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When Ale finally left for Italy, I thought the hardest part would be falling asleep at night. I was wrong. It’s waking up in the morning that gets so unbearably lonely.

I’ve never been a morning person. I love sleeping in, and anyone in my family or anyone I’ve traveled with can attest to the fact that I’m always last to wake up. I don’t know why but during the two weeks we were together I’d wake up an hour before he does and just sit there, watching him sleep. I’d be thinking too much as usual, about random disconnected things, and I’d come up with some minor revelation about life, myself, or us, and I’d want to talk to him about it. But he looks so peaceful sleeping there, like a little boy, so I remain seated and quiet, watching him. When I feel like the thought bubble is about to burst I start waking him up slowly. I’d crawl back to bed and wrap my arms around his waist and start shaking him gently. “Panda, Panda, Panda,” I’d whisper into his ear. He’d groan, wrap his arms around my neck, and bury my face into his chest to make me shut up. I’d pull away and repeat, until he finally opens his eyes and smiles (even though I know deep down he wants to kill me for not letting him sleep half an hour longer).

I love the way he looks at me in the morning.

These days all I have when I wake up is a pillow underneath my arm, my other hand clutching on to the t-shirt he’d sleep in, which I keep under my head.

I know that this isn’t a gone-forever thing, like death or a break-up. I know I should be happy because the two weeks we had was more than amazing. But then I start remembering all the stuff we did together - hanging out with my friends, riding jeepneys, me playing guitar onstage with him watching from the front row, swimming in the ocean, roaring through the Bohol countryside on a motorcycle, getting lost in Cebu. I remember how excited I was when I went with Anne and Bim to pick him up at the airport very early on Sunday morning, and how Bim wouldn’t stop making fun of me for being so excited and how embarrassed that made me feel - but in a very good way. I remember all these things and I get so so sad, because it feels like I’ll never be that happy again. There are times when it’s okay, when we talk on iChat like how it started, and I feel like I’m not going to shed another tear until I see him later this year. And then there times, such as now, when it occurs to me that there’s nobody who’ll make silly faces at me to calm me down when I start freaking out or nobody to tell me to eat my vegetables at dinner. And thinking that makes me so sad, the only thing I can do is cry to the songs that remind me of him while inhaling the scent of his aftershave (that he accidentally left). I can’t even begin to describe how happy I was when he was here, and how fucking lonely it gets now that he isn’t physically around.

I wish there was someone I could talk to about this. I mean I’ve told my friends how sad I get and although they’re probably tired of hearing about it, I don’t think they’d tell me to shut up. But I haven’t even begun to describe to them how lonely it really gets. Nobody is around during the worst part, in the mornings, when my chest gets so heavy with sadness and the only thing I can do to feel lighter somehow is smoke myself to death in the bathroom and cry until my eyes are swollen for the rest of the day.

Well, I suppose that’s what blogs are for.

“Tell me a story.”

“A story? What kind of story?”

“Bedtime story. About yourself.”

“About myself?”

“Mhmm.”

“Hmm. Okay. I’ll tell you a story, and you tell me what part of my life this is about.”

“Okie.”

“Once upon a time, there was this boy who just got home from a land far far away. He was very jetlagged from his journey and couldn’t sleep, and he wanted to find something interesting to do or someone interesting to talk to. So he walked around the city where he lives but he couldn’t find anyone. When he went back home he switched on his computer and got online to pass time. After spending a while looking around, he came across this blog that contained so many fascinating ideas and thoughts. He liked it so much that he sent a message to the person who wrote it, asking her if she’d like to talk sometime. But this boy is a very pessimistic boy who didn’t think that she would write him back.”

“Why is he so pessimistic?”

“That’s just the way he is. Maybe you should ask him yourself.”

“Oh.”

“The person he had written wasn’t online, so he went out to get a pizza because that’s what he does on Saturday nights. When he got back home, he checked his computer to see if he got a reply. To his surprise, she had written back, saying that she wanted to talk to him as well. He got on Messenger and the hours that he spent talking to her just flew by because they were so different, but they agreed on so many things. When he went to bed, he couldn’t stop thinking about that wonderful person and how he couldn’t wait to talk to her again.”

“So what happens next? Did he ever get to talk to her again?”

“I’ll tell you the rest of the story some other time. Right now, you need to get some sleep.”

He never got around to finish telling the story. She hasn’t had any sleep yet.

I miss my Panda

I know he doesn’t mean to, but Ale can make me feel like such an asshole sometimes. Maybe it’s the insane cultural differences, but there are times when talking to him makes me feel like I don’t deserve to consider myself Marxist. Or “human being” for that matter.

A lot of it has to do with the fact that I have maids. Well, not me - my family does. I’ve done a lot of crazy things in my lifetime and he never batted so much as an eyelash when I told him about those. But when I mentioned that we have maids in the house, he was so shocked that had to interrupt our conversation to tell his parents about it.

“So what do you do at home if you don’t do any chores?” he asked me.

“Ummm…I work. I go online. I play guitar,” I mumbled.

I know that in Europe and the rest of the Western world, nobody has maids in their house unless they’re really really rich. Over here, it’s normal for most middle class families have at least one maid in the household. Still, I never realized how much I have in common with a spoiled brat until he started explaining to me how weird it would be for him to have someone clean up his room, cook his meals, and do the household chores for him.

Ate Diding and Ale

What made it worse for me was when he kept asking me all these questions about the helpers who live in our house two days ago. Stuff like how old they are, if they have any kids. All I could answer was an, “Umm…I never really got around to asking them.”

“So you don’t talk to them? Even if you live in the same house?”

“Not really. I like to keep to myself. Besides, just because you live with someone doesn’t mean you have to talk to that person.”

“Honey, I know that, but I don’t know…if we had maids in our house I’d probably talk to them a lot.”

Yeah, that made me feel like a class A asshole all right.

The funny part is that I can’t justify why I need any maids around because I’m the type of person who can live with clothes all over my bed and survive on canned food and restaurant leftovers. Okay, maybe it’s nice to have someone make your meals for you when you’re a real dunce in the kitchen (or when you’re just plain too lazy to ever get around to learning how to cook). But…is it really that hard for us to do our own cleaning and cooking? I know that people here need jobs and stuff, but a job where you have to do stuff people can very well do on their own is starting to sound more and more wrong to me. Also, I’m having so much difficulty trying to find a reason why I find it so hard to strike up a normal conversation with our maids. I’m chalking it up to the fact that I’m not really a sociable person unless the mood strikes me, but I’m afraid that the real reason for this might be that I still cling to a few more classist attitudes than I thought.

I <3 a man who can cook.
Because I can’t tell a frying pan from a wok.

Right now Ale is making dinner for us downstairs (spaghetti ala-something something), where “us” is my parents, my sister, and the maids. When we were talking about cooking dinner last night, he asked me if the maids could join us at the dinner table. I couldn’t have been more shocked. My family and the maids, all eating at one table. How totally awkward and inappropriate is that? But worse than the awkwardness was this tidal wave of shame that hit me the moment I thought that.

So I guess if I were him I would totally dump me right now, but mebbe he’s waiting til he gets back to Italy to do that. :\ And I really don’t have much of an appetite right now but it’d be a shame to let that food go to waste. Dinner tiem.