the dragon and the ram

it's times like this that i live for when you feel a genuine connection between people, even if just for a brief moment.

ok, ok, i am sure when kuya reads about this, his eyes are going to roll again. but i can't help it, i am an emo-type of guy. i naturally see weight in mundane things and emotions fuel my being :) i will however heed his advice to be a good manager of it since we both know what happens to me when i let my heart run amok. ok.. enuf of the shooting off tangent, back to the main THRUST!

so there i was with kuya driving back home through the mazes of MOA. despite having been there a couple of times, i still manage to get disoriented when driving back home, especially at night since the place is just too damn dark with no signs whatsoever. anyways, as we were driving, and i don't know how things came up but kuya and i just started talking about the what-ifs in life.

i started off by asking, what if we never returned from the states? that we actually braved the challenges back then and just stayed. would we have turned out generally the same or would we have come out totally different? kuya said we would probably have become good people since our lives would have revolved around church (like all our relatives there) and other fellow Christians. he said we would also probably be very successful there since we were both smart and have the stuff to survive.

though i too agree about us being successful, i on the other hand had grimmer premonitions. i told him our family would have probably gotten all screwed up. taking into consideration my dad's issues with authority and the free minded culture of the states, all three of us would have probably head-butted each other to the point it would have driven my peace loving mom to have a meltdown. then again, it could just be the drama in me talking. if my brother's prediction came true though, then mine would certainly not happen.

kuya's answer was rather surprising since between the two of us, i would probably be considered the more pious one, and thereby have the more pious answer. my answer however was definitely nowhere near pious, it wasn't even positive! being the "manager" i was expecting his answer more in the lines of business stability, never really the touchy-feely stuff which is most often than not, MY realm. our answers were what was in our hearts and just proves the difference between kuya and me and our outlooks in life. he as always is level headed and finds the glimmer in the dark and follows it, i on the other hand have a penchant for drama (daw!) and wallow in tragedy. despite me thinking we are finally meeting eye to eye and relinquishing my once yin-yang theory about our dynamics, here again was another instance wherein, even if we have become closer over the years, we are still poles apart.

we still talked about other things after that but that first question stuck the most. kuya's answer, even if he delivered it in his often objective manner whenever i throw him these hypothetical questions, felt tender and sincere. almost like it was a secret wish that he voiced out. it was actually comforting to witness this, so much so that i needed to document it for posterity's sake, since i am sure it would soon be forgotten in the days ahead.

kuya the dragon, my pillar of objectivity and reason, is also a softee :)