the year's almost out

2008 has been a good year, for all its ups and downs, for all its caboodles and oodles. Lemme count what I got this year:

>> a second happy year of marriage to a woman I happily love
>> my own website!
>> getting a job I really like, and all its attendant "motivations:" job security, medical coverage, mandatory benefits
>> use of a Mac (and for a country like us, that would really be something for an entry-level middle class worker like me)
>> a red street bike (a cross-over between a mountain bike and a racing bike)
>> Red Ezra, my noble Yamaha Nouvo SE

Materially, I have been successful. So far, I've been able to sustain a family and give some help to my parents. Spiritually... well, there's the rub.

This ain't about religion, though. There's a deep river between going to church assiduously and being emotionally, intellectually, spiritually enriched.

This is something we argue about, me and wifey: the old life I had. The old, unsustainable lifestyle that I had.

No, I'm no junkie. I'm no alcoholic, either. I WAS a poet, a musician, a writer. It was true that I lived on a meager salary, it was true that I had no cares about the strings (or ropes, actually) that this society, and the world in general, tie us down with.

I find it difficult to juggle the responsibilities I have now and the need of my "old" soul for literature, for poetry, for good food, for good music. A "clean, well-lighted place," as Hemingway wrote.

I complain that I have no time, but in reality, all the time for rest that I get I de-stress myself, which is just a painkiller, a remedy before the real burn-out happens.

How I thank God though to have given me someone that never tires to make me laugh. If she reads this, she'd tell me I'm ranting again, depressing myself again. Hahaha. And then she'll pinch my lovehandles, and kiss my nose. And then I go laugh uncontrollably.

Yep. I don't know what's with the nose, but a kiss on mine tickles me. She discovered it.