…because knowing the end is the surefire way to move forward right.
I AM watching.
WATCHING OVER my mom, watching her moves and her facial expression. Well, actually, it’s not Santa. It was just a man. A younger man. Who’s not a father trying to lie to his children and dress up in a big, fat, red and bushy man.
I’ve never seen my mom dance like that. Her arms swing effortlessly, her legs bouncing beautifully, her soul moving along with the music, twirling across the room as the man led her in his hands.
They went over Cha Cha, Rumba, Jive, and other Latin dances, and I sat still in the corner, preferring to watch the beautiful face that gave birth to the flesh and blood my soul is living and breathing in right now.
I’VE NEVER SEEN THAT FACE BEFORE, except when I was very young, about 8 years old or so, when I used to relax on the King-sized bed in my parents’ room. Embedded on the bedstand was a stereo system. My mommy and daddy used to ask me a favor every night: To put on the Cha Cha music on the cassette player. Grudgingly, I put it on. I was so relaxed, and now they’re going to dance it off.
But, as soon as they began to dance, I love watching how my daddy led each and every tiny movement of my mother. He held her tight in his arms, and my mother would free her body and soul across all directions, and then her big eyes and her wide smile would look at me, and then back to my daddy, and my daddy would look down, close his eyes, and open it again and let out a smile.
Although the music is just horrible to me.
THIS YOUNGER MAN I’m looking at right now is, no doubt, a man with charisma. He held the power to unveil the beauty and health and youth within the aging woman who has been so tirelessly looking after three children, now all grownup. I don’t know what it is about this man; he just come right in to our home and introduce himself to the house as if he’s some old friend or something; but he taught me how to Salsa though.
My mom sweats like a young athlete breaking into the Olympics at her blooming age, her eyes beaming whenever she moves toward me, wide and clear as if I saw the skies beyond these years unbroken. The music playing in the background keeps interrupting my thoughts; so does my BlackBerry Messenger.
JUGGLING BETWEEN TWO MEN (and/or more), is something that I will never know how to do, or how to deal with. I don’t understand how my mommy does it, but I know for sure that happiness is just a state of mind and never an ending; you can actually learn to put yourself to work and negotiate your feelings with two or more people as you move along with life, but love is so precious, how can I separate my soul into pieces, don’t they turn into broken dreams?
Or maybe, I just don’t fit the modern definition of how love “works”. I’m afraid to give up my soul again, and the possibility of getting hurt. I have been doing well behind my bushy fringe and long hair and that silly sunglasses I always put on everywhere I go. At the same time, I keep my beauty and my health and my youth in check by hitting the gym most of the week. I let go of these things whenever I run for two, three hours outside, outdoors, when nobody would notice me, when nobody would know I exist. I run free, and that’s the best feeling anyone can ever have, or give, or receive, even if it’s just 2 hours, or more.
Am I willing to give up these armors of mine again? So strong I’ve built these walls and now knowing that it’s about to crash any day, any time in the near future.
I’M WATCHING THE SCREEN. My arms are trembling. Sean and Reed are calling.
How can I trust others when I haven’t trust myself enough yet to move forward? Or sideways? Or, anywhere, for that matter?
No matter how things can go wrong, no one can ever replace the daddy that used to buy me enchanting Cinderella castles and pretty Barbie dolls, the one who used to hold my mother so tight she might as well become some precious gemstone, say, diamonds.
SALUNA is signing off.
Saluna and her stories: View all / Diary entries