A man's home is his own fortress, it seems. It is a place where he can leave the ills of the world on the doorstep as he enters his own personal realm of comfort and peace. Many a man has survived vicissitudes and tribulation with naught but his bare hands to fight back with, owing to the contentment and repose he has found in his own home.
I married at the ripe, old age of twenty-four. Young, by today's standards when most of the men I knew married ten years after. There were no regrets, though I married a lovely sweet girl. She wasn't particularly beautiful, but she had dark eyes which twinkled and who laughed a lot. She also had a contagious laugh, which bordered on twinkling when she was delighted and hysterical when she panicked, like when she loses her keys. There had never been two contrasting people in world such as us. She was quiet and studious, I was outgoing and carefree. She was naïve and philosophical, I was cynical and street-smart. Maybe that was we complemented each other so well. Well, not so well I hope, for would take the spice off our marriage.
We were blessed with a baby girl. My wife had this crazy notion about names and heritages, which was why the child was named
Andrea Celina. Andrea for me, Celina for her mother, and the Spanish twang for a sense of history. Said Andrea Celina is now four and half years old, is as tall second grader, and as lively as fifty pounds worth of kinetic energy. She is currently enrolled in Kindergarten, can be as straightforward as Oprah Winfrey, and as eccentric as Howard Hughes when she's upset. She is also second in her class, is a good reader, a much better, but a lazy writer, reasoning out that longhand has been outmoded by the keyboard. As any proud father would note, she looks like me, in more ways than one. She has slatted cat's eyes, chubby cheeks and a perk nose. Rather tall for her age, she well probably took after me, (I stand a statuesque 5'6), since none of my wife's brother stand above 5'5.We live in a small house in Marikina and lead very simple lives, so simple in fact it could be routine. Outside of the daily argument as to who feeds the dog, and who does the dishes, which my wife and I have settled by getting a maid, not much happens at home. We have the usual scuffles about the weekly budget and the rows about using the car out too much, but outside of this our homelike is relatively simple, albeit Spartan. We don't go out as much as we did before we had Ancel, but have managed to content ourselves malign (rather popular this entertainment called malign in this day and age of severe economic crisis) which Ancel seems to love, and scouting the countryside's of Marikina in our small rundown motorcycle, which interestingly enough, accommodate the three of us.
A man could want for more, but I dare not. Though sometimes, I find myself coveting a newer car model, or a bigger, grander house, I dare not. I have heard of men biting off more than they can chew and loosing their family in the process and I am stricken by an irrational fear that I might do just this and end up like them. I dare not. I can only do the best of what I can and hope and pray that I do them well.
