Saturday

On the drive home that Saturday, the cabbie said he thought we were a couple. Close, I responded, but no cigar. We could have been, considering our shared history and how closely related our fields of expertise were: I wasn't always a teacher for the English-impaired. There's a reason after all why I put journeyman on my career profiles-- it's the only respectable word substitute for freelancer, bum and dilletante.

But she had been very vocal about what kind of man would share her bed and her life and I didn't fit the bill. Even if the past year had finally done its magic and put the months of that aborted courtship in the proper perspective, nothing would change between us until that checklist of what she wanted in a man did. Or if I suddenly stopped being me.

Then again that little revelation would not have stopped him from giving me advice cloaked in the metaphor of a mango tree.

Strange, strange day.

In all the months that I languished, missing her, her words of scorn burned in my memory, what I wanted so badly was to just be able to share jokes and an occasional cab ride with her. To hold a door open for her. And yesterday, on our mutual quest for a box of pasalubong, I got my wish.

Coelho is right when he said the universe conspires to give you what you want. The catch is the universe seemingly has a problem with the concept of when. That was a wasted year that could have been spent sharing food and DVDs, comparing projects.

Still, beggars and burned romantics can't be choosers. And I am ...happy.