I'LL GET LONELY TOMORROW


We were in LA last night to have dinner with 2 of Papa's highschool buddies, Raymond and David... no, make that lifelong buddies, for Raymond's birthday. I knew Raymond from when we were still all in the Philippines. He's been here since about the same time we left for Singapore. David has been here since he graduated from college.

I remember when we used to celebrate birthdays for these guys back in the Philippines. It was never a matter of IF they were going to celebrate the day, it was only a question of WHEN. The celebrant would usually inform Kuya Bong when the celebration would be and he would, in turn, call everybody else. By 2pm, people would start coming. Sometimes it would be a good turn-out, especially in the earlier days. Lately, fewer and fewer friends came as most have gone abroad or are stuck with jobs they couldn't leave for the day. Mostly it was because they've gone abroad.

The wives and children would also be present unless the celebrant says it was for the men only, which was a very rare occurrence. It would mostly be grilled food and a lot of beer. They would say the same stories that's been said since kingdom come and surprisingly, we would all found them funny each time.

I asked Mon what he did on the day of his birthday and he said he just had dinner with his Mom. Marlene, his wife, is still in the Philippines and won't be coming until December. I said, 'Ang lungkot ng birthday dito 'no, Mon? Balik na tayong Pinas.' He said, yeah... it was lonely here. And not only birthdays, even Christmases could get lonely.

We went up to his new apartment after dinner to see how it was. It's nice and I think he's done a pretty good job fixing it. But I saw how it could get lonely up there. He said, 'Malungkot kung magpapalungkot ka. I don't really spend time here. I go out and play golf.'

David's become openly gay since coming here, but he's not the type who takes on boyfriends and of course he has never married. He lives with his mom and brother, who also happens to be gay. But he's fine. He's a very happy person, so well-adjusted and comfortable exactly where he is. He drives a BMW, he's got a pretty neat job at a leading TV network, he looks very healthy and all-together. For those 4 or so hours, family and friends kept calling him on his mobile phone every so often and you can see how warm and accepting he is, he would even welcome us into his conversations so nobody got left out.

I don't know. Maybe David gets lonely too but is too smart for it. Maybe Mon will be happier once Marlene arrives.

Papa asked me sometime back if I was happy here. I still don't know. BUT, newer things are happening to us here and there are options to do so many other. We're surrounded with more friends than ever and I have not known 'alone' since we arrived. The weather is still sunny but it's become cooler lately. We have flower pots all around the patio. We wake up finding ourselves deep into the sheets each morning, pleasantly kept warm from the chill outside. Papa's got a 5-minute drive to work and sometimes he comes home for lunch so there's more time to spend together.

There's miles and miles of road to travel to see and discover things in this country we now live in. I have yet to walk up to the next person in the supermarket and just offer a wide-smiled hello, like they're given to doing here.

There's no time for lonely. Not today, at least.