Thursday, July 24, 2014

Coney, welcome to America, to the American Dream

I picked Coney from Los Angeles International Airport today July 23, 2014
from a 18 hour Manila-to-Southern-California trip.

Today marks a transition in both our lives. For me its the end of living alone for seven years while raising three kids: Justin, Trevor and Kristen. It marks a change from being independent and into a married life. I feel excited about this change, and inside me, I feel the urge to scream "Its about time! Heck Yeah!".

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Picking up Coney from Los Angeles International Airport

For Coney, it marks the day from being single and no kids to beig married and embracing my three kids. I'm not a mind reader but I wonder what's in Coney's mind and her concept about The American Dream. Is embracing my kids, part of that American Dream? My question to the reader is, what does the phrase "The American Dream" mean to you?

I learned a lot of experiences about living independently that I wouldn't otherwise came across had I not got divorced. What would those be you might ask.

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Stopping by a 24 Hr Diner for a Burger. She got hungry after a long journey and found Airline food to be horrible.

First that comes to mind is my Cooking skill. Back in my previous married life,I was content of cooking the occasional Pork or Chicken Barbecue or a killer Pancake or French Toast breakfast with all its accompaniments. Living independently and having three mouths changed all that. Feeding three kids under my own roof challenged me to come up with cooking Filipino, Asian, American, Mexican, you name it- dishes, in the most authentic and fastest way of cooking it. Imagine coming home from work on a weekday at 6 PM and still having to don a Kitchen Apron and cook up Dinner that will be ready by 7:30 PM - 8 PM.

I have my collection of cooking cheat sheet videos in the form of downloaded YouTube Cooking videos. For the life of me, I easily forget cooking ingredients , procedures and techniques. A quick view of a cooking video changes all that. All my Cookbook collections just gather dust on my bookshelf now. They've become obsolete in this age of instantaneous videos. My favorite cooking video that I've used on a daily basis over the years is Tony's YouTube Cooking videos also known as Foodtrip28's cooking videos. Toney, sulit dyay inaramid mo nga cooking videos lakay.

There's lots more and other instances: Trying to juggle a lot of things: Running a household; Getting the kids to help clean the house / kitchen; Balancing the checkbook; keeping up with Training/skills to be on top of my Information Technology career; helping my three kids with schoolwork; on and on.

It also marks an end to ten months of waiting, of a long distance love relationship. We used all possible Internet technologies on the books: SMS Text Messaging, Skpe Webcam chats, Yahoo Messenger chats, Facebook wall messages. We still used the good old pen, paper, greeting card and stamps, but those were used on special occasions only.

My feeling is this: it was nice being independent and single for a while, but I feel that life has to move on. We are all humans and deserve to love and be loved. I speak for myself though. I know a lot of people who are single and live a perfectly happy and content life.

I still have my three kids and I love them so much. And now I have Coney in my life, and Coney has me, my love and my commitment of love to her in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, and in joy as well as in sorrow till death do us part. This is one of the happiest moments in my life - with Coney into our lives. And for this, I praise the Lord, for His goodness to me, to us.

So, to mark the event I'm switching my Facebook status from "In a Relationship" to "Married".

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