Stephanie, in her early twenties, had literally lived a life bounded within rules and routine. She is happy and contented mostly but occasionally felt something or someone is missing. Her past four years can be summarized into three: faith, security and friendships. Every day, she got up to dress for work, tried so hard to succeed in her profession, meet up with her friends and had some crazy laughs once in a while, went back to her own house and be bullied by her brothers and sleep to prepare for yet another same cycle.
She is quite aware that hers is a boring life. No extraordinary occurrences. In fact, she wanted everything to be consistent and routine. She doesn’t welcome too many changes in her life because she thought herself that she would not be capable to adjust accordingly. She figured out, she has trust issues.
On free days, she just stayed mostly in her house doing some paperwork required by her part-time job, reading a good book, watching movies, surfing the internet and sleeping. If three out of the five activities transpired, she is contented.
Not once have she tried to smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol. She had been into a few bars but had admitted to her close friends that she would never enjoy flocking into bars and have drinking stints. She cherished her intimate conversations with her friends or the few times she watched movies in the mall alone munching popcorn. People think she is quite boring—or maybe that’s what she thinks people thinks.
Once in a while, she had haircuts, mingled with strangers in a building elevator and tried out new restaurants. In these few drastic moves, she knew she can also be capable for change. Her brothers often scold her to have a life. She doesn’t argue with them since it would be stupid pointing out to them that this is her life and she preferred it that way.
People think she is hard to please—or maybe that’s what she thinks people thinks. In fact, she gets easily amused by the changing hues of Manila Bay sunset traversing her apartment’s view or the sound of splattering rain on her bedroom windows. Every now and then, she gets small treats of fireworks during graduation or school holidays since her apartment is near a university. She delights in few instances when her brothers cleaned their house or cooked dinner every time she is too tired from work. She loves simple things, maybe because she is simple herself.
Stephanie is contented with her life right now but she felt that something or someone is missing. She had fallen in love twice, once when she was in highschool and the other was when she was in college. One night, when she was shifting channels, she went berserk on what Carrie Bradshaw said in Sex and the City: that one can only have two great loves. In her mind those two were her great loves, so that meant she won't have any love. She had a number of disappointments before (not that she kept track) and this one was among those that topped the charts.
For quite some time, she made herself believe that she would be spending quite a number of decades of her life alone doing the same boring routine she has at present. There were few prospects, few who never appealed to her. People think she has her standards high—or maybe that’s what she thinks people thinks. She doesn’t argue with them since it would be stupid pointing out to them that this is what she prefers. What she wanted was falling in love like in fairytales—those with happy endings. She is afraid of taking the same risks that her parents took. And so she waited.
Stephanie has a boring life until she met him. Their relationship is unconventional. But he makes her believe in love again. She is in love again, her third time. She could not stop rationalizing in love and she tends to over think too much. She thinks that ordinary things when done with the right person become extraordinary things. That’s what she loves about him, he made her feel extraordinary. She thinks about him countless times, she thinks: how he looks like staring in a computer and doing his job; how he writes his name; does he get disappointed in long queues; or how he cooks his favorite hotdog and spam. She has not met him in person. But deep down she knows she loves him. People think she is crazy—or maybe that’s what she thinks people thinks. But yes, she admits she is crazy. She could not explain to herself how this happened; she defies what her friends tell her about him. She just jumped and never held back.
She admits that he was capable of hurting her, but in spite of it, she knows that he is the only one that could stop her from crying. So she sticks with him and right now she intends to stay with him for long.
