Dear Anika,
A few days ago, I kept on hearing boyfriend girlfriend from you. I asked you if you know what boyfriend girlfriend means. You appeared so awkward talking about it.
ME: I don’t know what boyfriend girlfriend means, Anika. How do you become boyfriend girlfriend?
ANIKA: Seriously Nanay? You don’t know? You have Tatay and yet you do not know?
I don’t know where you get your English or your sentence construction anak pero na-aamaze ako.
ME: Yeah. I mean it might be different na from before. How do you become boyfriend and girlfriend?
You were really uncomfortable talking about it but I just had to know.
ANIKA: Boyfriends and girlfriends love each other. There’s supposed to be love.
ME: Okay. But how will you know that the boy loves you?
You were practically cringing in your seat that moment.
ANIKA: I don’t want to tell you. You might tell Tatay.
ME: If I promise I won’t tell Tatay, you’ll tell me?
ANIKA: Yeah.
ME: Okay I promise I won’t tell Tatay.
ANIKA: The boy will look at you and he will make googley eyes. That’s when you know he loves you.
Ah ganun ba.
ME: I see. Do you have a boyfriend na?
ANIKA: No! I’m still young. Only teenagers are allowed to have boyfriends. You will know that you are a teenager if you are in High School and you have pimples.
ME: Anika, that’s not true. You are not allowed to have boyfriends when you are still in High School.
ANIKA: That’s not fair! I have a busmate who is in High School and she is allowed to have a boyfriend.
Yun lang.
ME: We’ll talk about it when we get there.
ANIKA: Promise you won’t tell Tatay?
ME: Yeah. What?
ANIKA: There’s this boy in school. He looks at me and…
Shet. Eto na.
You might have seen the look on my face because…
ANIKA: Umm.. then he looks at another girl and made googley eyes.
Hanep sa segway! Hahaha!
It’s amusing but I always pray about that at night, anak. I pray that you wont make madali. Please do not hurry growing up and falling in love.
For the meantime sweetheart, here’s something that I found online that is a nice read. Please read it. I am wishing with all my heart that you can find somebody like that.
“You deserve someone who wants to give you a fucking text back, y’know? Someone who wants you, only you, and makes you feel wanted. Someone who can’t help but message you first thing in the morning when the sun light is slow-dancing through the curtain, and they’re barely waking. Someone who wants to spend their drunken Friday nights with you, but also their lazy lemonade Sundays. Someone who holds their one-person umbrella right above you when it’s bucketing down, so that you’re sheltered, even if it means they get soaked through. You deserve someone who thinks of you, often. Someone who calls you on the phone at the end of a long day, because they want to hear the sound of your voice before they drift off into slumber. Someone who makes plans with you on a Tuesday evening, because the weekend is just too far away, and who cares if we have to go to work the next day.Someone who says definitely, not maybe, and follows through.You deserve to hear a song on the radio that makes you melt on the inside at the mere thought of this someone. Someone who could watch you sleeping for hours at a time, and be perfectly content in the grace and stillness of that moment. Someone who steals a cheeky kiss when you’re mid-sentence and least expecting to find their lips. Someone who will happily pig out on pizza with you in bed, and not judge the sweatpants & top knot look you’re sporting. Someone who is just that into you. You deserve someone who challenges the both of you constantly; someone who makes you strive to be better each day, because they’re trying to be better too. Someone you can count on to stick around when the shit hits the fan, which it will. Someone who chooses to lift you up, always. You deserve magic, and fireworks, and confetti canons exploding in your clear blue skies. You deserve someone who will always be careful with your heart, because they know just how fragile it already was before they held it. Someone who’s heart aches whenever yours does. Someone who wakes up next to you each day feeling like they’ve hit the jackpot, over and over again, and thinking what on earth did they do in their past life to be so damn lucky. You deserve someone’s complete attention. Someone who looks at you, and I mean really sees you, and all of the beauty you hold. You deserve to be someone’s first choice. Someone’s best friend. Someone’s partner in crime. Someone’s everything. You deserve to be loved; and loved extraordinarily well. And to be told that you are loved, every single day.
Beautiful girl, you deserve no less than this kind of love.”
Remember Anika, you deserve a cannon of confettis. Hindi watusi lang.
In short, hindi basta basta.
And if you need somebody to talk to, please go to me. I will always be here to listen. I will not judge. Promise.