Beauty Talk

This is my definition of BEAUTY written for Chelo (because I heart her) in true Miss Sitio Kamanggahan fashion…

Beauty is a feeling that reveals itself in the outside. When you feel beautiful, the world will feel beautiful with you. You achieve this by being happy, having a grateful heart, achieving your goals, being prayerful and having a positive attitude always. When you wake up in the morning, look at the mirror and say ‘HELLO BEAUTIFUL ME! That is the best way to start your day. I thank you!

I grew up believing i was very very very beautiful. Blame it on grandparents who gave me  a lot of reason to believe so. Being the first Creekside Princess (my one and only beauty title) and living in sikatuna by the ’sapa’ felt i had a kingdom all of my own. Never mind that my sister teases me forever about this.

When I was exhiled to Banilad where my parents lived during my teenage years, the confidence wavered a little bit because after all there were very pretty girls in pink on our block that hoarded heaps of boyfriends.

I believed I was one of the boys. The boys played tubig tubig with us but played footsies with the pink girlaloos.

And so each year, I turned very beautiful to very plain. That is because, I measured myself against the number of boyfriends to be had. I wasn’t that rediculous but I was not the kind that made it to the Penshoppe or Gaw billboards (the era that Chin missed). Oh yes, I had boyfriends but that is another horror story.

When the kids came, that was when I went from plain to very ugly. My body never bounced back to pre pregnancy state. I did not want to go out because I hate to answer the question (from evil ex-friends)  ‘What happened to you?” as if I turned into a monster.

For many years, I stayed in my invisible bat cave. Socialized with people who did not care about looks but cared about the brains. It was so much fun but the carbohydrate overload, the late nights, and a sedentary life turned me into Mrs. Fatso.

And so, I woke up one day. Look at the mirror and said to myself. Hello Beautiful Me. I said it several times to convince myself.

I asked the hub. “Gwapa ko? (Am I beautiful?) ” And he would reply – “of Course, you are very beautiful! “

However, our mirror sees an overweight woman in her 40s. And so I decided, I will have to re-define myself. The Creekside queen in me wants to do a come back.

I picked up a book on yoga. Enrolled in a gymn. I am joining jazz, zumba, hiphop and salsa classes. I am walking more, drinking more water for my skin and most of all I look in the mirror more. I whisper “hello beautiful!”

I am doing this for myself and not for anyone else. I am dancing because I love to dance. I am happiest when I am dancing. When I see myself in the mirror that fills the whole wall, I see me doing this forever.

The only way to be beautiful is to breathe beautiful.

Watch out World! Meet Beautiful Me (ka ubo! ubo ubo ubo…)

Caligula and Arwana

Kevin is Roland’s 6:00 pm. He works together with Peter (an NZ soap opera dakilang extra). They are tasked to move Kevin so he does not get bed sores and give him a shower or sponge bath.

Kevin is a giant of a man – an ex rugby player. It takes a lot of muscles to move him about but it is not the pulling and the pushing that is a challenge but rather the mood swings and the grumpiness that his caregivers will have to endure.

One day, he will love you to pieces, even gives you the honor to be the one to clean his dentures. Yes, cleaning his dentures is a task only given to the one he favors. But the next day, he will go totally balistic and if you are not careful, a punch at the waist or the neck or any place his hugeness of an arm lands. While he can only deliver uncoordinated punches, it is the heaviness of his arms that you will have to escape away from. Imagine moving him and restraining his arms at the same time. Good luck to that.

And so he is Caligula to us. The meanest of them all. He is critical to everything you do to him and mumbles words that you can comprehend only to be swear words starting with ‘rubbish’.

Many caregivers (that I have talked to) would hands down agree that it is not the patient that is difficult to work with BUT the family. Kevin lives with his wife which we have given the monicker of ‘Arwana’ the fish. Her eyes are like the arwanas’, gawking at your every move. She is quite haughty and I suppose she is doing this as part of her servitude to the hub.

On a good day, Arwana would cut out old newspaper clippings that showed articles with Kevin on it. Kevin looked really handsome and kind then. Photos of her with her flight attendant friends on tour where the airline tooked them. She was tall, already haughty looking but was always with company. With friends at the park, with family on a boat, with Kevin beside her…

Oh, and she always wore dark macabre outfits. It enhances her fair skin and ivory hair. (very conservative, I reckon)

She fuzzes about how Peter and Roland would put Caligula into a hoist for pulling him up. She follows your footsteps to make sure you have clean feet or socks. Either that or she just loves bossing people around. The work is a challenge with her checking their every move. Yet, Peter and Roland have withstood the longest where others could only handle for a day. They found friendship. Roland helped Peter get the top caregiver award. Peter humors him with his television stints and auditions (“never the lead role, buddy!” that is his line)

As for Caligula and Arwana, oh well, they are just characters in this journey.