april 16, 99

ENGAGEMENT IS MORE THAN A RING

Throughout the broadway musical Pippin, there is angst about finding a corner of the sky, about being free to find that niche where one belongs. In the end, Pippin asks himself whether the secret to finding your freedom is finally tying yourself down to someone or something worth caring about. We staged Pippin back in my second year of college, and I remember sitting behind my stack of borrowed keyboards, wondering if I could truly fathom that supreme irony. To be free is to be committed... Sure, I got the cerebral gist. But would I ever really come face to face with that kind of decision?

I did.

On December 28, 1998, I finally proposed to my girlfriend Agnes after almost five phenomenal years together, and she accepted without missing a beat... trying to hold back her typical jibing. We laughed about it after dinner and had the best dessert any meal could warrant--- the kind where you reminisce and laugh about the past, the kind where you hold hands while the ice cream melts and you giggle like kids and every blessed thing in existence is perfect.

Today, she is in California, and I am here, on the other side of the globe, trying to find my way to her. We want to get married sometime in 2001 maybe, but that can change. We don't really know where or when it'll happen... maybe in a small chapel in the States, maybe in a small chapel in Tagaytay, maybe on a beach in Zamboanga, maybe with 20 people in attendance, maybe with 200. We may settle down in Makati or Newark, or San Francisco. We may both end up working in the States, or we may end up coming back here. The future is uncertain. Except for one thing. We ARE getting married. And that certainty overrides all the other trivial questions like when, where or how... In fact, it is that certainty which helps keep me afloat on days when depression nips at the fringes. It is the promise of something beautiful to come.

And let me tell you something.

I've never felt more free.

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