums together once you've found each other.

Love shouldn't feel like competing to be the best one around in order to deserve being loved. It should feel secure, like the decision has been done. You should treat each other in a way that makes you feel confident and secure in your relationship. It shouldn't feel like a constant competition, like you always have something to prove. You should be able to show your whole self, not just the best parts. To be accepted for the good and bad, and to accept your partner wholly as well.

Love shouldn't be something we brace ourselves for, and reserve our strength for, but rather, something that gives us strength, and is a safe place to rest in in times where we are weak. Love should give us strength, not take it away from us. Yes, sometimes challenges may come that will need us to be strong, but it shouldn't come from the way we treat each other. I've observed that some people in relationships tend to fight and bicker a lot - about things big or small, and I think this causes a lot of lovers to have their guards up when they are around each other. I think it should feel like you are coming from the same place from every time you wind down, and face the same direction out to the world, together. The space you create should feel safe and nurturing, not like a battlefield.

Love shouldn't feel like the goal, the happy ending. It should feel like a beginning. It should improve your life in many ways, and not be the end goal. It should be a source of your energy, and the light to your way for the rest of your life.

Post-LDR CaNoodling

Hello blog I've missed you!!! Just passing by to show you this vlog Beardy and I made together. Foodventure Time: Buldak Bokkeum Myeon. It might turn into a series, we'll see. But I do want to start making Youtube videos. Both conceptual stuff and more vlogs like this about our life post-LDR. You know, our life together after being a long-distance couple? Cos yep! We aren't long distance anymore! Beardy has finally arrived (In July) to stay. We're just a regular couple now, making it work.

Today we went to the Immigration Office to extend his Visa and may I just say, what a relief to be done with it! I was so stressed before going, but it all went super smoothly. Our local office was transferred to our huge City Hall and it was really good, fast, friendly service. I feel happy about my city.

We might be leaving it soon, though. It's more than likely that we will move out of the city when we find a place. But Santa Rosa will always be home :) There will just be new adventures to make, new places to discover! And I'll make sure to update you! For 90 days (since the 15th, but I'm only starting the real work today), I'm setting my mind to posting regularly on here and on Youtube. To give it a real shot! I just gave myself a couple of weeks to think about what to do. I haven't figured it out completely, but I set myself to start no matter what when September comes, so here we are!

It's good to be back!

Best way I could have ended/started a year..

With Beardy of course!!!

Our first and only us-sie XD This thumb-face selfie thing keeps happening. XD I can't help it sometimes! This was his beard before I trimmed it - one of our many firsts!!!

But that's not all.. I spent it with his family too! One of his sisters, and both of his parents came over to spend time with us. It was unbelievably lovely.

This was our first Christmas and New Year (not to mention actual anniversary, too) together, so I'd say it was pretty special, but that would be a gross understatement. And I didn't even know it would happen when we parted this summer.

There are honestly no words to describe how wonderful it was. But I still want to mark the occasion on this space of mine in the internet, by posting pictures from E's papa's camera. I'm still waiting on more from Anne's camera (I'm very excited to see them!! I noticed they have awesome natural talent in capturing the right moments in pictures) so this likely won't be the last photo throwback I'm going to make for those wonderful few days.

On the 27th we had our Christmas family reunion, and it was a lot of fun! we all wore red, green or white and we played games.  Most importantly, we got to introduce E's family to my extended family, and it was really nice and fun. Here are more pictures:

People in red

People in green

Our beauuutiful moms and aunt

These two pictures are really amazing to me. I don't know who took it, or how they did it, but they really found a way to make the kids comfortable :)

This one really looks like she's waiting for snow XD Only, there's never any here of course!

Tito boyet butchering the poor piggy

Beardy butchering the poor Sansa haha

J'adore cette photo :> Beardy has told me how much closer he feels now to my mom and he likes it and she likes it and i love it :D This was when he was asked to make a speech for the Champagne, I think. (actual Champagne! I don't think we've ever had that in our family XD Just sparkling wine. Which is delicious too but still.)

Beardy and me participating in Christmas games in our respective Christmas hats! As you can see, Tito Leo, as per usual, cracks everyone up. Including adorable Beardy.

Beardy's first time participating in our family videoke sessions! I'm so happy about how festive he was that day. I didn't even tell him to wear that hat, he initiated it! (He brought it from work!)

After the Christmas reunion, I went with Beardy and his family (which I feel is part of my family now, too!) to a couple of getaways: one day we went to Intramuros and Rizal Park, and the following day we went to Matabunkay to spend two days at the beach!

I really like these pictures Papa Eric took of us in St.Augustine :)

Matchy-matchies!!

I took this! :D My new-found familyyy ~

Dinner again at home :) I can really tell how much our parents like each other, they really spend all night talking together!

After snorkelling in Matabunkay :D so many fishies! I will really treasure this memory forever. It was perfect.

I'm so happy I still got to play with sand even if our time was short!

a couple of goofy waterbabies

Taal on our way back :D

New Year's Eve was also really nice and peaceful and happy ~ We hunted for fireworks and didn't really get to do a proper count down but kissed and hugged anyway :D

Me looking like I've had enough cake even though I'm only just starting to slice it!!!
I kinda like this picture, I look fat but I don't mind it, it looks happy to me (look at how tiny my baby Beardy looks with his cute smile) And I'm wearing earrings that Maman Noëlle gave me for Christmas :3

Walking through Paseo on the night, seeing if we want to spend the countdown in the party they had, but deciding to spend it with each other instead ~ we still had a mini dance party by ourselves though!

like dis.

It was the shortest stay Beardy has ever had with me but also somehow the most meaningful, with many many many firsts for us... I was able to have a Christmas exchange gift in his family's hotel room with them, seated all together and that's something he's always told me about and I'm so happy to have experienced it with them. There are so many more, on the last day of 2014 we even wrote down all of the firsts we had in a list... There's 17 things in there right now and I don't even think we remembered everything. I'm so happy with him, and now I've fallen in love with his family too. I always somehow knew I'd love them, but I was still taken off-guard. And I know my family was, too. :D

Anyway, I'm so happy everything happened even though it was too short and I now miss him terribly again, but I know we'll be together very soon later this year, and probably for good! So I'm not taking it too hard. :)

Four Zero

*cheese warning. if you are susceptible to vomiting due to overt displays of affection, avert your eyes*

Beardy and I have been in each others' lives for 40 months today. :)

I was having a little pop Disney marathon when I came across this song again. I always found it romantic before, but it was moving to listen to it now and realize it's become very true to me.

The context is different, but it still fits really well. John and Pochahontas are singing this to each other because of the possibility that their time will be cut short permanently whereas we deal with it yearly whenever we have to part, but like the song says, it's a fate that I'll always choose over not having known him at all.

...If I never knew you, I'd be safe but half as real

Never knowing I could feel a love so strong and true

I'm so grateful to you, I'd have lived my whole life through

Lost forever, if I never knew you...

...If I never knew you, I'd have lived my whole life through

Empty as the sky

Never knowing why

Lost forever, if I never knew you...

The Funny Frenchman

Hi internet! How is everyone doing? How was everyone's July? I somehow kept thinking it was August 1 for three days straight, which made life really confusing. I greeted Beardy two days in advance for our 33rd monthsary and I woke up today noticing that it's still our monthsary... I was like whaat? I guess time just goes a looooot slower without Beardy around. Because it's not nearly as fun! Three days felt like a whole week, while the two months he spent here with me felt like nothing at all. We did so much stuff, and I honestly had the best time of my life. But of course it ended all too soon!

But I'm not one to sulk. (Hehehe, at least not anymore. I didn't take it well last year when he left!) So I've been cheering myself up by watching a lot of Girl Code, re-playing some Plants vs Zombies, and downloading a bunch of other stuff to entertain me with to pass time in between bouts of job-hunting.

(I just noticed that it's been mentioned more than three times in my timeline that today feels like a friday.. HAS SOMEONE STOPPED TIME FOR EVERYONE AND MADE EVERYONE JUST REPEAT AUGUST 1??? WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING lol)

yup my camera still has a problem

And now to cheer myself up further, I'm going to fondly reminisce about the funny shit that came out of Beardy's mouth during our trips.

i dunno, i find this picture hilarious. looks like a panic attack after finding out the zoo is closed (it wasn't, we were just early)

Backstory for first one: When we went to the indoor zoo, we found Jenny the orangutan lounging on her seat without her trainer. We were very eager, but shy and apprehensive about approaching her without supervision. But he slowly, very slowly approached her, making eye contact, and walking very slowly closer.. Until she offered him a finger and they did the ET thing:

yeah he has a way with animals

But then afterwards I got to take a picture beside her with her trainer there:

Me: Mine isn't as organic cos she was told to pose with me. Yours was a natural encounter.

Him: Yeah... A natural encounter... 
Him: With a monkey in a t-shirt.

The zoo was really nice, I would highly recommend it for anyone who's looking for one in Metro Manila!

here's a picture of a lioness breathing some dragonballs. just kidding. it's just reflections of lamps

There was only one thing I found to be not so great about it (aside from some sad-looking animals, but they weren't sad cos they're maltreated, it's just natural for wild animals to be uncomfortable in captivity, even with ample space and food!) ...At least, on the day we were there, they played current radio-circulation music and it just really didn't suit the surroundings.

Me: They should play jungle music instead...  Or African music.

Him: Yeah... Like Phil Collins. 

Beardy: bringer of funsies. whisperer of birdies.

And there was a time where we were sat down watching a movie in my room and he was caressing my shin, and he smiles at me very affectionately, and says:

Him: Even when you're a bit hairy your legs are very soft...

I think it's the non-ironic sincerity of it that made it really hilarious to me.

we regularly had movie nights/afternoons where we'd just make ourselves some iced drinks (with straws!) and popcorn or chips

We were reading the news and there were some awful, unacceptable racist behaviour going down and he was visibly upset by it:

Him: I wish there was a way to turn people black... You can punish neo-nazis by turning them black!

The last one's a bit harder to explain. I'll do most of it after the excerpt, but for now let it be said that we have a thing for puns and point-winking at each other to applaud good ones and that we've been trying to teach each other our mother tongues.

the nice people from Makati Apartelle did this really cute thing and chose somewhat a french theme for our kitchen decor and placemats XD

We were at the place we stayed at in Makati. He was on the bed and I was at the fridge and he said something like..

Him: Pass me the ice please.. Glacons.
Me: Small.. ice? Oh, like, ice cubes?
Him: Small cubs! Get it? Cos small bears ("ours") are oursons

Haha okay, okay I admit that one doesn't really translate well written down but it was adorable when he said it.

I feel like my Beardy is getting funnier and funnier as our relationship gets older. I dunno, maybe it's just our humours kind of adapting to each others'? Whatever it is, I'm loving it! Laughing burns a lot of calories, you know.

PS: I got a job at a call center nearby! It's not exactly related to my field, but it's a good start! I need to learn how to talk to strangers. That's a skill that's universal in its application. Would be nice to be paid to learn something you can really use :) Also, obviously I started writing this at the start of August and it's already the 9th so... Yeah.

hello, blog.

life has been really great lately with him here

i  never get to update my blogs about it cos i’m too busy actually constantly having a life?

like i don’t know how other people do it.  i try to start a new post every now and then, but it just doesn't happen for me. i can't concentrate. i just want to koala-cling to him.

i’ve been to zoos with him, saw a bunch of cute animals, run away with him to stay in the city for a while, went to see a lot of films with him, met with my dearest friends and hung out all together, saw a lot of new places, started to know Metro Manila a lot better, went on a 11-day escape to the beach, took a LOT of pictures…

but somehow the urge to post photos or write about things happening in my life doesn’t really come naturally to me. i feel like just living in my skin is enough, being beside him, laughing with him, holding him, kissing his adorable face… i feel like it’s a lot, that it’s comfortable, that it’s what i want.. but at the same time i fear when this is all over, i might forget a lot of things.. life has been too wonderful, i don’t want to forget even one thing!

but maybe i won’t. i don’t know, let’s see how this pans out. maybe the pictures will be enough to remind me..

my old life will inevitably come like a slap in the face once he goes away again, anyway. i will have ample time to spend on the computer. maybe even to write down stuff about us that are still fresh enough to be recalled, to remind myself in the more distant future. on top of that, it will also be time to find a job. so yeah. i should just go with it and enjoy every second of my life, in its many forms.

WHERE'S THE PAUSE BUTTON???

I'm pretty sure it's located somewhere here, in this activity. Writing down or recording daily events however which way; through blogging, writing in a journal, and reflecting on time spent.

I'm being really disturbed lately by how fast time has been flying since Beardy's been around. I feel like the month of May passed by at a very leisurely pace and apparently I erroneously let that reassure me that the months of June and July, during which Beardy is here with me, would be the same. Of course they can't! I bet May only passed by so slowly in my head because I was impatient for him to come back. Now that he's here and making fireworks go off in my general state of being constantly, time is done trickling away and has remembered whatever shortcut it was using to whooze by poor ol' limping me during the time I was trying to graduate from college.

I've been having difficulty organizing photo files to upload because these kinds of details are somehow super hard to organize and mentally grasp when I'm this constantly excited. Even with that being the case I still actually feel like I'm a lot better this time around than last year. Last year felt completely hazy while this time around I can manage to rein the controls of my mind every now and then to zoom and focus into each moment instead of constantly treading a weird mental state of anxiety and restlessness.

Beardy and I have been a lot better at staving off boredom. I don't know why but there's somehow so many things to do. Even when we're stuck at home because of the rain, there's watching Game of Thrones or Bob's Burgers, playing the Lord of the Rings card game, or playing with Sansa and her new rope toy that we bought from one of those everything-66-or-88-pesos japanese stores. (not to mention a lot of time and discussing is still required for us to figure out what Beardy can eat each day! He's still as picky as before, just more confident to be honest about it haha)

Sansa immediately loved him and she can't stay away from him whenever we're in her floor. Surprisingly, he seems to like her a lot, too! Even though she can be a serious restless ball of furry energy.

beardy with his apple green tea and our really bad impulsive chess openings (i lost both times.. even though he likes to say i won the second one. which was officially a draw anyway)

When we do manage to get out of the house, we usually just go to Paseo or the grocery store. On one rainy day we hopped from Ryuma (our favorite japanese restaurant) to Moonleaf to National Bookstore to Chowking!!! Because the rain just wouldn't stop and we couldn't leave the general area. It was enormously tiring but Beardy was hilarious the whole time so it wasn't really so bad. He bought me a Harry Potter coloring book. Keeper.

But on other days we commute a bit farther to other places to meet my best friends, or tag along with my mom and brothers to eat out or just go out and do whatever.

with his watermelon shake which he actually really enjoyed, he just likes to look a hesitant in pictures to tease me

It's been seriously fun. Even the first day, which was actually my mom's birthday celebration. We fetched him at noon and he was really anxious at first to have to see MY WHOLE FAMILY at once right away but it actually went pretty well! We just mostly spent time with my niece Nica who is at that phase where she loves me so much and wants to spend all the time she could with me (I feel the same way about her) hanging out in my room or walking around the village, then we did the same with Sansa, who amused Beardy a lot by being REALLY BAD AT WALKS. That really set up the mood for the rest of the ten days he's been here, and it's been great so far and I'm excited for what's to come but at the same time I'm like SLOWWW DOWNNN WHY IS IT JUNE 12 ALREADY

I'm just really greedy for some Beardy.