born on 14th of february

being born on a valentine’s day has its pros and cons:

pro:
greetings come early. everybody’s excited. whenever valentines day is being publicized, people automatically think it’s my day and they would greet me na, kahit pa it’s a week earlier.

con:
since practically everybody’s greeting me ‘happy birthday’, nakaka-pressure. you’ll want to please them, and make their wish come true and indeed have a happy birthday! but what if i don’t want to be happy that day? what if for a change, i want that day to be an ordinary, uneventful, or may be eventful but not necessary happy? does it mean i’ll fail those ‘happy wishers?’

pro:
nobody forgets. all my friends from luzon, visayas and mindanao greeted me. even my nieces abroad, took time to greet me. my grade and high school friends remembered, even my college barkadas. yung kalaro ko noon, which i haven’t seen ages ago, managed to get my number and greeted me at 1 o’clock in the morning. di ba katouch?

con:
flowers are expensive! all my life, i remember having to receive flowers on my birthday only four times!
1. on my 18th birthday, courtesy of marlon who happened to be working in a flowershop then. he made a wrist bouquet mula sa mga reta-retasong bulaklak na sobra sa orders.
2. 1995, ada gave me a white rose, bigay sa kanya ng suitor nya.
3. 2004, joshua gave me a bouquet of 3 red roses, pero binigay nya, 2 or 3 days before, kaya actually, hindi counted yun.
4. last year, again, ada, my beloved friend gave me flowers. “hay, awit, katumbas ng 2 araw na sahod ng manggagawa ang mga bulaklak na ito,” she said while handing me a bouquet of 3 peach roses.

generally however, i am still thankful to be born on the 14th of february. this gives me a reason to be happy, even if the happy-valentine's-day aspect of it has always been irrelevant to me. (bitter ba?)

(ps, another con, kabirthday ko si kris aquino!)