I Made It Through Barry Manilow

Looking outside The Coffee Bean facing Eastwood Mall on this rainy, stormy morning, enjoying my vice of sugarfree, milk-filled coffee, I thank God for the lovely morning sans seeing nature's first green of gold.

On my way here, I hit a pothole which I didn't see because floodwaters found themselves once more along C5. It was a hard hit, I thought I would lose a tire. But the impact simply sounded more menacing than the consequence. I guess it was the tire hitting the water, then the hole. To my (shameless) credit, I was careful minding to slow down when I see and sense a puddle. Yes, I did run 110 KPH on a slippery-when-wet-road from Southwoods to Alabang, but that's different. And I snapped out of it when I realize I still want to live to see a hundredth birthday.

Last night wasn't exactly a party. I was in my Alabang office when at midday I received a text from my boss's EA telling me that her boss wanted me to join him in a meeting at 6 PM at Eastwood. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, our Prez knew about Typhoon Juan/Megi. But he also knew that if we didn't go to that meeting we would lose one of this fiscal year's final biggest deals. I could complain to God Almighty but I knew I would still go - flood, typhoon, raging winds, pounding rain, earthquakes - all put together and then some.

The meeting ended half an hour after seven. It was when the rain started to fall big and hard. Please, don't read an undertone into it because that was simply how I saw it was: BIG and HARD. I left the car in Alabang as I don't trust my eyes at night, much more distrust when it rains and not just rain it was last night. I took a cab to take me to EDSA which surprisingly was as clean as a whistle. I got off at EDSA Crossing to take a bus Pacita-bound. The bus took all Creation Time to get to Magallanes interchange, not because there's a jam, but because there were not so many passengers getting on the bus. I guess people knew better than to stay late on the street on a day/night like that. That was what Ondoy had done to us urban and sub-urban dwellers of the capital and the Greater Manila Area.

The bus crawled its way to Ayala to get a busload. Just past Skyway, the bus started to smell of burnt clutch, chugging its slow descent to SLEX. More than the stinky smell of the clutch, the smell of trouble bothered the faint of hearts. Near 19th East, the bus gave up trying and stopped. The bus broke down in the middle of South Luzon Expressway on a rainy, stormy night. Cut to the chase, I arrived home a quarter after 10.

Everyone was still awake, waiting for me, even the nephews (2 and 4 year-olds). I told them about the bus. I was served dinner. Everyone else took second dinner. After supper, my 2-year-old nephew went up to my room and wouldn't stop the melodious wail of Ta-keel, Tita! Tita, Ta-keel! until I turn Youtube on for some Lightning Mcqueen videos. The other nephew came to have a party. It was almost midnight when we finished.

I made it through the rain and the storm and the bus that broke down unceremoniously along the highway. And I was neither pissed nor stressed. I've just learned to let go of the things I cannot control. To see the lighter side of the dark. To listen to the distant silence beyond all the noise.

Life is a Barry Manilow. You wouldn't admit to being a fan, but sure as hell you love his melody and sung a lot of his songs in secret. Barry Manilow sucks with his botox and all. But life, too, sucks. Yet it is a good life with all the troubles too harsh it makes you cry. Far too many sometimes, you cannot help but laugh.