Pick up as you go

So my wife and I went to this restaurant to have dinner for our third Anniversary. On our way to the restaurant we bumped into some people From college and well, we were in utter surprise to find two of the  unlikeliest of people to ever hook up in this lifetime. But I’m not new to this. I wasn’t particularly swooning over my wife in college, she was on affirmative side of the debate team and I was on the other. But yeah,
these things do happen.

I am this close to the day itself.

I’m sorry I haven’t been doing any real updating in here, but if you browse thru my other entries, you can see how close I am to seeing my firstborn.

My wife Linda and I are excited. While that is a given, I’m more scared than hyped up to become a father. I was brought up in a classic family where I knew exactly what my dad’s role was, and how different it was from my mom’s but now that I’m actually going to be the one to play the role makes everything completely different.

I remember the time when my dad and my mom fought for the first time (at least the first time I’ve ever seen them really fight). It was very silent, they weren’t speaking to each other for quite a while; too silent at times. And you know what, I had picked up from that incident, and thought that if I came across a similar situation I’d probably react the same way and take after my dad, my role model. He was very patient and controlled despite his shortcomings, but I believe he put the balance in the home as my mother and the rest of my siblings and I were chaotic in every way. My dad, he was the one man I thought I never wanted to be like as I was growing up, only to find out that I’ve become more and more like him each day.

Now as the distance between today and the next two weeks we are expecting our child, I’ve become a little weary of the future. Where my child will be if anything should happen to me, considering how wild this world is, and I’m also a little worried for myself because I’ve never thought about life this way. I’ve always considered things to happen just the way they should, just banking on destiny and fate on a balanced beam.

I apologize if all this seems to be messed up, but no matter how hard I try to tie things together my words, despite the massive adjectives and how the story-telling tricks are bound up, nothing seems to make up for the tumbling of expectations I have in my system. In my wife’s womb, is the very child I thought I was just a concept.

When I was younger I always thought about having a daughter for a first born, but honestly none of all the things I used to worry about matter at all. Your views completely change from the way they used to be – so much it’ll surprise you. Now I’m just biding my time until then. This is one of those days I’m completely alien to what I’m facing but you know what, I take back what I said earlier in my first paragraph. I am more excited than scared.

I had this freaky dream last night where I got this voice mail on my cell phone from the future, and it was my own voice saying “Shit! I almost forgot” and then screaming in horror.

Then a few minutes later while I was waiting for an elevator, a girl reminded me that I had to be somewhere. I said “Shit! I almost forgot” and stared at this girl who was with me in disbelief. Just then the elevator opened up to an empty shaft, and as I backed away, something from the ground pulled me down the shaft, and I fell…

Then I woke up, thoroughly shaken. It was about 5 in the morning, and I just had about 2 hours of sleep. Crud.

I hate to use this title as an example but today I was faced with one of the more challenging problems I’ve ever encountered.

The issue was between two sisters fighting over a guy. Now the guy is your typical ass. The rich, accomplished guy who sleeps with both women causing trouble within the family. I couldn’t help but tell them both to do the impossible — which was to leave the jerkwad alone, but the elder sister made a point and she said, there must be something about the guy that’s doing this to them that makes him worth it.

Why do I say this? I’ve been to a similar situation from years back. It was between me and my buddy Lloyd but, then it wasn’t as serious as this although the girl was really something — more of, I didn’t let it get too serious. Her life went downhill after getting hooked on drugs. Surreal but true.

I just told them both to think hard of the repercussions of this as I can’t really tell them what else to do, except what I had already told them which was to find a better man for each. At the end of it all, family should always come first. But that’s me.

I remember the time that my best bud’s wife had just given birth to a healthy baby girl. And I thought it was just amazing seeing the baby. At first, I didn’t know how to react of course, I was his best man if you want me to cut to the chase, so there’s the default happiness although the long hand story says I was shocked out of my system when I had been told that Lloyd was getting married. Marriage is a different thing to me. Knowing the stats of however many couples split up every second.

I’ve loved children since I started practcing in this field, they are the significant proof of purity in this world full of different people who give my character a new dimension sometimes. See, being a counselor doesn’t always make you a nice guy. Many parts of it have to do with knowing what’s right from wrong and more often than not my moral meter is being used by different people. But at the same time, my patience gets tested A lot.

So one day at work, Lloyd comes up to me and tells me we needed to talk. And I thought, hey he must’ve broken up with Anna — I was seeing what I wanted to see, I wasn’t looking at what he really wanted to say. I kept my ear open for the news, and he simply said, “Anna and I are having a baby.”

That was it. I couldn’t function. It felt entirely different all of a sudden. Not like those who come up to me to tell me they’ve finally made it as a couple and what a great thing it was to finally have a child after trying all this time, no. I was dealing with the guy whom I treated like my own brother after all these years, the man who almost reflected every inch of me. And it would be childish to say, but all the plans had shifted to a different phase. I had to find another fool that could take his place at the apartment, I had to get along well with the same fool, too.

The wedding followed in between the pregnancy. It was a small gathering of 30 people. It was one of those weddings that I really liked since it wasn’t your typical garden wedding, but a church wedding, very non-traditional one. Anna’s family was there, I was there and later on 2 of our buddies caught on to the event. I was happy for him, but I knew him best, above all that.

That was 5 years ago. A week ago, my wife told me that she’s 3 weeks pregnant and that I’m going to be a father soon. I know that at one point this was going to happen, but when I told Lloyd the news about it, he sprung out of the seat and told me that it was one of the best things that ever happened to him.

I seem to have been a better person these past couple of days due to this realization. I am doubly a more patient guy, and I take every word I say as carefully as breakable glass. I didn’t know these changes would take place, really. I want to be a good example to my child, that now I couldn’t just eat Goober from the jar without thinking that I have to show my child something he would follow. It stems from the simplest things and it was just something that opened my eye the stretch of the golden gate. This photo was the best father child photo I’ve ever seen, by the way.

I cannot wait until some nine months more.

I remember the days when I was still in University and I did a lot of poetry. Spoken word - I even did other people’s poetry for them just cos I liked it a lot. I remembered all this because I went to ibeatyou and saw a competition on the best spoken word entry. This guy was Filipino. He’s pretty good. Check the link out I’m going to paste it in here.

In other news, my appetite hasn’t been up to par these days. I think I’ve dropped a total of 3 lbs for this week alone, I dont know why - probably all the work I’ve been doing. I’m also thinking moving to another company. I’ve saved up pretty well anyway I’ll probably take a break, and find a lesser stress-induced job. My eyes are bloodshot too. Its mostly reading these days, I want to brush up on my psych.

Yep, that’s right. I shot myself in the foot. I volunteered to take care of my sisters kids today, and they are jumping on my back as we speak. They also like to press on things like what does this button do and the like. I like kids, but today was a mistake. My back hurts. Like a bitch.

So I’ve been hard at work, accepting people for consultation sometimes even beyond office hours. I like my job, but it can get tiring. Its just that you can’t exactly let people down especially when they beg for your help.

If I had it easy, I wouldn’t even want to charge. Its like paying my mother for rent or something to that effect. We all know how bad that sounds. But we have to face the facts, I need to sustain myself in all ways possible.

Apparently, the stats - as far as my counseling sessions are concerned - have changed only but slightly. Majority of them are couples who wish to work their differences out with their partners. Sometimes I tend to think of telling them that I, by default would not know better except that I’ve read enough books to understand things.

I only base it on the fact that more than half of these couples have personal ordeals that make them react a certain way to their partners. I keep reminding myself that though I shouldn’t even put any more effort into it after all these years we forget at one point, and that we need to be reminded of how things ought to be.

So today I was buzzed on AIM by a fellow peer counselor Malane, and posted about the tragic death of 15 year-old Lawrence King, for us to discuss. If you hadn’t heard, his classmate Brandon Mclnerney, 14, shot Lawrence in the head during computer class because he was openly gay and had asked Brandon to be his valentine.

I have homosexual friends, students who come to me for this reason in particular, and most of the time I have the least to say about this issue. I get stomped with what to tell them. Because it isn’t their fault they have a differing sexual orientation than most of us. Why do they have to come to me for a consultation? They do not need it, the people who do this to them do, but don’t – and that’s the sad part.

At one point I almost made the mistake of pining down Mclnerney. What makes it a more pressing issue is that we are talking about children here. I know that the world is in shock and we need 2 to 3 generations forward to understand that this is something that exists and something that shouldn’t be feared. The problem here is that, if we fall behind what we should do and turn more children to this brand of ignorance, what then? I can only hope for the best, but I am just as human as most who care about this matter and the rate that we’re going isn’t good enough.