This is how Lonely Tylenol started, exactly 50 weeks ago....

May 1, 2001

Nuni kuuuu... I miss you so much! Why do you write like this? It is heavy on my heart... I want to thank you for making this sacrifice of being apart from me. This is something that I had imagined so long ago and had forgotten... and I can't help feeling that maybe God knew there was this unfulfilled dream of mine, parang bang prerequisite to my Personal Legend. By allowing me to take this opportunity, you helped make it come true even at the cost of your own pain. That is why I know you how much you love me.

Years ago, when Ate came home from the States, she described how it was living in New York. I pictured her walking in a trenchcoat along the subway, braving the Big World. I wanted that experience too but I thought it wasn't meant for me. When I went to the States in '93, it didn't feel right to stay away from you so I went back. And the Dream was stashed in some corner of my memory... only to resurface time and again. Being independent and finding my way around things unfamiliar, setting my sight on something so beautiful
everyday it takes my breath away... it is an experience I cherish. But there is something tugging at my heart which I dare not analyze... a feeling that something is missing.

When I am alone, it is easy to keep myself preoccupied with mundane matters. I drive home, park the car, get the mail from my pigeonhole, walk and hear my lone footsteps in the hall, unlock my door, put down my bag, hang my coat, turn on the TV, dress in my house clothes, start to cook, eat then wash dishes. The routine breaks on Wednesday, laundry day - when the above
sequence is interrupted by trips to the laundry and drying room... or when we have dinner with colleagues outside. I find that keeping myself busy is one thing I am good at. But the more important thing - the motivation for it all -- what is it? It is meaningless joy to savor an experience and not be able to share it with someone you love. I go home to a silent apartment, an empty bed and the only person who can make it feel like Home is not there.

I count the weeks till you visit. I want you to see it for yourself so you can see what I mean. Tell me if I have glorified it too much, put some real perspective into it. I don't want to analyze the situation too much... lest I spoil the moment. I just want to savor it while it lasts... maybe until reality sinks in. Every tourist loves the novelty of the place and experience, because he knows it is temporary. Now if he were to live there, that would be a different thing. I know you will love the place, labs. But tell me if you would choose to live here. I can't seem to take off my blue-green-colored glasses (color of the Alps)... and it makes me quite biased.

You asked me about work... I don't know how to view it, really. We work as a team, each contributing the minimum to the expected output. We are pretty much left to chart our own path and there is some uncertainty as to what our real job function should be... it is frustrating for me to work without a goal in mind, no clear objectives (maybe this is why I feel out of sync). I have to struggle with producing an output based on guesswork, and no feedback regarding the work done (we're not even sure of the intended viewers). But this is not unusual in the whole project, so I feel it's premature to really tell whether or not this is something I will do for the long term. Maybe if I felt more "useful", I would allow myself some kind of ambition. Otherwise, I would have to evaluate again if this is the work I am supposed to do. It's all part of the process... the journey... the search... whatever we call it, our Personal Legends -- by challenging our comfort zones and committing to a Greater Change -- we are living it already.

Dearest labs, you have your own wings to fly. You and I, we are both complete as we are. God made us that way. Maybe we just make each other fly higher...the Wind beneath each other's wings. But the wind can't keep blowing all the time or you would reach a dangerous height, like that seagull who reached the sun and burned his wings... Be brave and soar high with the strength of your own wings. I will join you sometime... soon.

I love you. Always and forever.

Michele


-----Original Message-----
From: Junnie Arreza [SMTP:junnie@legmanila.com]
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2001 9:45 PM
To: Arreza,Michele,VEVEY,FC-GLOBE
Cc: Arreza,Michele,MANILA,ISD
Subject: I wrote this on my way home....in 10 minutes...


Have you had that feeling that you cant move? That thought that you cant fly? more so - to soar?
I am in that state right now. I sleep at 12 midnite. I wake up at 4 am, and then sleep again - just to make sure that we dont catch fire due to overload with aircon and pump both churning voltage and wattage at the same time.
I really wake up at 7, but d-d til 7:30. I am in the office by 8:30 and start hitting the keys by 9:30 after shuffling paper, cleaning my desk, poring through my old file - just the usual obsessive compulsive disorder that a lot of people have noticed in me and have given prescription. "Try to let go. Try to relax. Try to focus on certain things. not on details." Try. Try. Can't they just try - to shut up.

I go through the day and end it with no bells. no whistles, no fireworks, nothing. It is just another box with a number or two on the left side that I cross much like a prisoner who counts the number of days before freedom. Yes. I count the number of days that I will be with my loved one. I count the number of 12 midnites that I burn myself out with either movies, cds, books, cards, movies, cds, books, did I already mention those? O yesterday I tried another thing. I opened boxes. and saw pictures. I saw one with a cute kid with a cute kitty on her legs. Wow. Lucky kitty. Yes. I spend time. I eat time. I consume it.

... til I just have 5 more minutes of energy for me to say my "Angel of God my Guardian Dear to Whom is love entrusts me here...ever this day be at my side - to light and guard - to rule and guide. Amen...." and a dozen Z's follow.

And another day ends. And another day begins.

So what is it that I live my life? So what is it that I count the moment of solitude instead of the moment of companionship? Why do I wallow in being one-half, when I should be one? Tell me. I got my paycheck today. Gone tomorrow. Paid my dues. Paid my bills. Graduated with diplomas of ATM receipts of my paid life. My life? My life is not with the bills. My life is with somebody I have loved. I
have loved for the last 9 years of my life and beyond. Beyond life itself lies the end of this.

I end my day with the same foreboding thought, at 120 kph on the freeway. "What am I living my life for - if not to share it with my loved one? I waited for 22 years, just to be with her and everyday that passes, is a day gone from my eternity of being with her. Lost in the quagmire of supposed togetherness but is found in oneness. In the depths of being alone."

I increase the speed to 130 kph because it is only that way that I can fly.

I can't move.

I can't fly.

You know why? Because my other wing is not here with me....

I miss her so much.

I miss you Labs a lot lot lot more. much more than yesterday.

I love you...and it hurts not to be with you...come on home...

Junnie



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