To Tala

Eight years and four months ago tomorrow, one month into my relationship with my ex boyfriend, now husband, I wrote a letter to the daughter that we dreamed of having. She is now squirming in my tummy, ready to burst into the world, inspiring us to clear our lives of negative things and horrible pasts and all those clutter.

May 23, 2005

4:47 p.m.

Dear Tala,

Your dad and I have been together for barely a month as I write this letter, yet already, we knew we were destined to have you. And we knew that when fate finally gives you to us, we are going to name you Tala.

Why do I write to you, Tala? First things first. I need to warn you: you have fools for parents. Your dad and I started out as classmates in law school. We had lives of our own, and we were practically going our own directions when, by fate or some stroke of luck, our paths crossed somewhere between the school gates and Siblings.

We felt the connection early on. When I look back beyond our first month, I can sense the earliest stirrings from way before the first time we hung out at Siblings with our classmates. We were both bright students, you see. And I guess we must have caught each other’s attention during Consti or Oblicon, or while one of our professors was discussing one of her “initial cases” for the semester.

Anyway, your dad and I instantly found out that we had so much in common. To begin with, we were both damaged goods, having gone through relationships that left us reduced to a pulp, spent and exhausted and completely jaded. We both loved the same things: a bottle or two (OK, maybe more), Cynthia Alexander, stargazing, laughing, silent conversations, and so much more. And oddly enough, we hated the same people, too.

Soon, your crazy folks wanted more than group trysts. We sought each other out in pursuit of the cheap thrill that proximity brought us. We would meet up at the slightest excuse—which your dad never ran out of—and drink and talk about anything, everything and nothing, and enjoy each other’s company. With each bottle that we finished went inhibition after inhibition, until we were too high to notice that we were sitting too close. Or maybe we noticed, after all; but at that point, we simply stopped caring.

Tala, the first time your dad held my hand was on April 20, 2005. One of our classmates was driving us home after a drawn-out night at Tuna Deli’s and another classmate’s place. I was in the front seat and your dad in the back seat. At one point during the drive, I reached for your dad’s hand to wish him luck for a major happening the next day. He caught my hand and held it firmly for what seemed like the rest of the ride!

I will not deny it. I felt the proverbial butterflies in the stomach. Unfortunately, I was too drunk to remember the details of the moment. When I woke up in the morning, what was left of the scene was a snapshot tucked in the corner of my memory, and the giddy, dreamy feeling of remembering a tender, trembling moment but not being sure if it really happened. It was close to the feeling I had the first time your dad kissed me goodnight in a slightly different manner (he sniffed a bit and I suspect he even closed his eyes) on April 9, 2005, when the looming sunrise chased us out of San Mig Food House.

This is where your first lesson lies. Tala, a bottle or two is a great social lubricant. But you should never let alcohol dull your memories of those fleeting, tender moments. Case in point: your dad and I do not remember how exactly “us” came to be. But I digress, the fortunate night or morning comes later.

Tala, we never had it easy. Throughout our not-date dates, we drank in each other’s presence, went home high, but never acknowledged that there could be something more to us than CDs, books, stark similarities. We thought cheap thrill was the only thing we were after. From school to a beach in Batangas, we kept our guards up, and took only from each other that much that we needed to light our lives up. We were never assuming, both of us. So we still tried to go through our separate lives, thankful for the gift of each other but not expecting more from each other.

Your second lesson, Tala, is this: Expectations often lead to disappointment. It’s a good feeling to finally get something that you have been pining for. But it’s no match to be swept off your feet when fortuities lead you to an unexpected discovery.

This is what happened to us sometime between the night of April 23 and the morning of April 24, Tala. Earlier that afternoon, your dad texted me an invitation to two bottles. The occasion: he had been nicotine-free for three days. I didn’t think twice about accepting the invitation, although I challenged the wisdom of having a drink when you’re weaning from smoking. But your dad was insistent, and he assured me he could pull it off.

So off we went to Siblings, and then to Tuna Deli, after we managed to brush off two other be alone together for an afternoon of cheap thrill. As I wrote earlier, we don’t remember the details anymore. Even the conversation that led us to finally drop our guards is all a blur. All that lingers is the feel of your dad’s hands playing with mine, the sound of the word “Checkmate!” that acknowledged our simultaneous fall, and the sensation of hugging your dad for the first time—and knowing that it was what I had always wanted to do after all. From then on, your dad and I were resigned to love each other in a way that is as extraordinary as the way we got together.

The night of our birth teaches you another lesson. Tala, it’s a jungle out there. And I’m sure it will pain us to watch you leave the house every day, knowing that some poseur could try and sweep you off your feet—and actually succeed. I did not have standards against which I tried to measure your dad. I didn’t even know him when I fell for him, for God’s sake. But I guess what I banked on was the fact that he made me feel at ease, that I could be myself when I was with him. I could feel he was being himself, too—and I loved the man that he was when we were together. Standards are dangerous, Tala, because they let men—assholes included—know exactly where and how to hit you hardest.

It’s only been a month today since your dad and I gave up our games. We are still crazy for each other (and I suspect we will be for a long, long time). But the crazier thing is, we both feel we know each other so well, it could well be that we had spent our past lifetimes together. We meet almost every day when he fetches me from work. After calling it a night, we go home and look forward to our phone calls that last for at least three hours. (Last night, we spoke from 10 p.m. to past 3 a.m., talking about sailing on our yacht to our own island and sleeping on a cliff, under the stars.) It always breaks our heart to say goodbye, so we decided it was best to keep the line open and let the rhythm of each other’s breathing lull us to our shared sleep. I’ve always described what we have as knowing that everything is perfect because you can almost hear the pieces clicking into place.

Tala, my final lesson for you is this: Do not settle for anything less than what your dad and I have. I do hope you hold off for the man who will see you as a woman bursting with beauty, as a perfect being that deserves nothing less than to be loved perfectly. When it’s your time to fall in love, your dad and I hope it’s with a man who is worthy, so we won’t have qualms about telling you to go ahead and fall, and fall completely.

Love,

Mommy