Cynical

Do you think I’ll ever have my happy ending?

It’s crazy how we always want to find out how the novel or the movie ends every single time we pine for the latest paperback novel or movie premier. But once they’re over, parang bitin di ba? Like, yun na yun? So what happens next? What happens after The Prince wakes up Cinderalla with his passionate kiss? What happens after The Prince slips on the glass slippers on Sleeping Beauty’s petit foot? (Okay, my fairytale IQ has just dropped from slim to none -- so sue me, Grimm Bros.!!) And what’s up with that one and only Prince tying the knot with all o’ them hot royal chicks, anyhow? (F*@#ING lucky selfish frog…)

I’m not on to this bittersweet, melodramatic, sour-graping crappy mood (really). My original idea here is to just ask what happens after living happily ever after. So… what does happen after the infamous “ever after?” Why call it… no, why even consider living happily ever after a happy ending for each and every single (real and surreal) story? It’s a complete irony, don’t you think?

END, as Mr. Webster graciously defines it, means “final part”. Come to think of it: in the real (and I mean REAL world), after marriage, or courtship, or after just a plain hook-up with your prey, the wife ends up doing the dishes, the laundry and the husband as well. The girlfriend ends up worrying and nagging and pissing off the boyfriend. The hiker (forgive me, I don’t know how else to put boy-toy or skank in a much more pleasant way) ends up just screwed, blown away and spent. It doesn’t look like the end has come for either one of the partners at all. Or has it? It doesn’t look all too happy either, does it? Does it?! So what’s with The Happy Ending? Why should ending be happy in the first place? It sounds so final. The end of it; FINIS. NIL. NADA. Done. Does that sound happy, even at least in a seemingly ideal storybook concept?

But there always are some short, short, (and I mean) short stories told and shared every now and then about those moments that leave you with that warm, fussy feeling all over. Like a one-liner from a husband who tells you how beautiful his wife is as she lays in the hospital bed all puffy and bloated after giving birth to their first born. How does it make you feel after having the slightest glimpse of an elderly couple just holding each other’s hands even if they’re just sitting right beside each other in an airport or in a park? Do you ever feel nostalgic every time you overhear somebody saying ‘I love you’ and ‘I miss you’ while they’re on the pay phone? If we are the ones caught up in such situations, would we actually ever want for those priceless moments to end?

But what if you haven’t even reached the curb that leads to the bridge of The Happy Ending, which leads to HappilyEverAftersville? Now I think this is where agitation hits us hard (and I mean really hard) in the head and drives us to be so desperate for at least a foreseeable ending of how things are going to turn out for us. What will it be like? What will I be like? How will my story turn out in the end? Will I end up being a suburban wife, a career mom, or an old spinster? How is it going to be for me? I bet a number of individuals (and it doesn’t matter whether they’re in a relationship or not) has asked themselves these at least once. I just did. And I’m afraid I’d still be asking them even after I’ve reached the end of the next paragraph. Heck, it’s most likely that I’d be asking these questions over and over again long after I’m done with this write up.

I have a theory (and yes, I’m still wondering about the questions I posted in the previous paragraph). We are all so eager to rush things just so we could find out how everything adds up in the end that we unconsciously and meticulously plan out our own ending according to our own ideals and even woes. Because of this, the whole thing either blows up in our own faces or slips right past us without us even noticing something wonderful has actually happened; that those things that we’ve been watching out for and planning and worrying about has just ended and has passed us by. The next thing we know, it’s already the ‘ever after’ that’s passed right under our insensitive noses. That’s why when we look at it and actually start seeing and watching that ‘ever after’, all we see are those downbeat instances that unconsciously convince us of all the cynicism we could muster and be paranoid about.

I’ve gotten used to plotting my own story down to the last space and exclamation point. But I’m afraid they would never get published or staged in my own reality. I’m afraid the cynic in me who takes tragedy with perfect grace and elegant poise has started to brush aside the child in me who so desperately wants to believe in the magic of fairytales and happy endings. Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten hurt and bruised so many times. Maybe it’s because I’ve cried so much both for love and pain. Maybe… But then again, it’s probably because, just like the ones caught in those short, short warm-fussy-feeling stories, I wouldn’t want such moments to end the instant that I am there. But will I ever get there again? Ever?

Is there really a prince out there for me? A knight in shining armor could be a plus, but a prince will do just fine. Nothing fancy needed, really. The title isn’t even necessary. He could just be a peasant boy for all I care. What matters to me is that he will be there across the bridge and carry me home to HappilyEverAftersville… But will I ever reach that bridge. If so, when? And by the time I do, would he still be there? Or would I take so long figuring everything out that he’d finally turn around and walk back without ever seeing me? Then again, what if he’s crossed the bridge himself to meet me half way and figure that I’m not the princess he wishes to carry home with him after all? That I was just a fairy or an elf or a cricket who would accompany him in searching for the queen that he has longed for all his waking hours? How is everything going to turn out for me then?



“Don’t think. Don’t analyze. Just be. The pain just comes from the interpretation.”