love you

If God, for a second, forgot what I have become and granted me a little bit more of life, I would use it to the best of my ability. I wouldn't possibly say everything that is in my mind, but I would be more thoughtful of all I say. I would give merit to things not for what they are worth, but for what they mean to express.

I would sleep little, I would dream more, because I know that for every minute that we close our eyes, we waste 60 seconds of light. I would walk while others stop; I would awake while others sleep. If God would give me a little bit more of life, I would dress in a simple manner. I would place myself in front of the sun, leaving not only my body, but my soul naked at its mercy.

To all men I would say how mistaken they are when they think that they stop falling in love when they grow old, without knowing that they grow old when they stop falling in love.

I would give wings to children, but I would leave it to them to learn how to fly by themselves. To old people I would say that death doesn't arrive when they grow old, but with forgetfulness.

I have learned so much with you all, I have learned that everybody wants to live on top of the mountain, without knowing that true happiness is obtained in the journey taken and the form used to reach the top of the hill. I have learned that when a newborn baby holds, with its little hand, his father's finger, it has trapped him for the rest of his life. I have learned that a man has the right and obligation to look down at another man, only when that man needs help to get up from the ground.

Say always what you feel, not what you think. If I knew that today is the last time that I am going to see you asleep, I would hug you with all my strength and I would pray to the Lord to let me be the guardian angel of your soul. If I knew that these are the last moments to see you, I would say 'I love you'. There is always tomorrow, and life gives us another opportunity to do things right; but in case I am wrong, and today is all that is left to me, I would love to tell you how much I love you and that I will never forget you.

Tomorrow is never guaranteed to anyone, young or old. Today could be the last time to see your loved ones, which is why you mustn't wait; do it today, in case tomorrow never arrives. I am sure you will be sorry you wasted the opportunity today to give a smile, a hug, a kiss, and that you were too busy to grant them their last wish.

Keep your loved ones near you; tell them in their ears and to their faces how much you need them and love them. Love them and treat them well; take your time to tell them 'I am sorry'; 'forgive me', 'please', 'thank you', and all those loving words you know.

Nobody will know you for your secret thought. Ask the Lord for wisdom and strength to express them. Show your friends and loved ones how important they are to you.

Send this letter to those you love. If you don't do it today... tomorrow will be like yesterday; and if you never do it, it doesn't matter, either, the moment to do it is now.

For you, with much love.

Your Friend,
Gabriel Garcia Marquez

tell me if i´m right or wrong

i don´t usually write things in this blog outside of occasional rants. this is usually a funtime, brainless past time for me. but right now, i have this problem that confuses me so much, not because i want to get my way but because i just don´t understand the other point of view and how it could apply in this particular century, or to people in my generation and younger.

see, i want to visit baptiste in france. france is the city of lights, of rich food, romance in every corner, sophistication, history, politics, philosophy, style. of fashion, of art, of language. where every street looks as if it was meant to be in a movie, where cobblestones look normal and cement absurd. where bread is bliss and every other bite outside france seems tasteless. where everything should be in sepia because it´s france.

the last time i went to europe was a tour in italy. the tour part sucked, but italy was magic. it was different standing in the coliseum where gladiators fought and drew blood, where democracy was started, where plumbing was discovered. every breath felt like i was filling my head with even more things that made me more open-minded.

for me, france will be like that. i wouldn´t want to close my eyes to sleep for fear of missing something.

but for my parents, the part that baptiste is in france is enough to turn the idea sour.
for them, i´m not just going to france. i´m pursuing a boy halfway and major amount of money (at my expense, by the way) across the world. i´m not just violating the maria clara lifestyle for other people, i´m, i don´t know, murdering or raping and stepping on her bloody carcass. when i go to france, i´m going to show all cards of my hand and display how much i really love baptiste. screw my years of law school, i´m going to get knocked-up and derail my life. even my father, who i thought was okay with the idea, thinks that baptiste should be visiting me and not the other way around.

to my way of thinking, he just did. he went here to the philippines for a year and lived here. for me, that was his visit, he spent a huge amount of money already. i probably won´t spend that much nor will i stay that long, but i think it should be my term.

for me, the visit won´t just be to see baptiste. sure, i love him a lot and it´s been a year since i´ve seen him. his family is lovely and i would like to see them again. i have really close friends studying in paris that i really miss and i would like to see them again, particularly the ones who decide to spend their lives there.

but what are the chances i get to go to france? if i go, i´ll be staying with his family. there´s a place to stay and to eat that´s free. that frees up a major part of the cost. if i wait to go with my family, well, i really doubt that´s going to happen. we´re all getting older and it´s getting harder getting us together. not to mention the cost! five people, plus a place to stay and to eat? if i wait for a time to go when i´m done with law school, that´s also kind of difficult to manage. i thought about putting this off til next summer and i realized that i had an internship for the next two years. then for senior year, i´m going to study my ass off for the bar. and then work and my focus is just going to be on earning for my life, for a house, for the future.

i want to visit for so many reasons, beyond seeing baptiste. i think about life as a 21 year old here and compare it to someone from europe. a 21 year old from there is lightyears ahead of me in terms of maturity. i don´t want to be as cynical as they are or as old, but i would like to have their open-mindedness. my european friends are the ones who seem like the world is completely open to them and you just have to find the opportunities. in the philippines, i feel like i´m choking from the rat race of getting to college, getting to grad school, getting a career. they tend to backpack between school levels and no one thinks they´re pissing their lives away. if i even think of taking a year off school to travel, people think i´m a bum. but i´m stuck coz i can´t see taking a year off to travel after law school, without losing my momentum, and i feel like my only chance to be adventurous is now.

the thing is, i was raised with philippine values but a liberal outlook and right now, it´s giving me a bitch of an identity crisis. i was lucky enough to travel a lot with my family which makes me more open-minded than a lot of people, quite honestly. but it´s precisely all that travel that makes me more liberal than other people here. chances like the one i have now feel like the ones i should take, and then i feel the drag of impropriety.

if i were visiting a friend, i think things would be different. the concern would be safety and everything, not impropriety. frankly, it´s frustrating that i really cannot see what is wrong with visiting baptiste in france. we´ll be staying with his parents,if supervision is needed. and i should think 21 yrs of trying to be good, of trying to do be more than good, is enough of a resume for them to trust that i am not going there to get knocked up or to chase some boy. i think my self-worth and my self-esteem is healthier than that.

and it is the 21st century. i think it is fine for a girl to visit her boyfriend. i think it´s fine for the girl to ask a guy out on a date, to propose, to become the breadwinner, to have a household with a househusband. i am not a feminist, per se. but i think things should be equal. i think that there are so many double standards left, and I do believe in some of them. but i don´t think taking the opportunity to visit someone i love AND his family in a country i´ve never been to and always wanted to visit is a double standard.

and i don´t think i´m the only one. i´m not the first to do this, not even one of the first. i have so many friends and non-friends (girls, mind you) who have done this, visited a boyfriend in another country.

am i right? or am i completely not seeing what´s wrong with the situation? tell me.

say what you mean, mean what you say

¨You should say what you mean,¨ [said the March Hare, reproving Alice sharply.]
¨I do,¨ Alice hastily replied; ¨at least-- at least I mean what I say-- that´s the same thing, you know.¨
¨Not the same thing a bit!¨ said the Hatter. ¨Why, you might just as well say that ´I see what I eat´ is the same thing as ´I eat what I see´!¨
¨You might just as well say,¨ added the March Hare, ¨that ´I like what I get´ is the same thing as ´I get what I like´!¨
¨You might just as well say,¨ added the Dormouse, which seemed to be talking in its sleep, ¨that ´I breathe when I sleep´ is the same thing as ´I sleep when you breathe´!¨
¨It is the same thing with you,¨ said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped.

- Lewis Carroll, Alice´s Adventures in Wonderland, chapter 7