Marriage + Wife

What matters to me livin' la vida Lanka?  First, Marriage + Wife.

We got married at the time we did because of Sri Lanka.  My husband got an assignment here and wanted to take me along.  Of course my uber Catholic upbringing and principles required us to get married.  After 1 month and 9 days of preparation, we did.  Two weeks later my husband started his assignment.  A month (the longest month evah!) later I followed suit. 

At first I was excited, I’m going to be an expat’s wife!  How fabulous could that be?  Well apparently… not very.  A lot of people have this misconception of an expat life, especially an expat’s wife’s life.  What I can say is this, anything that takes you out of your comfort zone is disorienting.  For a control-freak like me, that is not fabulous at all.

But I digress.

Back to marriage and being a wife.

Starting our life in Sri Lanka pretty much gave me a Marriage + Wife 101. 

The things I firmly held onto in my life back in Manila, I left when I went to Sri Lanka.

I left my family and friends.

I left my job and source of income (which pretty much meant my independence as well).

I left my identity.

I vowed to my husband that I will go where he goes.  How romantic!  How adventurous!  It is!  Actually.  But not in the way I expected it to be.

Don’t get me wrong.  Being married to my husband is easy like a Sunday morning.  Living with him is a joy. 

I learned these lessons pretty much the hard way:

I learned that I do not operate as a “singular” entity anymore.  I have a partner.  And I allowed myself to depend on him.

I still have my family and friends, no matter where I am.  But what my family and friends offer me, my husband gives me too.  I let him be my family and friends and I became his family and friends too.

I learned that I am still me – even without the trappings of my “Manila” life.  That I am growing, changing and transforming not on my own anymore but we’re growing, changing and transforming together as husband and wife and as our individual identities.

At the end of the day I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.  Marriage and a start-up wife La Vida Lanka!

A Look Back At My 2010...

In as much as I don’t normally do a look back at my year (I guess I like looking forward better), for 2010 I just can’t help it.

For one, I finished my Master’s degree!  I really didn’t think I would graduate! A ping-pong of revisions just for style for crying out loud made me feel hopeless. But, with the help many kind souls and a good dose of heavenly intervention, I successfully passed my thesis revisions and was granted permission to march.

It's real!!! MA Psychology finally!

Second, it is the year when I finally took the “risk it took to bloom.”  From milk to make-up, after 7 years of life after college, I moved companies.  It was like leaving home and finding out that there is a big, wide, beautiful world out there! Oh, hello there!!!  Albeit my tenure was short (see point #4 below) - it was worth it!

 

With the big boss and my fellow newbies!

Third, I married the most awesome man in the world.  He’s just one of a kind and I am the luckiest girl.  And I want to repeat it here, as I said it in my wedding vow:

As long as I'm with you.

“Now as I stand here before you for the first time in a long time I face the future with no fear.  Comfortable with not knowing what tomorrow holds.  Even excited for the adventure that lies ahead.  Because in each journey, wherever and whenever it may be, as long as I’m with you, Paulo, I am sure it is where I need to be.”  

Fourth, Sri Lanka may be the farthest thing in people’s minds as a destination of a place, but for us it is.  It is my first time really living in another country, for being a housewife and for trusting my life to somebody else aside from myself and my parents.

With hubby at Bawa's Lunuganga

People have been telling me 2010 is the year that things really did happen for me.  I agree – especially on point #3!  Haha!  But really, it was also the year that I learned to let go (a mean feat for a self-confessed control freak) and look where it got me – to such an awesome place even beyond my imagination.  I grew up – I would like to say beautifully and happily so and without much drama.  And I look back at it with much gratitude to God – you really did surprise me Lord with the fulfillment of my innermost desires.

So here’s to the best year YET, 2010.  And to 2011…    

In Sickness and In Health...

Today, I felt sick.  I’ve thrown up thrice – twice during Sinhala class and once when I got home.  Not in class though – thank God I was able to make it to the toilet!  It is because of a severe case of hyperacidity.  And NOT infanticipating as my mom would put it and my younger brother seriously listing it as his Christmas wish to Santa.

Anyway I was really out of it.  I have quite a number of things to do today but I slept through the afternoon.  When I woke up I didn’t quite know what to do with myself.  When I stood up my stomach felt queasy.  When I sat down it was a bit more manageable.  When I stood up again, there seem to be a newly opened theme park in my belly.  I drank medicine and shivered at the taste of water.  I knew that this was not good.  Add to the fact that I went to the toilet twice in the morning.  Now that makes it wrong up and down!  I even didn’t dare to eat lunch – just some softened (by time, in short luma na) crackers.

But through it all, I managed to cook rice, defrost the fish, and when I felt a little better fried it, sliced some tomatoes and set up the dining table for dinner.  I realized this is what being a housewife (with no helper) is all about.  But more importantly this is what being married is all about.  You do what you have to do, in sickness and in health.  Of course that could mean many other things but tonight it was because I knew hubby had a long day at work and in as much as I’m not feeling well I knew that he would have a more tiring day than I, would have to deal with terrible rainy rush hour traffic and would come home hungry.  I called him earlier today and asked him to buy some stuff (Gatorade, banana, etc.) and come home early so he could cook.  But as soon as I felt like I could have a normal time preparing the food, smelling the fish and all, I jumped right down to business.  I want dinner to be ready once hubby comes home.  I mustered all my strength to prepare food for him (and myself – thankfully they are being properly digested as I write this).  At that moment I realized that I was so married.  And with that small act of love, I actually lived true to my vow.

In sickness and in health, I am your wife.

Goodbye “Quotable” Journal

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always kept a journal.  Back in the good old days it was still called a “diary.”  I like writing my thoughts down.  I like writing my prayers.  I like writing what strikes me in the things I read.  I like writing my goals down – they get to be accomplished that way.

Today, I wrote my last entry in my “quotable” journal (quotable is the brand). I felt sentimental and the moment was poignant.  As if I’m saying goodbye to a good friend.  What’s special about this journal?  Well the last 3 years have been short of saying transformational.  And my “quotable” journal was a witness through it.  3 years for a journal??? Well, I didn’t write everyday and it was mighty thick!

My Quotable Journal Cover from www.quotablecards.com

My very first entry was a Birthday List for 2007.  Instead of New Year’s Resolution, I write a Birthday List.  Your birthday anyway is Your New Year. Back then I wanted to be more kind to myself and my body – get fear and anxiety out of my system, save (haha!), let go of a nasty habit.  I also wanted to defend my MA thesis – I’ve graduated now.  And I wanted to pray more – weekday masses (as much as possible) and daily prayer now a way of life.

It was where I wrote my subsequent birthday lists for 2008 and 2009. Which reminds me, I have to write one for this year!

It was also the repository of Elizabeth Gilbert’s words from Eat, Pray, Love (my bible!).  Because of that I learned to find “healing and peace that can only come from solitude.”  I learned my “way around loneliness…” and never used “another person’s body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled desires.”  I was also able to “clear out all the space in your mind that you’re using right now to obsess about this guy, you’ll have a vacuum there, an open spot – a doorway.  And guess what the universe will do with that doorway?  It will rush in – God will rush in – and fill you with more love than you ever dreamed.  Stop using David to block that door.  Let it go.”  And rush in God did!

It was also where I wrote my notes on other books that help me shape my thinking like Julie Powell’s Julie and Julia, Marielle Guilliano’s Women, Work and the Art of Savoir Faire, Elizabeth Gilbert’s Committed and Cecilia Ahern's The Book of Tomorrow among others.

It was where I wrote my vision of my ideal man – and most importantly my non-negotiables.  And my husband ticked ALL of that.

It helped me find my way through a career situation.  It helped me find the next best step and take it.  It was where I wrote down Alicia Key’s Element of Freedom, something that was in my iPod and gave me strength to take that career step:

“And the day came

When the risk it took

To remain tight and closed in the bud

Was more painful

Than the risk it took to bloom.

This is the element of freedom.”

It was my prayer journal in my silent retreat Lent of 2010.

It was where I wrote my friend’s quote: “Life is too short NOT to be spent in the pursuit of dreams (Charisse Salinas).”

It was where I wrote that I wanted to run a race outside the country.  It didn’t mention a distance but I did my 1^st Half Marathon in New York, August 2009.

It was where I wrote when I wanted to get married, to whom and my “get ready plan.”  I’m so anal that way. I got married way ahead of my timeline!  But most importantly I married the man God created for me.  He just didn’t tick my vision of an ideal man and my non-negotiables he exceeded it.  And I am thankful everyday that I cook for him, take care of him, hold his hand when we sleep, wake up to prepare his breakfast and get him ready for work and everything in between.

And it was where I wrote my daily prayers, tried to make sense of where I am and where I need to go.

True to the quotable cover, my journal witnessed how I:

Walk in the rain,

smell flowers,

stop along the way,

build sandcastles,

go on field trips,

find out how things work,

tell stories,

say the magic words,

trust the universe. 

-Bruce Williamson

One Month Apart

Corregidor Trip with Hubby Day Before He Left

One of the most difficult things along this expatriation journey is being apart.  Yes, even if you have decided that you will stick together, for one reason or another there will be someone who will go ahead and the other follows.  Albeit the arrangement is temporary, missing my husband is such a pain.  I am an independent woman mind you but I say it with no shame that the only man who makes my being alone lonely is my hubby.  I am not the same without him.

The 1.5 months that we are on long-distance is one helluva time for me.  The “terribly missing hubby” is one but coupled with the thought that I will be missing the people of home – friends and family who have been there every step of the way is another.  The feeling that I can’t wait to get off work and do my “move” stuff because somehow it brings me closer to hubby also reigns.  But the feeling that for the first time after entering the labor force I will not be working and earning also looms. I am these two opposing emotions.

With Winna & Nikki (the balikbayan)

So how do I cope? I deal with my business here as best as I could: work turnovers, home spring cleaning, updating my government and bank related files and doing the doctor sweep (the trip to the Ob-Gyne was encouraging – I am fit to conceive! But challenging – I have to be on my way to baby mamahood around my 30^th as chances get slimmer from that point forward).  I turn to family and friends: enjoying time with 2 friends from abroad, family bonding with a cousin visiting from the States, meeting up with former workmates and life-long friends and taking the trip down south to hang-out with my grandmother.  I plan out what to do when I get to my destination: making our new pad a home is project #1, enrolling in a language class (I’m learning their native Sinhalese baby!), job hunting and planning our weekend trips (it’s holiday every full moon in Sri Lanka – wild!).  And making a point to see and talk to hubby everyday – virtually.  Thanks to Skype we make sure we keep the connection alive.  Plus, no more lonely nights at a fraction of the price!  While a surprise tangible gift from hubby does not hurt one bit!     

A Surprise From Hubby For Our First Month

I guess, more importantly treading this dreaded long-distance relationship path is making it a journey to self-discovery.  I started this blog, I’m brewing up a few research topics (nerd!), enjoying alone time, enjoying down time amidst everything I listed above and trying out things I’ve never done before.  Case in point watching a movie alone.  Just last Saturday, I made the trip to watch none other than a movie about long-distance relationships.  One for its theme but really because I’m a Drew Barrymore fan!  The experience was liberating and interesting.  I mean it’s kind of hard to laugh out loud when you’re alone and a little bit weird to be seated between two couples (thank God they were behaving!).  But I realized one thing.  I am not alone and I will never be as long as hubby and I both shall live.  It’s the first time I felt this way – in a way that maybe only married people can (because I’ve been alone when I was single and it sure darn didn’t feel this way). Because we are married.  I guess marriage really changes you and what I love about it most is that it brings a psychical companionship that transcends space and time.  Like no other man-made relationship can. 

My husband left for Colombo exactly one month today.  And in this month, we’ve never been so apart yet so together.