Why Would We Change A Thing?

When all of my friends in 4th grade/5th grade were watching A Walk To Remember, A Cinderella Story, Meteor Garden, and The Princess Diaries, my parents made me watch Mary Poppins, The King & I, and The Sound of Music.  See, my parents (especially my dad) didn't want me to watch those sappy love stories because (in their own words) puro kalandian lang naman ang makukuha ko dun.  They thought that at the age of 9, 10, and even 11, I was not prepared for love stories or boyfriend-girlfriend issues.  Those were grown-up topics.

Do you ever wonder how I survived when my friends were talking about Shane West or Chad Michael Murray?  Honestly, I don't remember the exact excruciating details of my survival but what I do remember was asking them the plot of the movie.  Then, they would get all giggly and tell me how A Walk To Remember started and what the ending was.  In the end of their litany, I was just there nodding, blinking, and thinking that "Huh.  That's it?  Hey, I didn't miss out a lot after all."  Well, except for the fact that I was not a part of the A Walk To Remember fad and craze.  Other than that, I was perfectly fine and well-informed.

Thinking about all of these things now, maybe that's the reason why I'm not interested in relationships.  Movies show us happy endings and butterfly feelings for all of eternity.  But, do you know what the glitch is?  It's not reality.  It's not life.  Movies do not show us how break-ups could ruin a person's life or, well, honestly, how uncomfortable and awkward (in the sense wherein you have no bloody idea what to say to that person to make him/her feel better) it is to listen to someone pine over their love interest who broke their fragile hearts.  Movies do not show people that sometimes, well, most of the time, actually, there is no happy ending.  In the end, it's just you and a rocking chair and a cat or a dog, maybe.

Relationships are messy.  They tend to end in divorce, annulment, or, hmm, to give a more detailed picture, a kid with a broken heart and a confused life who feels neglected and blames himself/herself for the separation of his/her parents.  In these kind of situations, I always, always pity the kid.  You think it's easy when it's not happening to you but, honey, you would prefer to get your toenails pulled out by a wrench than to be in these kind of scenarios.  What I don't understand is the parents.  They could make things work.  I know they could.  They just have to dig deeper until they realize what it was that made them marry each other in the first place.

I should never be the first person you turn to when you have love problems.  I wouldn't know what to say or how to make you feel better.  I would just probably sit there and listen to you and curse the bastard who's breaking your heart.  I mean, c'mon, I don't even believe in relationships.  What I do know is that if ever I'm going to get married, I would make sure that I would grow old with the person I'm going to marry (please God, give me Bill Beckett or Jared Leto!) See, I have loyalty issues.  And, that's that.  It's either I'm going to grow wrinkly with a person or I'm going to buy the most expensive rocking chair and take care of a cat or something.

The thing is, relationships are for people that could accept each other's weaknesses and, well, abnormalities or weird habits.  Relationships are for people that could battle the odds and prove that, hey, they could and they would make things work.

But, who the hell am I kidding?  I'm just a talking blob here.  I don't even know if I make sense.  Anyway, tough luck, I'm talkative and I just really want to say what's on my mind.  I could be wrong and you could all rub it on my face.  Then again, I could be right.  And I would happily rub it on your gooey lovestruck faces.

And, oh yeah, I finally had the chance to watch A Walk To Remember when I was 15 years old.  And to tell you quite frankly, I stand by my thought when I was in 4th grade, I didn't miss anything at all.