Part 9

The Rainbow Fades

It was the biggest joke of fate by far when one day, around the earlier days of December of last year, I became the object of some scandalous issues. 

It was a weekend.  We, (Adam, Janelle, Grace and myself) have had a little too many to drink in the couple’s place.  It was all fun.  The best of time I had in quite a long while now.  The talking never ends, the punch lines carried and followed on immediately by roars of laughter- alcohol over flowing, tongues twitching, eyes drooping, joints softening, slurred speech and the ample supply of self confidence as the liquor meter swims upwards along the bloodstream.  Grace the saint, has gone to bed early on.  So it became a party of three.  Oh, I have to say again, IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES.  Not until two days later.

Janelle started to post shout-outs on this public networking site, saying she has been betrayed; she doesn’t understand people who talks like this and acts opposite; she said, she was there when she is needed by this friend, and look what she has done to her.  The rest of the ladies reacted to it naturally.  I myself totally goof around the shout-outs and commented with a laugh that I think it was me she is talking about suffixed with the usual “LOL.”  Good heavens and beautiful earth! Guess what? She is actually talking about me!

I flirted with Adam the later time of that night of our drinking session; Adam said “I love you” to me couple of times about that time; Adam held me by the waist and feed me popsicle later on; All of which were witnessed by Janelle herself because they happened in her presence – ALLEGEDLY.  My good Lord, I cannot remember a thing!  And how funny that is that I remember all the rest, except those things Janelle is accusing me of doing.  At 32, do I have a selective memory loss now?  Darn!

I am so embarrassed, upset, frustrated and degraded.  And you know me; I would always tend to over think.  If in fact I did the flirting, why didn’t Janelle confront me right on?  That was a Saturday night.  I stayed over in their house for the next two more days.  Everything was normal.  I was clueless.  Oh, I am so dumb!  Tuesday morning when I called Janelle for our usual chit-chat, she finally told me that she “loves me, but she hates me at the same time.”  That, she added, “I crossed her line.” 

That night, I wasn’t able to sleep; I was trying to recall what had happened.  Could it be Adam’s fetching me from my house to stay over in their house?  Could it be the time Adam is spending to show me his coin collection?  Could it be Adam’s showing me how their basement looks like?  It was not.

It all happened in a snap.  The tight knit binding us didn’t just loosen up, it instantly melted and disappeared.  There isn’t any transition as well.  I lost the friendship.  Just like that. 

 

I bumped into Janelle a few days after that phone call, and we had a talk.  It was then that she told me what happened that night.  I couldn’t agree. I just couldn’t.  I wanted to yell at her and fight.  I am mad.  But I simply couldn’t make a scene.  Inside me however; my blood boils; I am furious.  Yes, I have had so much alcohol that night, but I didn’t lose my sanity.  I wasn’t dumb enough to do such things.  I maybe liberal when it comes to many things, but I don’t snatch somebody else’s husband; so much so to do it, right in the presence of the wife; the wife who, by the way, is a friend of mine.  I was speechless.  Janelle, surprisingly, even offered that we remain friends after all. Ridiculous!!! No, thank you, I sure can do better than that. 

I was hurt.  Then again, what if the allegations were true?  Mind you though, Adam did the flirting as was the story is telling.  As if it makes that much of a difference.  But while I feel a tiny bit of relief inside, I just couldn’t be friends with these people anymore.  It was painful; it was very devastating.  And the fact that all the rest of the girls already knew Janelle’s sentiments before I did, I felt betrayed as well.  So, that was what is happening during the couple of days of not confronting me.  She gathered her original flock and told them about what she thinks of me.  

It doesn’t sound fair.  Okay, I was there.  She had these girls with her way long enough before I came into the scene.  But do you really measure friendship over the length of time you spent together? And for goodness sake, I was the main concern; I was the person in question; we were even together for the next couple of days; you could have at least dropped some hints that you are holding grudges against me.  We could have made things clear first before it became the talk of the town.  Do you really care?  And you were telling me you still wanted us to be friends?  Bullshit!  If you wanted me to be a friend, you wouldn’t put me down and make me an object of gossiping around.  You could have at least given me the privilege to explain myself.  Yes, you will consider giving me that privilege to explain if in fact, the friendship means anything to you. 

It was awful.  Everywhere I go, I feel like everybody’s looking at me and talking about me.  Paranoia – I went through that.  And who wouldn’t?  It was a difficult time.

To this day, I am still hoping to reconcile with what really happened.  If I offended anyone, I am sorry.  But I am wishing so bad, that I may remember those things they say I did, so that I may ask for forgiveness sincerely.  But I cannot.  One friend told me her confident conclusion on the matter:  “Adam has this thing for you.  It might have become too intense and obvious that night that Janelle was bothered and planted things so as to get rid of you. “

Well, she may be right.  From the time I met Adam, as I recall the events now, I can tell, that with more conscious analysis, he does treat me extra-specially amongst the rest of the ladies.  I recall that on one occasion, we had a chat over Facebook and he told me, he took a very nice picture of me during our trip to Banff and he has it with him.  I now take another thought of how he religiously follows my profile and admire me rather romantically on almost all the photos I upload.   Another time, he told me how my smile makes him smile.  Adam even told me I am a very special girl, so young, but so matured in thinking.  And that night when he offered to take me from home to stay over in their house, only later on did I know that Janelle wasn’t aware of Adam’s decision to come and get me.  And to make this recollection complete, I remembered that one day, when our weekend stay in their house ended, Adam gave me a tight hug and whispered: “Would you come with me to travel overseas?”  I didn’t mind these things as much before and I could be wrong, but who really knows?

                Until this time, as I am writing, I still have doubts about almost everything.  Another friend of mine told me that maybe, Janelle and mine’s friendship doesn’t have that strong foundation just yet.  And that, if she chose to judge me, then the friendship I was sharing with her is all but superficial. 

I have a fair share of frustrations though.  Did I actually just make up that rainbow all by myself?  Was I dressing up too provocatively?  Am I loud?  Am I a FLIRT?  I might be somehow, and who isn’t? I’m sure majority of us made some flirty looks and body language at one point in our lives - a wink; an extra sway of the hips; a pouty lips.  No big deal though.  That doesn’t make you a slut.  But one thing for certain, I don’t snatch somebody else’s husband.  Whether he is my friend’s husband or not, is out of the question.  I simply don’t snatch.  That is not my thing.

I decided to stay away from the rest of the ladies from then on and for a few reasons.  One, I need time and space; I need peace.  Two, I couldn’t afford to be around people who couldn’t and wouldn’t see me through.  Also, somebody told me once, “if you have a conflict with one person, he could be the problem; if you have a conflict with two people, they could be the problem; but if you have a conflict with more than that, then you could be the problem.”  Seven ladies on other end....hmmm.... I thought, I must be the problem.

Oh by the way, I had some news about Maya.  I will tell you about that next time.

 

Noreen

The 8-Shaded Rainbow -pArt 8

Funny how coincidentally, when I counted it today, it turned out to be about eight months now since that trip to Banff.  Eight months, eight shades.  Hmmm... I think all I needed now is just one more “8” then I would go bet and could win the lottery!!!  One more “8” or maybe, one more friend.

In the course of almost eight months, somewhere in between, the 8-shaded rainbow in my head didn’t really stay “8” far much longer.  It became 9...4...7...5...1...8 again... back to 9 and right now, for me, it has just become all but a still image, some unrecognizable number between 1 and 9, yet, so vivid in my mind – only yellow and blue sometimes, all purple on rainy days, green and red on some occasions.  In my nightmares however, all the colors are there looking so much like the picture on a little kid’s first finger painting stint – chaotic, dramatic, bewildered.

In the meantime, before I lay my card to conflicts, let me tell you how 8 became 9. 

Noreen.  She is 32 - happily married to Dominic and a doting mom to Helena, her 6 year old daughter.  And yes, just like the rest of us, except Janelle, Noreen’s family is left back home in the Philippines as well.  She’s a masseuse – a good paying profession she chose to let go of in exchange of a better life she aspires for her young family.  Noreen and I share an extra special friendship.  We have known each other for, give or take, 3-4 years now.  We went through Proficiency Training together back in the Philippines.  We snubbed the free food in the training center (you can imagine how free food looks like, right?)  We feasted on Pork BBQ and roasted Chicken at the nearby restaurant instead.  We finished the month-long- training in one week and braved the assessors’ intimidating questions against our trainers’ will.  We lined-up late to get the results and got them ahead of those who were standing way upfront the line.  We jumped and screamed to the positive results of our assessment, amidst the arching brows of the rest of the examinees.  We didn’t care.  All we know is that we passed with flying colors and only later did we know that our training center has some political-affiliation going on with the Assessing Agency, that’s why we don’t necessarily need to wait in line.  Well, I have proven one thing then, that politics is good only if it works on your favour. *wink* 

She left for Hong Kong two days earlier than me.  And for some reasons, we lost contact.  Until one day, my brother sent me an email with Noreen’s Hong Kong phone number.  (It turned out that the last time I texted Noreen before she left for Hong Kong, I was using my brother’s mobile phone.) The rest, again, was history.  As soon as we found each other in Hong Kong, we were total allies.

She has gone through a difficult employer-employee relationship in Hong Kong.  But she made it just fine.  Together, we didn’t let go of our ultimate dream – to come to Canada.  (For some reasons connected to our government system in the Philippines, it is an awfully-shameful process to apply directly to Canada from our country.)  Hong Kong was our ticket to ride.  And because it was, we did whatever it takes to get hold of that ticket.

           Noreen for all I’ve known of her is a very determined being - emotionally stable, observant and ready to learn along the way. She confesses how she regrets not being fluent in English.  She is health conscious (good for her), she is grumpy sometimes (like who doesn’t get grumpy at all?), she nullify affinity and affection when it becomes a bit tight.  She sets a wall when she smells fluidity.  She wanted to have her eyes only to her husband and child.  She is Dominic’s wall, but she melts when he gets mad.  She would give up fun and claim it’s not her thing if only to show her husband the respect.  Well, don’t get me wrong but it sometimes seems too mushy for me perhaps because I am not her.  I couldn’t even speak about my idealism here relationship-wise, because I myself am out of a relationship (some reputation...)  Like a dentist talking about breast implants huh? 

Recently, I have had to deal with my biggest sorrow to date.  Noreen was there, not so much of those words, but a pat on the back worked like magic.  I haven’t had the chance to tell this girl how I appreciate having her in my life but I guess she’s seen it more than I needed to speak of.

So, naturally, I introduced Noreen to the ladies.  (Her struggle against a difficult employer-employee relationship in Hong Kong, followed her in Canada like some fate we were talking)  She had it worst when she, against her will of course have had to cut off her employment from this “Cruela De Vil” of the modern age.  Anyway, she came to Canada about a couple of months later than me – in another town, about 45 minutes away from where I am.  The culprit sent her off the house packing at an unholy hour of the night.  Nowhere to go, too shy to call my place, she called a taxi instead and went to the house of somebody she knew closest to where she is leaving from.  BUT NO TEARS, mind you.  She told me later, she stood there still, feet firm on the ground, while the evil woman point her finger to her and almost about to slap her.  Oh Jessie, yes, I know I couldn’t possibly be as strong as Noreen.  I weep upon hearing an angry voice an octave higher than the usual.  But Noreen is different.  I wish I have her strength, I wish I am as brave.

But hey, just like all of us, Noreen is human too.  And just like any other heroes and heroines, she’s got an Achilles’ heel of her own – Dominic.  He, for the last few months has been ill of this and that.  Acute gastroenteritis, appendicitis, Helicobacter Pylori (H. Pylori) and most recently, he needed to have tonsillectomy.  Good heavens!  Does it ever end?  Noreen cries very rarely (except of course for the tons of tears she already let go of on her favourite “Filipino Telenovelas” which she religiously follows in YouTube.)  But Dominic is a rare case.  He is Noreen’s life.  And while she knows deep down in her heart that it is not right to question the goings of her life on earth, I actually eavesdropped the other day, nosy as I am, and heard her saying: “Why Dominic?  There are lots of irresponsible men out there with so many vices... Dominic doesn’t drink alcohol, he never smokes... why him?”

In between Noreen’s sobs and endless sighs, I somehow came to understand another side of her.  While she is here to take care of her family’s future, inside her soul, all she really just wanted, is to be where Dominic and Helena are.  

Bella

 

 

imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutelyridiculous than absolutely boring

 

Jessie

The 8-Shaded Rainbow -PaRt SeVeN
 

Trees, swaying ever-so-gracefully through the teasing wind blows.  A lone seagull, daringly- dancing mid air.  Skies, deep gray as if to best express gloom.  Airplanes roaring-invisibly, taking off and touching down, concealed underneath a thick sheet of rain cloud.  The calm downpour wraps everything into a blur of dew – the drizzle – if they were kisses, then, the bright green grass gets to taste the sweetest touch of romance in this young, beautiful morning. 

As soon as the sun shines its first rays, my heart leaped with the thought of setting afoot over the misty earth.  This is one of those moments when I would dream of becoming something else; something odd; somewhere else – like being that lone “knife” among a thousand spoons; like being that “fly” in that chardonnay; like the “ticket” itself on a free ride – something opposed but relatively connected to whatever that infamous song by Ms. Morissette is all about.

Today, I wanted to be a ghost in a gazelle-like motion.  I wanted to feel the rapture of emotions as I dance and run around invisibly; my heart and mind entirely conscious as the dampen dirt tickle my feet; the moist air chills my soaked skin – a splash sending my hair around as if in a play of tug;  A ghost – invisible but free.  

Amidst these thoughts, the haunting goes on.  The voice, tiny and gentle from long ago, abruptly turned into deafening screams.  I don’t want to listen.  I don’t want to hear anything.  I don’t want reconciliation.  Yet the voice is getting stubbornly-louder each time – so honest and upfront that there is barely time to either argue with or listen to it.  Now what do I do?

32 years.  Thirty and two years... Still, I have yet to capture the essence and completeness of my being.  The queen of cliché question:  Where am I headed for?  In the rarest and most difficult moments, I force myself to sit down and confront the yelling voice in my head.  To my despair, the conversation had never ever changed.  It is the same old bout against a stubborn, fierce and strong-willed image in my mirror – stone-cold and hard.  I know, as it does always, I would end up in the corner asking myself time and time again – how was it ever possible that a solitary face can make as much poor judgements in life? It was just a matter of left and right.  How could have I chosen one turn leading to a full, life-changing spin.

As the raindrops trickle through the windowsill, I wondered if they wanted to come through... Is that what they wanted to do but cannot?  Was it the rain cloud’s decision as to where exactly those raindrops should fall?  Suddenly, I wanted to be a raindrop.  From the thought of having my feet tickled by the dampness of the earth, I wonder how it is going to feel underneath those human feet.  As if I do not know yet.  Oh, silliness! 

If I am a raindrop, I should be somewhere I am best needed.  But will I belong?  Will I be able to serve my purpose?  Do I need to ask?  Or should I just figure it out?  Shall I wait and see?  Who shall agree?  Who will think otherwise? Who needs to listen?  Who Cares?

Jessie.  That’s me - the 8^th shade of the rainbow.  Quite eccentric, a little bit of this and that.  The emotional freak.   But the ladies took me in just the same.  Now whether I am the shade in between blood or sunshine, or between the ocean and the lush forest, I cannot quite tell.  Above were my thoughts before we started the trip to the Rockies.  That’s me. I tend to over think.  I am flowery, I am melodramatic but I love comedy.  I am a weirdo.  I wanted to dig stories out of bean sprouts.  I find joy making an image in my mind of a gigantic teardrop chasing a clown.  I would like to someday hear a story about the only frog in the world without a tongue.  Oh, I don’t know.

I still haven’t outgrown wishing upon a star.  I have too much baggage they say, that I still have so much of my past stuck to my skin like a leech.  I haven’t learned to let go after all these years.  I haven’t learned or maybe I don’t want to learn.  I still have nightmares about failures I have made. 

In the process of watching the lives of these ladies, I was able to see pieces of my dismantled self.  Maya’s “bitching around”; the “too-good-to-be-true” show I see through Grace; that “material girl” thing in Anne;  Angela’s “everything-I-do-I-do-it-for-you” drama;  Beatriz’s “crying a river over being dump for another girl”; Janelle’s “heavy-drama-tears-soaked-snot-glazed” story of practical choices; and, Rachel’s “bullshit” on being okay while alone.

A little bit of this and that. That’s me – the Chameleon.  It may sound rather negative and it’s up to you to decide as I see you here more and more.  See you.

Rachel

The 8-Shaded Rainbow  -PArT sIx

I once dare asked Janelle as to what the real deal is.  Does she intend to embrace the relationship forever anyway?  Will she sugar coat everything and hold on till the very end as was expected?  Her firm “NO” didn’t surprise me all that much.  Boy, what’d she give up to break free?!  Shopping money?  Somewhere between her words and body language, cliché and I met once more – “Money can’t buy happiness.”    

I feel for her.  My mind wanders at the thought of how our fate could turn to be so ill-twisted and expensive to cost us our entire happiness.  And as if to put the joke on each of us, I came to realize that in one way or another, there lies a parallelism between our fate and our personal choices, so that when fate brings about sorrow, all it takes is our choice to either cave in to it or hold back and step out of misery.  Ergo, at the end of the day, the choice to be either happy or miserable is ours and ours alone.  

Alone but not lonely – that would be Rachel.  She is in her mid 30’s.  No boyfriend since birth (NBSB), never been in love, never have had sex.  We get along pretty well.  We seem to have affinity to lots of the same things – shopping, love for the family and endless driving around, be it just to snatch Mc Donald’s munchies or splurge into high-end perfumes.  And so of course, I wouldn’t dare and argue with her when she say she’s not lonely.  Yes, I wouldn’t argue, “NOT” out loud despite the deafening scream inside my head: “Tell that to the marines!”  I mean, come on already!  Everybody around you is shagging it! Screwing it and being screwed (forgive me for my loud words, please)...while you are left out on one corner thinking who knows what!  Of course you are lonely!  But for the sake of being shopping buddies, I will give you that.

I am not sure though, why that song by The Platters plays over and over in my ears... Ohhhhhhhh yes, I’m the great pr..... (Err...sorry, how does it go?  Oh, you know what, in moments like this, how I so regret not-being-so-musically-inclined! Grrr...)

              In all fairness to Rachel, her character or the character she shows is very admirable.  She is from a well-off family back in Manila.  She used to be a Bank Manager in the Philippines before she found herself in the company of rag mop, duster and wipe cloth here in Canada, her skinny built (thanks to the all-time-bland-food she is only allowed to eat because of an organ failure)stacking piles and piles of liquor cases.   To me, she’s like Barbie – but being the Princess and the Pauper at the same time-two extremely opposite lifestyles lived by one person.  Her claim to fame:  She can clean like a Pro now, like you wouldn’t think in the world she could.  And for that, I am sincerely proud of her.  I actually am in the state of serious looking out for a deserving bachelor out there so as to show Rachel what being “not-lonely” really means. 

Janelle

The 8-Shaded Rainbow -Part fIvE

   Now, remember Janelle?  That’s right.  She is the first of the ladies I befriended - a beautiful soul with equally beautiful hour-glass figure.  Let me now get back to her part of this story.   

    As our very young friendship sails on, Janelle deliberately shared with me her thoughts, the desires of her heart and the picture of life she, still, is wishing to capture.  Armed by prayers and a good heaping serving of optimism, Janelle is living with a great big hope that someday, somehow, “ONE TRUE LOVE” would finally bump into her, somewhere.  Of course I gasped! Complete with the usual girly exaggeration - two hands over my mouth, eyes popped-out and my voice eight octaves higher than the normal, I exclaimed:  ARE YOU NUTS?????!!!  

    And with that, I mean only, what the hell is going on? What happened to the already picture-perfect family I am looking at for a couple of days or so now? Janelle went on with her miseries at the rear seat of the monster truck, in perfectly-modulated whispers, and before I knew it, tears were rolling down her cheeks.  Unbelievable!  Janelle is such a bubbly person, I reckon.  In split seconds however, here she is crumbling and falling apart.  At that moment, I thought I am going to faint.  I cannot breathe and I can feel my heart being pinched into pieces.  

    I was so confused and I suddenly couldn’t get myself together as well.  I wanted to comfort her – pass on a box of Kleenex maybe?  But my vision turned blurry.  I cannot see through the mist.  Oh, it wasn’t until I felt my own tears trailed through my face down to my lips that I came to realize how much mist I have made on my sunglasses while I almost caught up on hyperventilation.  I must admit, I am a true-blooded emotional freak but as I watch Janelle, I only can see how really unfair life treats us sometimes.  She is a genuinely good person.  And if only for that, I believe she deserves to be treated nice.  For all of Janelle’s life, she has to fight way too many battles.  She never met her biological parents.  She is physically abused by her adoptive mother.  She was passed around to non-blood-relation relatives to be their slave.  She was denied education.  She was denied her soul.  And so when Adam came, she found her perfect getaway vehicle.  “Perfect” being the most misunderstood word.  

     Apart from language barrier which is a huge problem to start, Adam, according to Janelle, was not only looking for his 4^th bride, but also a top notch “maid” to come with the package.  And Janelle met the qualifications.  She didn’t care.  True, at that point in her life, she decided to choose security over madness.  But who cares?  That doesn’t make her less human.  She has reasons. She has a hellhole to escape from and so when the chance came by, she clung into it without a hint that she is actually just about to go to yet another hellhole.  Adam entertains ex-lovers at their house.  With a girl in his lap, he would order Janelle to get them coffee.  How so very evil.  When she got pregnant, he doubted if the child was his.  When she gave hints to leave him, he scared her to death.  When he found yet another girl, he attempted to dump her like a dead rat.  When she threatened him that she would turn him in to authorities and make stories that he hits her, they hugged, kissed and made up. 

    They have been together ever since, regardless of what is going on in their respective minds.  As for me, it only takes an eye to eye conversation with Janelle for me to understand her ordeal, with our hearts doing the talking to one another.

    Now, I will be entirely biased though if I wouldn’t even attempt to lay Adam’s side of the story. 

  

    He is a total charmer.  The kind of man I now know of him, is someone who is greatly-changed.  He is very affectionate to her and totally crazy about her.  He makes Janelle laugh (perhaps to compensate the buckets of tears he caused her in the past.)  If I shut my brains and just let my eyes gaze upon them, all I see is, again, the same “picture-perfect” frame I saw while we all groove to “Akon’s heart-pumpin’ music” all aboard the monster white truck cruising along the Rockies.    

Angela, Rainbow 4

The 8-Shaded Rainbow -pArT fOuR

    Oh yes, BEING THERE.  As overrated as the statement may be, I personally believe that unless you are in the exact situation, you can never tell what it truly means. 

    In a month or so, she will be the group's next bride.  At 32, Angela is all set and ready for the big day.  Dean is American, at least two feet taller than her.  Good news is, they are equally crazy about each other.  I was there when he proposed online – Yes, online!  But what the heck!  At least he is one of those few guys left on earth, having had no troubles of shouting to the entire “world-wide-web” about his most endearing feelings and the truth that he found TRUE LOVE in her!  I should say, (without any intention to sound overly-mushy) Angela and Dean found their very own "happily-ever-after" in these modern days of credit-card-sized cameras and Apple iPad. (I know...I know...being a not-so-technical kind of person that I am, when I first heard about iPad, I thought, it is misspelled.  It was not).  Anyway, it was altogether utterly sweet and lovely.  

    Janelle daringly- admitted to me, how envious she is on how things turned out for Angela. Quite a bold confession!  I, on the other hand zipped my mouth shut.  I danced to the masquerade of smiles and laughter trying as hard as I can, to conceal the very same feeling I feel as Janelle does.  Oh and by the way, the kind of envy I am talking about isn't exactly the one which belongs to the 7 Deadly Sins.  It is just a sort of high school teeny-beanie jealousy - that kind that normally goes away after you have had a shower.  Not deadly at all. 

    Alright, moving on.  Beatriz is the sixth shade of the rainbow.  She has two kids who are being taken care of by her in-laws in the Philippines.  Eric, her husband, works in some part of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).  Their love story started off as a “rebound.”  Now, whosoever was the rebound of whom, I am not confident enough if I remember it right, so let us just skip that part please. (I will set the record straight and right once I bump with Beatriz again.  That’s a promise.)  Without further ado, here comes the stinger... Eric fell in love with another girl in KSA!  My oh my, why am I not so surprised here?  It’s the usual - younger, prettier, sexier and fresher.  (Duh!  Like are there anymore new excuses you guys can possibly think of? Huhummmm...) Nonetheless, I think the bomber there was the fact which Eric admitted to Beatriz, that he indeed actually have fallen “IN LOVE” with the other girl.  Ouch!  That sucks big time!  Oh I tell you, Beatriz literally cried a river...of course she was devastated, she wanted to kill herself!  She’d rather be dead than to see her family falling apart.  She was a real drama queen but so worthy of the crown.  I can tell.  I actually almost believed that for a moment, I was looking in a mirror as I was to talking to her.  I have been there - maybe not exactly the same road, but a parallel one.  It was painful.  However, to give Eric a decent fight, I would have to agree that Beatriz’s nagging is gruesome.  But still, that doesn’t change the fact that Eric, totally went overboard and did the common mistakes most of us humans have done, still doing, and for some, will continue doing.

    Beatriz’s and Eric’s story was a bit short of a circus it turned out, to which the rest of the group took pleasure of peeking into.  (Geez, some people... Okay, Fine!  I am one of them!  Shame on me!  In defence though, would you rather close your eyes and deny yourself of a FREE reality show complete with popcorn and beer???) 

Oh well...