A Chronicler’s Life

This was taken one romantic Sunday at Fernwood Gardens. It’s one of my most favorite shots in our entire Pre-nuptial photoshoot. Happy Weekend everyone!

I would like to share this beautiful masterpiece by an author who tasted the bitter taste of unrequited love but still believed that in spite of everything that happened, she’ll be finding sweet love someday too. She calls herself Quickmelt and this was circulated in the net last 1996. I just would like you all to learn from her story. Here it goes…

In the sixteenth summer of my life, I fell in love for the first time. Naturally, I had no idea what I was getting into. Youth, for all its freshness and vigor, does not have the wisdom of past experience. And so it was that I was ill-equipped when Cupid’s arrows first struck. I still had fairy-tale notions of love: Boy likes girl, girl likes boy, boy and girl pledge undying love for each other and they live happily ever after. I only had to find my Prince Charming and everything would be smooth sailing. I was young and invincible. No sadness could touch me, especially in the arena of romance.

To young people finding themselves drawn to someone for the first time, everything is wonderful and new. I once read that love is like God’s finger on your shoulder. Every beautiful thing in the world feels like it was solely made for your enjoyment, like a gift chosen with only you in mind. Perhaps the greatest of all these gifts is the sound of your heart catching in your throat at the sight of a boy smiling at you as though you too, were a gift he cannot quite thank God enough for.

When I look back at the days when I was all giddy with the first discovery of love, I find that the grass was greener, the air was fresher and even the sun was kinder, not sending its rays down to punish my back on sweltering afternoons, like it does now, but bathing me in its radiance so that I had the morning sunshine in my smile. The splendor of creation, the marvel of life, I had never tasted them more fully than when I had a heart grateful for the first touch of love. It felt like I had the whole world in my hands, the power to do whatever I pleased, in my own sweet time as soon as I had finished attending to greater things at hand, such as the business of love. My prince had come on his white charger to rescue me from my ordinary, solitary existence. Suddenly, I had someone to hold my hand and it was bliss, it was ecstasy. I was madly, deeply, truly in love. I thought my happiness was without end. I thought that since we had naturally gravitated toward each other, it would be a simple thing to get together and be sweethearts until our hearts gave out in our golden years. Of natural causes, not of exhaustion, not I don’t feel like loving you anymore. Of a coronary disease, maybe, not some mysterious happenstance, like where is the love we used to know? Where did it go? I don’t know. Maybe it was too beautiful to last. Maybe the deities who bestowed this wondrous gift on me decided they could not extend their generosity any further, and maybe it wasn’t love at all. Maybe it was merely a sweet and insignificant friendship, that in my romantic delusion I had exaggerated into a grand love affair. Years of sleepless nights, countless tears and endless soul-searching have given me no answers. But if it wasn’t love, what could it possibly have been? What was it that made me feel his presence like no other, day after day, month after month, year after year? He would walk into a room and my attention would immediately be riveted to him, like an oarsman in the dead of night fixing his eyes on a lighthouse miles and miles away. I would see him come out of a building and my eyes would light like incandescent bulbs. He would smile at me and I’d melt, quicker than you can say quick melt. He would grant me the privilege of his company, and like a kitten I would purr contentedly in my master’s lap. I would see him over the weekend, and no amount of stress could ruin my happiness for two weeks thereafter. He would talk to me for awhile, and I’d panic for lack of something appropriate to say, and my tongue would fall back in my throat and stay there for the rest of the conversation almost asphyxiating me. He would narrate some anecdote, and I could recite it from memory many months after everyone else had forgotten it. He would crack one of his numerous jokes and I’d laugh like a hyena, loving the sound of his voice more than the sound of my own laughter. He would open his mouth to say something, and I would hear the loveliest music and feel my face glow with intense satisfaction.

Even to this day, when I have successfully convinced myself and unsuccessfully convinced my friends that I have fallen out of love with him, I cannot help but cast one last glance in his direction every time he says goodbye and starts to walk away to an existence entirely separate from my own. I keep my eyes on him until the last hair on his head is out of sight, trying to preserve every detail of his appearance in my memory until the time I will see him again. I loved his smile most of all. It must have been the same smile Noah had upon seeing the rainbow after the Great Flood. Swirling masses of dark clouds and slowly, one by one, little fingers of light coalesce to reveal a brilliant arc of colored light in the sky. I remember how he used to smile at me when we’d pass each other in the school corridors. Reflexively I’d smile back, grinning like silly, my meager dimples stretched up to my ears, my face dangerously close to splitting. He’d give that dazzling smile of his and everything would stop just like that. It was as if the world had ceased to exist; it was only me and him: his glistening retainers and the vertiginous dance of my heart. When they said money can’t buy happiness, they must have meant the happiness that comes with first love. He gave me the greatest happiness as well as the greatest sadness of my young life. The times when he made me feel most loved will always be like commemorative gold coins in mint condition in my mind. When you hear your heart beat in unison with another even for the most fleeting moment, that’s one moment you will never forget.

I fell apart when it finally became clear that we weren’t getting anywhere, at least not together and that our great love affair was only being carried on in my imagination. Love is a woman’s existence, and mine became totally disordered. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, and I couldn’t do anything but think of him. I cannot imagine it now, but there was a time when my every thought was of him. I would be praying and I’d think of him and then I’d say, “Please God, I love him. Please let him love me again.” I would be eating, and then I’d recall some meal we had taken together in some restaurant I cannot enter now without him beside me again. I would be studying and I’d remember how we used to chat merrily in the library while my hand was mechanically doing my homework. I would be sleeping, and if I so much dreamt of his shadow, I’d be sleepless for days afterward. I would be watching a love story, and no matter what the plot was, I would think that maybe this was what was happening to us two. I would be looking at the stars in the sky, and then I’d recite the childhood rhyme: Starlight, star bright/ first, second, third, ad infinitum star I see tonight/ I wish I may, I wish I might/ have the wish I wish tonight, please grant me his love anew. I would be living my life in the present, then I’d think of him and suddenly I’d want to live the past all over again. Once I nearly tore off the tuning knob from the radio, switching stations because one song kept on playing on the airwaves, telling me this is your story, when I was desperately trying to put a semblance of normality in my life.

Two years down the line, I discovered tennis and took out my frustration on the hapless, fuzzy yellow balls. In no time at all I had an excellent serve, but alas, I could not master the groundstroke. I pined for him until I could pine no longer. I kept my life empty for the longest time so that he could freely re-enter anytime he wished. Now I realize that this was a great disservice to me. In my great, tragic love for this person, I had forgotten to love myself and became a victim of my own neglect. But then in the anguish lives the young lead, they need drama to commensurate to their hormonal levels and my drama was wasting away for a boy I had lost, I guess, to college education.

Through all that, I loved him very much. I loved him so much that, as the cliché goes, I could not deny him his happiness. If he was happier with someone else, so be it. If he was happier with me as a friend, so be it. Though it sometimes felt like I had a wound in my heart, it didn’t matter, I loved him anyway. After a while, it didn’t matter that he didn’t love me in return, I loved him anyway. When he’d wonder if there was a girl out there for him, I could scarcely stop myself from screaming: “Here I am, you doofus! No need to go far.” When he took his problems to someone else, I felt hurt, left out, unworthy. Maybe I could not have his love, but at least I could have his friendship. When he did ask me for any favors to my inconvenience, I would whine inside but my brain would be in a frenzy canceling appointments so I could be at his beck and call. I loved him so much I felt it was such a massive injustice, tyranny even, that I could not have him, when I was probably the one who loved him most, after his mother.

Call it stupidity, call it insanity, call it obsession, and call it infatuation. Call it whatever you want. It was love, sweet bittersweet love. With love, as with faith, if you believe, that’s justification enough, no explanation is necessary. If you do not, no explanation is possible. When you are blessed enough to love, it will change you in so

Many ways you can never be the same again. In all my years of loving one boy with all the love my heart could hold, I learned that no matter where I went, no matter what I did, no matter who I was with, there was only one person for me, no matter if he long ago ceased to feel the same way. It was not his fault that I was unhappy for so long, it was simply my misfortune, my cross to carry. In spite of everything, I am a better person and I will forever be indebted to him for teaching me how it is to love. Never mind that his teaching was done mostly in absentia. I madly, deeply, truly loved him. I hope never to dishonor that love by engaging in cheap flings with whoever catches my fancy at the moment.

To me love is not a conquest, much less one conquest after another. Conquest denotes subjugation, a submission to a more powerful will. You do not make a person submit to your will and mold him as you see fit to make him more lovable in your eyes. You love him for what he is. You do not gloss over his imperfections; you learn to live with his flaws. You do not brag to your friends that he is yours for the taking, because there is no place for braggadocio in love. You instead wait anxiously for the next time he tells you he loves you, no matter if it may never happen and in the meantime the uncertainty is making you miserable. You do not lead him on with empty displays of affection. You do not boost his ego with false praises, only to give him the ultimate put-down by taking him for a fool. You find yourself speechless with admiration and fear that the slightest touch will betray the depth of your emotion. You do not cry foul when you see that the course of love has not gone according to your fervent wishes.

You do not bawl at him, “How dare you tell me you love me, take my heart and then disappear from my life?” You do not demand the return of glorious days long past. You do not blame him for your shattered illusions and waylaid dreams and least of all for your broken heart. Even in the lowest troughs of self-pity and despair, you cannot bring yourself to cause him the slightest grief. You would rather die than give him the slightest hint that he has anything to do with your unhappiness. Love bears all — maybe not always with a smile that’s big enough for the world to see, but just one that’s brave enough to tell him it’s okay, you’ll live so he doesn’t have to feel bad. It is never easy to lay open the door to your heart because love and rejection get in the same way. Love is not for the fainthearted. I loved once, and years later I am still reeling from it. Having survived one heartbreak has not lessened my fear of going through another. Thus I envy people who can plunge headlong into relationships after but just some tentative attempts at getting to know another person. I envy people who can meet strangers and shortly afterward declare that they were meant for each other. I envy those who are not afraid to go after their happiness and damn the consequences. I envy people who can go from conquest to conquest without feeling diminished by it.

I can never be like them. I don’t think like them. Once you’ve tasted manna from heaven, why bother with bread from the baker? Nothing compares with it. Until God sends me my angel on earth to love and to cherish forever, I will be content to be alone. I have learned to swallow my loneliness like a bitter pill, hoping that my good behavior will make fate smile at me and say, “Here is the One for you. Live happily ever after, for your name is written on his heart.”

One love, one lifetime — that is my hope. Not one conquest after another. As Sting sings: “That’s not the shape of my heart.”

Writing has always been my passion. There are some difficult topics though that I need to consult with essays help sites. During college, there was also a subject that required as to submit custom paper. No one wanted to buy essays that have been used by others just to meet the requirement. As I was checking the web, I found Custom-Writing.org. It is the answer to all your writing needs. After graduation, it can even help you to build an attractive resume. Check it out now!

I have been thinking where could I play backgammon online? I stumbled upon an interesting site where playing backgammon and hosting backgammon tournaments are their specialty.

For a neophyte in online gaming, the website is user friendly. Just click on the Getting Started button and you will be given easy-to-follow instructions. The site also offers tutoring on how to play backgammon. Now, isn’t that cool? And when you are already a pro, you could start joining the tournaments. While winning is the sweetest part of the game, you could also earn extra through their affiliates program. Refer new players to Gammon World online backgammon games and you will be rewarded.

Need to know more? Contact their support group.

I have lots of friends and former officemates who left our country to seek for greener pastures. They wanted to expand their horizons and challenge themselves living and surviving at the same time in a foreign country. Some went to US while others went to explore the different continents of the world but majority of them went and tried their luck in a highly advanced and rich country like Dubai.

With Dubai’s massive buildings and immense progress in different businesses through ground-breaking realty projects, sports events, shopping festivals and conferences, it has attracted world-wide attention and recognition making Dubai City the world’s leading business hub. Dubai has a rich culture, with art museums, film festivals and performing arts centers. And of course as a shopaholic, I’ll never fail to mention the annual month- long Dubai Shopping Festival. Dubai is a real shopping haven for us shopamaniacs during that time of the year.

It’s been awhile since I last saw my friends and one of them has invited me to vacation there and stay at their place. But since she’s living with her entire family, I don’t want to be too much of a hassle for them. I wanted to get my own place while I’m there so even if I come in late from my sight seeing and endless shopping, I won’t inconvenience anyone else. But where could I find such a place that I could stay at temporarily and have the home-like comforts of a luxury hotel at a cheap price? I guess stumbling upon DubaiApartments.biz was a real blessing in disguise when I was starting to lose hope already.

The site is an online short term rental site that connects tourists or businessmen with owners of dubai hotel apartments or dubai hotels. They offer a wide range of rooms to choose from depending on your needs. Searching for the right apartment for you is worry and hassle-free because everything is laid out right before your very eyes. The rates of dubai apartments are very affordable. So why stay in an unwelcoming hotel if you could get the same luxury by staying in one of the over 120 self-catering properties of DubaiApartments.biz at a much economical price? Very practical isn’t it?

So why don’t you start delving into the thrill and excitement of discovering this beautiful city that holds the potential of being one of the greatest frontiers of the world? Experience Dubai at its best at DubaiApartments.biz.

Every woman has her own idea of a dream wedding. When we were still little girls, most of us used to imagine ourselves in a pretty flowing white dress with very long veil walking down the aisle filled with petals. Now that we are grown up, we want to turn that fantasy into reality.

Before I got married in April I have spoken with so many brides and picked their brains how they got through the special day of their lives. I learned that their dream weddings are not as easy and as they looked in terms of preparations. They went through the hassle of hopping from one store to another to get in all the important things needed. From the gowns for the whole entourage, make ups, shoes, accessories, invitations, cakes, down to party favors. They have stressed themselves so much on the Big Day errands that they forgot to think of the event after the wedding night. The Big Night!

Then I told myself, they should have learned about Custom Crystal Attire at AdvantageBridal.com. All the bride’s needs along with her full entourages are all here. Even the minute thing that you can hardly remember, they’ve got it. All in one place and all at great prices! For example, they make custom crystal rhinestone t-shirts, tank tops, bikinis and flip flops. Have it your way! I’m sure, you don’t want to walk into a crowd and find out that you have so many “clones”. That would be horrifying!

Feast your eyes on their wide array of selections. You could choose from dozens of garment colors and crystal colors, to create one-of-a-kind garments that are uniquely yours.

Planning for that very special day? Free your mind and body from the burdens of “getting married”. Let the experts do all the dirty work. All you have to do is visit AdvantageBridal.com and tell them how you want to have your special day. After some few clicks, you can then sit back, relax and enjoy counting down the days left to tying the knots and locking lips with your Prince Charming.

Who says that fairytales don’t come true?

I would like to apologize for not being very visible in the blogosphere these couple of days. I wasn’t with Carmen San Diego (Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?), my favorite detective computer game during my pre-teen years. I just loved the character of this thieving villainess. Anyway, before I start ranting more about Carmen, the reason of my being M.I.A. was that I needed to take all the rest that I could get as advised by my gynecologist. I’m having a somewhat difficult pregnancy. So after my stressing work with an erratic schedule in the office, I needed to relax and rest right away. That’s the reason that I wasn’t able to catch up with my usual blogging for a week. It was pretty hard for me because I really missed you guys. I miss visiting all your wonderful blogs. I just hope that I’m now back for good. Though I’m still waiting for the result of my other tests but I hope and pray that everything will turn out okay. I’m quite worried that something might be really wrong with me. I’ll just keep my fingers crossed and wish for luck that my hunches are wrong. By the way, I would like to thank my amazing friends, Gellianne and Justice League for helping me out. You guys are really super! Thanks for catching my back. I love you girlfriends! In my succeeding posts, I’ll try to tell you bits and pieces of how I spent my brief hiatus from blogging. It was a mixture of different emotions, truly a roller coaster ride for me. Thank you to all my blogger friends who tagged me, I will really try to find time to respond to your tags. God bless you all!

Are you always finding purpose in your life? Do you question and wonder why you are here in this world? If you would like to put meaning to your existence and would like to make a difference in someone else’s life, you might want to consider joining Donate a Car ministries.

Partner charities from across the United States of Car Angel Ministries will enable you to use your vehicle, boat or trailer to help unwed mothers, homeless and orphans. They use the proceeds of the Car Donations to dole out educational materials like Free Children’s DVDs to where education is not easily accessible, support teen and adult rehab and food distribution to the indigents. So if you have used or second-hand cars whether up and running or not you can donate it and you’ll definitely going to make this world a better place to live in. Instead of just letting it collect dust and rust in your garage why don’t you enjoin them in their crusade on helping people that are less fortunate than us to fight poverty, illiteracy and drugs. One old car can bring a new smile and new hope to the lives of many.

And we are just talking about one car here; imagine if you encourage your friends, family and relatives to do the same. One small act of kindness can have a ripple effect and everybody will be infected with your good cause. Isn’t it great to know that it all began with you? It’s great to be of help to anybody and not expect anything in return. But with Car Angel you get your reward back right away; you get what you give as they always say. All your vehicle donations are tax deductible. You will be given a receipt for this so it won’t be too much of a hassle for you come tax filing.

So if you think that a small you cannot make a change in this big world we are living in, think again. There are a handful of things out there that you can do to change the daily lives of others. You start figuring it out now.

*This is not a paid review

I have a friend from Spain who plans to visit United States. I told her to book a hotel in advance so that everything will be smooth when she reaches there. We are checking online and she is happy to have found a site that can be viewed in Spanish. My friend said that there are many ofertas de hoteles in that site. I view the site in English and it meant hotel offers.

There are offers for group booking which is ideal for team celebration programs or for corporate outings. They also have different types of hotels depending on your interest like if you just want to relax, engage in sports or have a romantic weekend with someone.

My friend feels so lucky to have found that site by Hotels.com. It is like talking to a fellow Spanish speaking companion.

She is guided to the type of hotel that she wants according to her needs and budget. She is so excited because she plans to tour different US cities and everything that she wants to know is all there. Spanish is one of the most spoken languages in the world. It is a great idea for Hotels.com to create this Spanish speaking site!

Yes, I have two hearts right now. One is beating for me. The other one is my baby’s! Amazing, isn’t it? Two lives inside one body. I am having the best experience having my baby inside my womb! I cannot wait for it to move. Sometimes our likes may not be the same when it comes to food choices. But my child’s wish is my command or else I’ll be spending my entire day puking! So now I’m officially my child’s slave and such a slave driver my baby is, LOL. Who says I’m complaining? I’m very happy to serve my baby.