Heartbreak recovery and resilience

BLOATED eyes. Bloated feet. Bloated ambot. Inflammation pa more. Could it be Jollibee? Kaluoy ni Jollibee, na-blame for my current cravings for its chicken sandwich supreme.

And that sandwich is always ordered with Chickenjoy and Jolly hotdog, sans the rice and buns, of course. Low-carb pa more. Yum!

One meal a day is most doable during busy days when I’m hopping from one place to another for one errand to another. Because of that sked, I wasn’t able to join a dinner with friends on Thursday evening last week. Tsk tsk.

For Saturday’s brunch, my food cravings leveled up to some Japanese goodies: ebi tempura and gyudon sans the rice.

Gyudon without rice could be too sweet. The first time I ordered that, I already noticed how sweet it could be, and that’s when I realized why it’s a rice topping. It needs rice to lessen the sweetness. And here I was again, ordering the same, as if I needed to be convinced pa more that it’s better with rice.

With all the sugar in the gyudon, plus the batter for the ebi tempura, this brunch was probably as high-carb as halo-halo. So, I was expecting to have side effects again.

To inspire myself to return to low-carb after a high-carb meal, I always have to remember my deep why for following this diet: my senior moments. The weight loss is merely a bonus.

And how timely is this—I was writing the words “deep why” while the Muzak in this corner of the world was “Ocean Deep.”

And guess who sang “Ocean Deep”? Cliff Richard, a crush ng bayan once upon a time, who’s now 83 years old.

Yes, the makabagbag-damdamin na “Ocean Deep”: “Ocean deep/I’m so afraid to show my feelings/I have sailed a million ceilings in my/Solitary room/Ocean deep.”

And talk of feelings, Imelda Marcos used to sing about that: “Feelings/Nothing more than feelings/Trying to forget my feelings of love.” Heartily dedicated to President Ferdinand Sr., of course. Wait, its lyrics are more in tune with Cagayan de Oro Rep. Lordan Suan’s Heartbreak Recovery and Resilience Act for heartbroken employees. So, why did the former First Lady dedicate that to her beloved hubby?

As for the heartbreaks, I’m already calculating the number of leaves I would have earned had the bill existed when I was younger. Now that I’m 36 and above, I deserve three heartbreak leaves in a year. This means it’s more difficult for the older heartbroken to recover. And all along I thought experience is the best teacher.

Suan was also the representative who made the Masterson Avenue runway, er, Masterson Avenue’s solar stud lights possible. Heartbreaks may prompt the brokenhearted to drink and drive, thus, the solar road studs to light up the path? Great idea, though. Masterson Avenue now looks like “a sky, ‘cause you’re a sky full of stars/I’m gonna give you my heart/‘Cause you’re a sky, ‘cause you’re a sky full of stars/‘Cause you light up the path.”

But driving along Masterson may make us ask, “Where do broken hearts go?/Can they find their way home/Back to the open arms/Of a love that’s waiting there?”