2001: A couple of months after my family and I migrated to the US, the excitement of being in a new country wore off and I became so bored. I was missing everything about Philippines. So, I turned to chatting in hopes of meeting Filipino friends online who would somewhat help make me feel like I was home. I found Asia Connections 5 on Yahoo Messenger. I still remember the very first thing I typed in the chatroom, “Are there any Filipinos here?”. And sure enough a number of them responded. They were very nice to me and so I became a regular in the room. I would be there chatting everyday for many months. Almost everyone in the room knew me. I even became one of the “official greeters” –the pathetic job of greeting every chatter that came in “our room (Room 5)” …hehe… I wasn’t as bored anymore as I had online Filipino friends .
A few months later, BCL76 came to Room 5 for the first time. He said he was bored one night so he decided to try chatting. He was very friendly and started talking to everybody. For me he was too friendly and it annoyed me (He was probably drunk that night :D). I was ignoring him when he was in the room. He became friends with everybody (except me). I don’t know why I decided to not like him. I just knew his first name, Brian, but we weren’t really friends. One day, one of his close friends wasn’t in the room that night so he sent me a private message and asked if I knew where she was. That was the very first time that we actually talked. He then started sending me private messages everyday. I would still try to avoid him sometimes for some reason. I remember those times when he would be looking for me in the chatroom, asking people where I was. He did not know that I was actually in the same room but just with a different ID. But Brian was really persistent and kept sending me messages. I finally realized that he was truly a nice person and very professional. He told me that he worked for a tv station in Kentucky as a meteorologist and I thought it was cool. He’s well educated and intelligent and had a good sense of humor. We found out that we had a lot in common. We enjoyed chatting everyday. Eventually our chats turned into calls, and we became close friends.
A few months later, my parents decided that I should go back to the Philippines to study nursing. I broke the news to Brian and he was very upset. He didn’t understand why I had to do it. For me, I was very excited to go home.. of course. I told him that I would be back though.
May 2002, I was back in the Philippines and was taking up nursing. I was having the best time. No more boring days. Lakwatsa here and there with friends even during school days. Brian and I were still good friends and maybe more (We both really didn’t wanna accept that we were in love. We wanted to wait till we see each other in person). We talked EVERY SINGLE DAY either thru chats, emails, texts or calls. After a semester, I got tired of school. My parents wanted me to go back to the US because they were worried of my too much partying. I had a ka-MU (mutual understanding) but it didn’t go further. I was ready to go back to the US although I didn’t wanna leave my friends behind. I told Brian and he was very excited.
January 2003, I was back in the US. Brian drove up from Kentucky to Chicago to see me and my family for the first time. I was very nervous. I didn’t know what to expect. I was shaking when I opened the door. Then, there he was, holding a bouquet of flowers, blushing, with a big smile on his face. We hugged then spontaneously kissed. With eyes closed we saw fireworks in the sky… HAHA CORNY! I introduced him to my family. They liked him as he was very respectable and humble. He liked my family too.
A few months after our many dates, he finally popped the question. And of course I said YES! He impressed my dad by asking him for my hand also..proof of how serious he was and how much he respected my parents. My dad was very happy that he did that. He gave Brian the permission to marry me.
And so we got married (twice!), and now have a 20-month old baby boy.
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Marrying Brian was the best decision I’ve ever made in my life. I married that most loving, most supportive, and most understanding man in the world for me. He doesn’t just treat me as a wife and a mother to his son but as his best friend as well. We do everything together and we always support each other. He is indeed my partner. He listens to what I have to say. We like to converse with each other a lot about a variety of topics, from our everyday life to politics, to the weather, stocks, the economy, the world, Obama, McCain, everything. We may have been through a lot of hurdles but we’re thankful for them as they just made our relationship and love for each other even stronger. It’s funny sometimes when Brian and I would cuddle and he would suddenly say, “Remember those times when you used to ignore me in the chatroom?”…… It’s hard to believe that after all that, we ended up being together. We were destined to be together.
Our 5th Wedding Anniversay is coming up in October and we’re gonna be celebrating it in Paris, hopefully have dinner in the Eiffel Tower, just the two of us. Wouldn’t that be nice? We’re very excited. Hopefully we can keep exciting each other until forever :)
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