Feelings

Don’t promise me a Rose Garden

By Emmanuelle

Just offer me a rose.

Don’t promise me a crown and a kingdom. Just a headband and a bahay kubo or a rented apartment or a little house painstakingly built through Pag-ibig funds, with big, big windows and a wonderful view of heaven on earth.

Don’t promise me a lifetime of “you’ll never have to worry about anything anymore, my dear”. Just try your best not to be my main worry, and to be with me when I need you, your strength and your arms to keep me up-and-steady when the storms come.

Don’t promise me the world, the sun, the moon and the universe. The world needs a passport and a visa; the sun will toast us to a crisp; the moon shines on reflected refracted glory; the universe is Superman’s.

Just offer me yourself.

As I offer you myself. Without condition, without hesitation. Truly, sincerely.

Otherwise, do not promise. Do not anything.

When a guy says “I love you. I promise you . . .etcetera, etcetera.” I raise one eyebrow and lower the other, together with a “Haha, talaga?!”

When after this declaration of love he has the temerity to follow-up with “Well, do you too?” this time I raise both eyebrows and expose him to the full benefit of my blazing wide eyes and blare at him with “Do I wahaaat?”

Humbly, faintly, feet ready for hasty retreat, the guy would whimper, “Ummm. . .love . . . me. . . ummm . . .too?”

And I rain on him a torrent of my contempt: “there is no such thing amazing as love. Rather, one feels any of these: a powerful mutual physical attraction, or a disabling emotional dependence on the other, or a forceful impression of having been completed by the other. Neither of these is love. On the other hand, either of these can be misconstrued as love. So tell me now, what do you feel for me?”

Poor guy. Either he will be angered, or profusely saddened. Surely, he’ll be shocked speechless. If he is not made of stronger, smarter stuff, he will stalk out of sight before I baba my kilay. His promises will be strewn about, as the roses he brought. If he is strong and smart, he will be as taray as I am, and we will be engaged in intense debate till the sun is up and we part, calling out to each other “pare, di ka pala katalo.”

Make what you will of that, Ms Ric.

And that is why I am alone, but surely not lonely, almost ninety nine percent of the time.

And that is why I shall not make any promise this Monday, January 1, 2007, a new year just like any other new years of my past life.

I will just try to jump as high as or even higher than the nieces and nephews, hoping to make a significant gesture of aiming for more height – physical and otherwise.

And, ummm, that too.

You ask: Wahaaat?

World peace.

Keep to the script. You tap me on the shoulder to remind: “You just said you never expect for a rose garden!? World peace is a rose garden.”

Ummm, okay. A decent congress. And I do not mean the way they dress.

(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/feelings/)

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