Idle thoughts and infinite worlds

Have you ever heard of the many-worlds theory? In 1957, a scientist named Hugh Everett III asked a question:

What if space and time are arranged so that every possible outcome exists somewhere?

Imagine. You flip a coin. While it is up in the air, two logical outcomes co-exist: heads or tails. The moment it lands, only one potential is fulfilled, say heads. What happens to the other potential?

Everett posits that the universe splits in two, creating a reality where the coin lands on tails, and takes it from there, building an alternate history where the only different thing, at first, is the outcome of a coin toss.

Just imagine. An infinite number of worlds where every possibility is realized, someplace, sometime.

This made me think about you (as if I needed an excuse to think about you).

In one universe, we never would have met. We would have  gone through our lives, perfectly content to not have each other, happy with whoever else is there.

In another, we would have broken each other’s hearts. You and I would’ve been granted a chance, until we lose it somehow.

And somewhere, in a magical corner of space and time, we would have found each other heart-whole before anyone else, and you would have been my first love, and I would have been yours, with no one to come between us.

Yet here I am, and here you are. In this world, we found each other with histories, with scars. We found each other at the end of a long road littered with mistakes, with faith severely shaken.

But the important thing is that we found each other. The important thing is that here you are, and here I am, and by some miracle of grace, we are together. No matter how broken this world is, no matter how imperfect, I will take it over any paradise that doesn’t include you. In any world in any universe, I bless the path that leads to you.

Sharing a Hammock One Lazy Sunday Afternoon

My love
you are
everything that a home should be
safe and warm
strong and secure
steadfast and sure.

As I lie tightly enfolded
awake while you sleep
my fingertips trace your back
trailing down the curve of your spine
and back up to your shoulder blades
back and forth
in lazy patterns
every inch of my fortress
memorized.

I write on your skin,
Mahal kita
because I do
I love you
and did you know
that even sleeping
you can take my breath away?

See you someday, love.

See you when the waiting is over.

See you when I can wake up next to you, try to get out of bed, and decide that coffee can wait for just five more minutes of listening to your heartbeat.

See you when we can spend long evenings doing nothing more important than discussing muffins vs. cupcakes or the admirable qualities of cats.

See you when I can watch the subtle little changes that life causes in you from day to day, when I can take delight in all the tiny, inconsequential details that make you who you are. Like the kinds of smiles you have, or the way your voice gets rougher when you’re already half-asleep.

See you when I can cry on your shoulder and know the powerful comfort of your simple presence and strength.

See you when I can hug the frustration right out of you, or find the right words to say, or simply take care of you after you’ve had one of those days when everything goes wrong.

See you when I don’t just get to hear your laughter, but see it and feel it rumbling through your body into mine.

See you when time and space no longer separate us, when I can write my love on your skin instead of on a white, empty screen far removed from your warmth.

When today is difficult, or painful, or just plain sad, I always try to remember one thing.

I’ll see you someday.

Until someday, love.

To my future husband, about a secret longing

By the time you read this knowing it’s for you, you already have my heart, along with the promise that it is yours to keep for the rest of our lives. Now there’s something I need to tell you, a seldom-spoken truth about the heart I gave that hopefully won’t change your mind.

I need you to pursue me.

There. Writing it, I sort of cringe in front of my computer. I try to find words that are less needy, less emotional, less vulnerable. It sounds so…unfeminist. But as much as I believe in a woman’s worth apart from a man’s opinion, there it is, the bare, unvarnished truth of my heart: I need you not just to love me, but to long for me.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not merely being longed for that I crave. There have been other pursuits in the past, other promises that I haven’t accepted because I was waiting for you to show up. But when you came…I stopped running. It’s  kind of ironic that the man I cannot turn away from is the one whose pursuit I most desire.

May I tell you something else? Sometimes, I don’t really believe I deserve it. On the darkest days, I wonder if you can ever look at me and see someone you would seek to the ends of the earth, someone worth fighting for, someone captivating and absolutely irreplaceable. And I’m very much afraid that if the answer is no,  or a devastatingly careless shrug, my love for you and my self-doubt would conspire to make me accept it. I would make excuses on your behalf, clinging to the assurance you gave while you were still trying to win me, convincing myself that it’s enough. I would dismiss my need as overly romantic and unreasonable, all the while quietly wondering if you’re only staying because I ask so little of you. And day by day, my heart would gradually shrink, drying up and shriveling on the part that your yearning used to fill.

So please. When we are spending our lives together, never stop wanting me.

Miss me when I’m gone. Really miss me.

Listen when I talk, even if it doesn’t seem important to you, even when it’s hard to understand. That’s how I’ll know you’re still discovering me, that you’re still interested, and not indifferent.

Don’t let me be the only one who asks for quality time. Your time, those moments when we can just delight in each other, is the “I love you” I most understand.

Kiss me like you mean it. Let’s promise never to let ourselves get out of practice.

I want our bed to eventually sag in the middle, because that’s where we always end up, instinctively drawing close even in our sleep. There’s nothing sadder in a marriage, I think, than a bed where the occupants never cross the boundary between his side and hers.

Whatever you do, just tell me. Tell me in a way that feels more than just a habit. Tell me with your voice and your eyes and your hands.  Tell me with the way you seek my gaze across a crowd. Tell me with the way you touch me when we wake up. Tell me you want me, desire me, that you would choose me again if we both lived twice.

Because there’s one last thing I want to confess, my darling: that’s exactly how I feel about you. You see, I’ve been longing for you all my life. Even before we met, even when my faith wavered that you would come, I’ve been longing for you. And the truth is, love, I simply don’t know how to stop.

*****

Just like last week, Inspiration Monday has again given me exactly the push I needed to get out what I wanted to write. This week, the prompts I heeded were “you only live twice” and “single but taken”.  Thanks, InMon!

I feel like there should be fireworks, really.

My favorite thing
about the way
you look at me, babe
is that now and then
I catch it
that little hint of wonder
and a bit of disbelief, too
that you found me
that I’m real
we’re real
and I’m yours.

I want to run to the mirror
and check
if there’s something there
something changed
something special
that makes you look at me
just like that
like I’m precious.
and utterly unique.
and you’ll never
never ever
let me go.
What is it, babe?
There must be something.

But nothing’s different.
Still the same old
chin and cheeks and nose
familiar and ordinary.
But wait—
Wait
My smile is new.
It’s changed
like I’ve won the lottery
without buying a ticket
(imagine that!)
and in my eyes,
that same disbelief
that same giddy wonder
that you found me.
You finally found me.
My darling
my sweetest love
I could spend my whole life
just looking at you.

*****

I wrote this for Carry On Tuesday, in response to the These are a few of my favourite things prompt taken from one of my most favorite movies, The Sound  of Music. The challenge is open all week. Join us!

Goodbye Girl

“Why are you giving me a feather?” she asked.

“Not just any feather, that’s a phoenix feather.” When she laughed, he hastened to explain. “It’s disguised like it’s from a boring old chicken, but that’s a phoenix feather, trust me.”

“Okay,” she agreed easily. Her imagination was capable. Besides, it was the first conversation they’d had in weeks, and she wanted to keep talking. She missed him. The razor-sharp loss of their easy friendship pierced her chest, but she ignored it. “Why are you giving me a phoenix feather?”

“Because I’m letting you walk away from me.”

Just like that, the tears in her throat rushed into her eyes. She knew it, had known that it would come to this, but had childishly kept wishing they could go back to the way they’d been for four years: high school friends, misfits fitting in perfectly together. Then he admitted his love, asking her to stay in the town she’d wanted to escape all her life.

His apology was in the hand brushing her tears away. The first touch between them in three weeks, five days, and 18 hours. Since when had she started counting the times he touched her?

“You know I’m in love with you,” he said gently. “But I’m no longer asking you to stay, or holding you back. I’m letting you go. We’ll let each other go.  Completely.”

“But…but,” she was really crying now,  sobbing like a child, knowing she was being hideously unfair, but too stricken to stop. “I don’t want to lose you. I don’t, Jay, I can’t. Please….”

He gripped her hand, crushing the feather, betraying how she was tearing him apart. But dammit, she loved him, too. She loved him, enough to hurt them both, but not enough to stay. The selfishness of it silenced her, while a dim, pathetic part of her mind registered his hands touching hers. That’s twice today.

“That’s where this phoenix feather comes in,” he soothed, smoothing it out on her palm. “You’ll return someday, or maybe I’ll find you. When the things we want no longer stand between us, we’ll start again.”

“A new beginning from the ashes?” It should’ve been corny, but she couldn’t laugh.

“Yes. Someday.”

“Don’t hate me.” Her greatest fear slipped out, and the look on his face told her he heard.

“Oh, baby. Never,” he cried, pulling her close. “We have someday,” he promised, but the only important thing was that he was finally holding her, and his arms were tight, so tight that it was suddenly alright, it was perfect, but just for a moment, just enough to remember until someday. So she held on, carefully holding the feather, and believed him.

I wrote this in response to the “phoenix” Red Writing Hood prompt from Write on Edge. It’s my first time to join this challenge, and the prompt was just too perfect to resist. This is a fictionalized account following the 450-word limit, but there really was a boy, a promise, and a feather that even now is tucked inside my wallet. It’s been almost ten years, and the promise has been kept, perhaps not in the manner of a Hollywood happy ending, but it’s our story, and we like our ever after the way it turned out. 🙂

This is how I plan to love you for the rest of my life

Just so you know, this is what happens when you have my heart.

You would never doubt it.

I wouldn’t let you.

Be more mysterious, I’ve been told, by magazines and blogs and sleepover confidants. It’s a mistake to let him know everything that you feel. Men like the chase, like competition, to keep from getting bored. So make him jealous, they wink and nudge. Play hard to get.

But how hard to get can I be, babe, when I’m already yours?

How jealous can I make you when the very thought of you doubting your place in my life feels unbearably wrong?

There will be no games between us. No manipulations, no pretenses, no lies.

You will know that you hold my heart. You will know that I would never want anyone else.

You will know that I love you.

See, I plan on telling you every day.

First thing when I wake up, whispered against your skin.

Last thing at night, for you to take into your dreams.

When you are tired and frustrated and sad.

When you are so lighthearted you start singing songs whether you know the lyrics or not.

When you make me laugh.

When you save me from cockroaches and nightmares and panic attacks.

When I am proud of you.

When you can’t believe that I am proud of you (especially then).

When we need to fix something wrong, so you’ll know that whatever it is, it won’t change how I feel.

When I’m asking for coffee kisses.

When you’re asking for a back rub.

When I welcome you home or kiss you goodbye.

When you look like you need a hug, or even when you don’t but I just want to give you one anyway.

I will keep telling you, babe, in whispers, in exclamations, in laughter, in letters, in touches, in looks.  I will tell you until it sinks into your skin, flows with your blood, and joins in the beating of your heart. Until my love for you becomes part of who you are, and who you will be, for as long as your heart beats, and mine.

I will tell you, always.

And every time I do, I will mean it more than the last time I said it. Every “I love you” will carry the weight of all the “I love you’s” before, and the promise of more to come.

That promise will always be fulfilled.

I will always love you.

And I will always let you know.

I’m daydreaming again. There’s just something about this place that makes dreaming so easy.

I can see it now, babe, our life together.

Like the first morning I wake up with you. There will be that odd feeling at first, you know: disorientation. Something’s different, I think to myself behind closed eyes, still sleepy but puzzled. Then it dawns on me.

“Oh my God,” I gasp out loud. “I’m married.”

Wide awake now, I turn my head to find you beside me, smiling. You’re trying not to laugh, I can tell.

“Good morning,” you whisper, in that voice that I’ve had the biggest crush on from the start.

“I’m your wife,” I inform you, like this is news somehow.

You give up on holding the chuckles back.

“Yes,” you laugh, pulling me close. “And I’m your husband.”

That vital piece of information gets lost in the pleasure of snuggling deeper into your arms. My favorite place in the world, sweetly familiar on this life-changing day.

“It feels strange,” I admit to your chest, the only part of you that I can see. You’re holding me so tightly I couldn’t look up, but I don’t want any space between us. Not even the tiniest bit.

“Being married?”

“Yeah,” I sigh, but the feeling is wearing off as I focus on the beat of your heart. Another familiar thing.

“Bad strange?” you ask, ready to reassure me. You’ve always done that, calmed me down when I over think myself into a panic. You’ve talked down my walls until the only thing keeping me safe is the certainty that you will never, never, never take your love away.

I consider all of that, as well as your question, and I realize that there’s nothing to over think. This is you. This is us. We get to keep each other forever. And on the heels of that thought comes a great big booming burst of joy inside my chest. Fireworks, babe. Cheers and confetti and a big brass band. The biggest smile of my life growing inside my heart. I’m married. To you.

“No,” I say, wanting to jump up and bounce on the bed, except I don’t really want to leave your arms. “Wonderful strange. The bestest and happiest kind.” Can you feel my smile against your skin?

And then you turn my face up, and you see it for yourself, all the happiness in my eyes. It has to show — I don’t think my body can keep that much joy a secret. I don’t  mind. I want you to know all the deepest things written in my soul. I love you. I choose you. I choose you over fear, over self-protection, over doubt. I choose you for the rest of my life, for always. Completely. Irrevocably. No one else.

When you kiss me, I can feel those same words in every touch of your lips. All the words you’ve said over and over, even long before I was brave enough to say them back. I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you. Never stop believing that I do.

As I start to lose myself, I realize one thing. Every morning, from this day forward, will begin like this. And suddenly, that doesn’t feel strange anymore. It feels right. It’s the rightest thing in the world, waking up beside you. It’s the only way I want to wake up for the rest of my life.

Until someday, my love.

Wait for me as I wait for you.

David

You know what I found this morning, in a long-unopened compartment of my wallet? It was a letter from you, dated several years and a lifetime ago. Tucked into the folds were three balayong blossoms, dry and fragile from being pressed for so long. You loved me then, I remember. You recorded these promises for posterity, so that I can read them over and over again and know what I meant to you. And then you changed your mind.

Dammit, David. How can I still be hurting over this now? People’s hearts get broken every day. People get left behind, and people move on. So why the heck am I here, plenty of time and plenty of adventures later, crying over sheets of paper that no longer hold anything real? It’s not like I spent my days wallowing in heartbreak. Eventually, I stopped missing you or even thinking about you. I loved, I laughed, I engaged. I did things that matter. I grew up a little every day, and I stopped wanting you back. You are no longer a part of my life — most of the time.

But some days just catch me off guard. It could be the little details, like the sight of my own palm, messy with squiggles and lines whenever I write with a ballpoint pen. I can almost hear your exasperated laugh,  almost see you trying to figure out why the ink that should have landed on paper ended up on my hand instead.  Or it could be the big things, David, the wounds received in the process of living.  Somehow, every goodbye is still an echo of yours, every person walking away steps in your footprints until they are out of sight. And suddenly there would be tears flooding my throat all over again. After all this freaking time.

So here I am today, writing on tear-soaked paper, thinking that’s enough. That’s more than enough. I want to love again like I loved you, in spite of risk, in spite of fear. Loving you taught me just how much I could give and how far I can go, and I don’t want to lose that. I want to offer myself again to someone, the right someone. You didn’t stay, David, but someone else will. Someone else deserves this misguided intensity of emotion that I wasted on you, long after you didn’t want it anymore.

I’ve always been the one who remembers. In a way, I’ve come to accept that, the inability to really forget what was once important. The memories will remind me to be careful, but I could stand to let go of the souvenirs. It’s been over for so long. This is the part, I think, where I stop letting it hurt.

Story of a boy

“Manang, anuno imong ingbubuat?”

I pulled myself away from my thoughts and looked up at the kid, around 12 years old, who appeared in front of me as I sat on my usual spot at the beach, writing and listening to music. It took a bit of effort, with my limited Cuyonon, to figure out that he wanted to know what I was doing.

“Nagsusulat lang,” I replied with a smile, recognizing him to be one of the two boys who had shyly hovered around the other day until one of them got up the courage to come up and ask my name. Apparently content to discover that the newcomer who was always sitting alone by the sea was named Abigail, they’d both drifted off eventually.

But  this afternoon, there were more of them, and they huddled in a group at some distance behind me, animatedly conversing in rapid Cuyonon as the representative returned and reported that I said I was “just writing”. After a while, he reappeared.

“Anong sinusulat mo?” He was switching to Tagalog now to make it easier for me.

They wanted to know what I was writing. I discarded the idea of trying to explain the concept of blogging, so I stuck with, “Yung mga naiisip ko lang”. Just my thoughts.

His forehead creased at this reply, and he went back to the others. I waited to see what the next question would be. After some time, and some laughter and teasing (boys’ mischief sounds the same in any language), he was back.

“May gusto raw makipagkilala.” Someone wants to meet you.

Ah. Apparently, the issue of my literary endeavor has been abandoned for something more interesting.

“Okay.” This answer earned a grin, and he was off again like a shot.

A little later:

“Pwede raw ba ngayon?” Could he do it now?

I laughed. I couldn’t help it, this was too cute. “Sure,” I smiled.

He returned, sooner than I expected, and alone. “Pwede raw ba siyang lumapit?” Can he come up and approach you?

Adorable. I tried my very best not to laugh again. “Oo naman,” I assured him. Of course he could come close. The ridiculous image of Queen Esther and the king in reverse popped into my head.

While I was waiting for whoever it was to get his fill of encouragement from his buddies, MYMP’s Torpe Song #5 came up on my phone’s playlist. I looked at it in disbelief, then hurriedly set it to mute. The poor kid might think I was mocking him.

The footsteps that came up behind me were heavier than I expected, and I turned to see a teenaged boy older than the others. He sat on the grass with me and extended his hand.

“Ako nga pala si Manuel San Diego*,” he said, blushing furiously. His hand was cold and more than a little damp.

Tall, dark, and lanky, Manuel so strongly reminded me of my 14-year-old brother Joshua that I wanted to give him a hug and ruffle his hair. I wanted to lend him my handkerchief for his perspiration. I wanted to give him pointers on how to talk to girls. Instead, I settled for smiling and telling him my name, though I’m sure he already knew.

Manuel floundered about for a while, trying to make awkward conversation that I gamely joined in. His resemblance to my little brother was giving me a funny sort of tenderness, and I didn’t want him to be embarrassed. However, when his supporters behind us started calling out the words “cellphone number”, I decided it was time to make a graceful exit.

Taking my leave as nicely as I could, I told him I had somewhere to go. “It was nice to meet you, Manuel,” I said sincerely, hoping he could take a sense of confidence from the encounter.

Heading towards the sea, I remembered being that age, not too long ago, when attraction was awkward and embarrassing, but also simple and fun. The games that grown ups played, the games that I could never master, seemed needlessly difficult and complicated.  I was sorry to leave my spot on the beach, and sorry to feel disappointed eyes on me as I walked away, but I was the wrong age for Manuel. I’m the wrong age, I think, for anyone right now.

 * name changed