An open letter to my future boyfriend

Geez, I am already 44 and it’s time I stopped being coy.

And how young are you? Young enough to be my son. Contrary to a romanticized belief, age does matter. However, I believe our generation gap will work both ways, positively and negatively. My experience, your exuberance. My maturity, your vitality. My patience, your impertinence. And so on and so forth. Like yin and yang, our age gap will be filled by itself to create balance and harmony. There will be contradictions, there will be clashes considering our differences --- but at the end of the day, there will be love and that’s all that really matters.

Aside from God, my family and some well-meaning friends --- I have never spoken these words to anybody. Oh yeah perhaps to Simon Atkins or Joseph Yeo, or even to Cha Cruz or Michelle Gumabao, or to Anne Curtis or Angel Locsin. But save for God, my family and well-meaning friends,  no individual was really worth these three little big words. And I am saying them now, to you and to you alone. I love you.

With those words comes my total package. Me, myself and I. I am not going to change anything for you. Perhaps, my routines will do change. My schedule will be damned I know and my body clock will always be hyperactive. But I will still be me.

Neither would I ask you to change anything, save for that hair perhaps? I love the way you rock my world. I love the way you make me feel not like a natural woman but like my natural self. I love the way you make me comfortable about myself and about us, together. For the first in my life and I had to be 44 to be able to do this, I can walk holding hands with a guy. And I thank the heavens that right hand belongs to you.

I cannot promise you anything; you know, materials things and all. I cannot buy you that Kobe VII. I cannot make you ride in a luxury car. I cannot treat you in an expensive restaurant. I cannot lend you money. I cannot support your family. I cannot be your sugar daddy. All I can be is to be me. All I can give is myself. And that means everything and every piece of me.

I can promise you that I will dance with you in the rain. I promise that I will cry with you when you’re in pain. I promise that I will listen to your out-of-tune songs and to your never-ending stories. I promise to laugh at your antics and outdated knock-knock jokes. I promise to be with you in your most trying times. I promise to be away from you if you needed time to be alone. I promise to give you space and I will respect that. I will respect also your own beliefs, your own set of values, choices and preferences [Ok, no pork when we dine together]. Most of all, I will respect you being you.

Lastly, I promise not to be perfect and to be a perfectionist. I have lost a lot of opportunities to love and be loved for trying to be perfect, for setting out perfect ideals. But that didn't mean you are not perfect. As a matter of fact, you are the perfect guy I have been praying for. And you even came at perfect time and place. But let us just stop there. Let us not try to be perfect for each other. We are not and we will never be. Love by itself is a continuous perfection. It cannot be perfect at one single millisecond.

Geez, I am already 44 and old enough to be your daddy; still I would have the gall and confidence to say all these things to you.

That is, when we finally cross paths.

And I hope it won’t be until I turn 45.