I ran across this very personal letter on Facebook. (Yes, I'm mainstream like that.) It rolled into my screen just as I was thinking of a friend whose heart was breaking. I find that the stars can be so conniving at times. Someone's heart can be so full of love while another's is burning for it. While I've experienced horrible heartbreak myself, I remain a dreamer and a believer in love. So here's what I chanced on reading today. And I hope it will inspire others out there to keep believing in the ever after.
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Counting forward
(Note: Today is Josiah's birthday and one week from now we will be celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary. I am combining these two events in this post because both are very important dates for me.
I don’t usually post “long” personal displays of affection online as I feel some things should be left private and personal. I do post quotes and even corny lines to celebrate anniversaries or birthdays so it is more fun and playful rather than serious and mushy because well, I’m like that. But this time, I think I have something to share that I want to celebrate with all those who have been witnesses to our journey, or maybe to our students and mentees who could learn a thing or two from this sharing. After all, 30 years of marriage is something to be proud of and finally, finally… I feel this is something that deserves a public post, because well… I am running out of corny lines….)
Does one ever think of what it would be like 30 years after? Maybe we can imagine the “5-to-10-years into-the-future thing”, after all we got to be asked this a lot when we graduated or when we applied for a job… you know, like we felt it was a trick question … and so we sometimes answered “trickily” too?
Then there is that one important (and serious) decision you make when you chose someone to live that life into the future with you –something that seemed simply romantic and felt good and right at that point in time, and while you always knew it is a “something-ever-after” thing, you still didn’t really think in terms of 5, 10, 15…. much more, 30 years later.
Down the line, into the years where passions and experiences filled up the days and the moments, and where the good times mixed with the not-so-good…realities made you start counting… at the start someone or both kept score just to maintain some sense of equilibrium of who needed to give way next time… until it wasn’t important anymore because there were simply too many things to do – like raising the kids, paying the bills, getting tired, growing the business, losing househelp, losing sleep… balancing, balancing, balancing work and family … sometimes, there was balance, sometimes (or until now) – what balance?
Then at a certain point, you realize that you have stopped counting because all you remember are the good times anyway, especially the good things that came out of the bad, the good things that came from learning the lesson behind the experience, from realizing that this is one life you wish you could have been your best all the time, but was not ideally possible,because … well, we had to grow into our own distinctive persons shaped only by our imperfections, our tragedies, our woundedness -- those unique moments we shared so we can grow and heal together, so we can be who we are - as individuals and as a couple.
And so it has been 30 years… and yes, now I can imagine what the next 30 or 50 (or more, if stem cell really works) years will be like. I know at this point in my life, that you will always be there still building me up or taking care of me, pushing (yes kulit!) me to be better, providing me with the support even when you realize that in so doing, I will forge my own path, which may be away from the business, away from some of the things we do together. I know that is difficult for you but I also know you love me enough to let me be, and even when you resist and get frustrated with me for being as stubborn (as you), you always let me do what makes me happiest. And I say, what a man… thank you so much for being such a man!
This is something no one can ever take away, or even replace in the coming years – our little kind of hopeless and hopeful mortality that we have shared for the past 30 years. We will always be oh so different in many, many ways (a hopeless kind of thing) and yet we’ve always managed to hold hands and head toward the same direction because we always believed in facing life’s challenges head on, fighting for the same causes, supporting each other’s dreams as well as honoring and celebrating the realities of winning some and losing some (a hopeful,never-say-die, for-together-we-can-make-this-happen thing).
Our children will be happy knowing that their parents are going to be okay growing old together so they can have their time forging their own lives and relationships without having to worry about us. I really think that’s the best gift we can ever give them.
Happy 30th anniversary to my love, my life, my man – Josh. Here’s to more hopeless and hopeful years together, and I lift up all these to God whose little “trick”more than 30 years ago made us find each other, with some help from that horse in Baguio.
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This letter was lifted from Chiqui Escareal-Go's page; it's for her husband, Josiah Go.
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