what happened...

let me just say, i hate surprises. no wait, i DETEST them. i never enjoyed the feeling of the unknown and just the mere fact that something of the sort could be looming in my immediate future (in cases wherein someone was kind enough to leak me information) just drives me completely insane... as if i could get any worse. hence birthdays are a particular struggle for me. my ex-best friend before would often surprise we with unusual gifts, and despite the fact that it had already become a tradition between us every year, thereby also lessening the surprise-factor, just the mere fact that there was something "unknown" about the whole thing still gets me anxious. my birthday this year was no different, rather, it was since this is the first birthday i am celebrating while being in a relationship, so imagine only the level of anxiousness i had.

consider it grooming. i had been steadily breaking it to ros (my utterly adorable other half) about how i was not particular with special dates, as well as surprises. i had also been rather consistent (or so i believed) that i am better impressed by simple things and small gestures rather than grandiose expressions. thankfully so, he is keen to take note of these things, more so, also appreciates them since he too is not a fan of very overt gestures HOWEVER, for my birthday, he begged things to be different. enter the BAD feeling... i honestly have never seen anyone so excited for another's birthday but here he was, ros, practically bubbly with whatever it was that he was planning, NO, scheming, malevolently concocting in that brain of his... of what he wont tell me. not even give me a hint. threatening him with unimaginable pain would be futile since knowing him, when he says its a secret, it really is a secret and all i really could do was wait for that faithful, o horrible day...

september 9 fell on a friday and the entire day, i was in school taking an exam. ros had scheduled me for dinner and we agreed to meet slightly earlier to "prepare" for things to come. i had finished my exam early and got to makati earlier than expected. i decided to get a birthday haircut from my barber. he commented that i looked particularly dandy today. i told him i was off to a party later, not telling him it was my birthday. i loitered a bit more and eventually parked myself at my favorite coffee shop. ros arrived a few minutes later, practically beaming. i tried to hide my growing anxiety, as well as curiosity and struggled to keep myself calm and distracted. ros and i tend to feed off each other's energies and i was afraid if i got more anxious, he would get more excited, which would fuel my anxiety even more.... its a vicious cycle. ros eventually got things rolling and began to unravel his plot. the first installment was a scrap book he had made himself, which he demanded that i open leaf-by-leaf. as i panned through every page, my heart went soft, my mind wend numb and quite frankly, all my anxiety left me. each page contained a picture of a friend, holding up a letter, all the letters put together spelled HAPPY THIRTY SECOND BIRTHDAY. twenty five pages, twenty five letters, twenty five pictures of friends, some ros hasn't even met. he even had my BARBER and my cousin from Canada pitch in. to say that i was joyful is putting it lightly. i am at a lost of any expression as i feel the emotions for such hasnt even been invented yet. in the few minutes that i was there, flipping thru the pages over and over again, i could not stop thinking how much i love ros and that i could not show him how much it was that i did. all i could do was stare at his scrap book and flip through each page again and again. 

we went out to dinner at Top of the Citi, his second installment to his well-orchestrated surprise. we dined at our own private room overlooking salcedo park, our table strewn with rose petals.... an overly cheesy detail the resto manager thought appropriate, that was until he saw two guys walk into the room. bwahahahaha! i'll let the pictures do the talking here :)

we finally capped the night off with his third installment. he bought me perfume supposedly specially formulated to make people happy. to be quite honest, he need not have had anymore. i think i have enough happy in me to last me a very long time. thank you ros. i love you very very much.

humanda ka sa birthday mo. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!