It's not only sad movies that make me cry

I stopped watching love story movies a couple of years ago. Well not really stopped, I just avoided watching them if I could. Because no matter how a love story went I was sure to cry. In the times when I did watch, my pretending toughie-toughie heart would reveal that it's actually a softie. So I decided to give my heart a break and gave it a chance to beat a little slower so it wouldn't completely die out of exhaustion. So I temporarily switched off my heart's romantic valve and put more lights on it's filial valve.

And the heart lives, filially.

But perhaps it has a natural way of saying that it can beat a little bit faster as time pass by. Perhaps even circumstances collaborate with the heart to remind you of the existence of the other valve before you completely forget about it.

But it could've also just been the 2 kilometer stride on the transport machine in the gym that made my heart beat faster that I suddenly had the urge to grab "You've Got Mail" instead of any non-romantic movie I was hoping to watch when I get home.

It's interesting how one movie that you have watched before could be different when you watch it again. Amazing how something that was just a line in the movie to you before would suddenly ring a bell, how hearing a foreign place would suddenly sound familiar to you, in just the exact moment.

Maybe that's it.

Maybe the heart needs a chance to show that it is ready to open up that other valve again so it starts to skip a little, then more and more... until you are convinced that it is time...

I still cried at the ending of the movie, oh yes.

But this time, though, with a smile.

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Image taken from http://youvegotmail.warnerbros.com/

Flying like the flowing river

On my flight back from Manila to Singapore I started to read the book Like the Flowing River, a collection of thoughts and reflections of my favorite author, Paulo Coelho (my friends' birthday gift to me last November). A few pages after, I felt the tears flow down on my cheeks (like a flowing river). It has never happened to me before that I cried during a flight and I tried to be discreet about it as I didn't want to embarrass myself from the ladies sitting beside me. Good thing the cabin lights were off but with only my reading light on from among the seats in my row, it made it even more dramatic. And indeed, tears trying to be held back is like water being held in a dam which once it breaks, the intensity of the water's cascading flow will be too powerful to stop.

What has made me cry?

Could it be I was so moved by Paulo Coelho's beautiful thoughts on life?

Or could it be because of something else?

Perhaps those last words I heard at the airport?

I think yes and yes. I've read many of Paulo Coelho's novels, all of them fiction but all I adored. But reading real life thoughts and reflections of a person written in impromptu, has an extraordinary impact on me. I was deeply moved at how He sees life in a beautiful way, full of hope, love and peace. It made me ask myself

Why do people lose this drive in life?

Why do people tie themselves up with the ghosts of their past?

Why not make the most of what you have?

Why those last heavy words need to be said?

We know the answers to these questions but I just wish that we do not let ourselves be spun by the web of sadness. No matter how things may seem frustrating, there is always a way to see things in the light. We say we err because we are just human but it does not end there. While it is innate for us to err, it is also innate for us to love. To love is to appreciate, to love is to see beauty and so I hope that we do not forget that this is the gift of life. Our ability to change is more powerful that we can ever imagine, let us not underestimate our ability to become the person that God wants us to be.

Signs that I've been in Singapore too long now

1) While shopping with my mother, I was starting to get impatient that she was walking slowly and was like taking a lot of time at looking for what to buy. Just after I uttered to her (trying my best not to offend her) to walk a bit faster, I looked around the mall and realized that my mother was not slow because everyone was the same pace as hers, it was me who was walking too fast! :(

(I was also not anymore used to the moderate motion of the escalators in the Philippines. Oh yes, the speed of escalators in Singapore is significantly faster).

2) I was meeting Debbie at Robinsons Galleria and I sent her an sms to meet me at Pastamania. She asked where was it and I told her the third floor. I was surprised she didn't know where Pastamania was, because she frequents Robinsons Galleria and she should know where it was. When I got to the third floor, I almost gave myself a tap in the head -- the restaurant I had in mind was Chef d'Angelo! There is no Pastamania in the Philippines.

Tsk, tsk, tsk...