refocus

when i enter a restaurant, i immediately know who's married and who's only engaged or going steady. i'm sure you do too.

the unmarried lovers are seated very close to eah other. so close in fact, that microbes will have difficulty passing between them. their hands are joined, their fingers wedged, their legs intertwined, their toes linked. (look beneath the tablecloth and you'll see a very sensual love affair taking place right there.)

most critically, you will also notice that their eyes are fixed on each other and nothing else. their mutual gaze is nailed, glued,, and cemented. their food is cold on the table, barely touched. because nothing else matters. the restaurant might be burning, an asteroid might come crashing through the roof, and a nuclear warhead might suddenly land on their table---and they wouldn't even notice it. ooooh. because they're in love.

married couples act quite differently.
the first thing you notice is that they sit apart. a ten-wheeler can pass through them quite nicely. both are busy eating, slicing, forking, spooning, dipping, and munching.
no sensual foreplay is taking place beneath the tablecloth.

their eyes? darting left and right, scanning the architecture, surveying the interior design, counting the light bulbs, critiquing the waiters, observing the other customers. oh yes, every other customer in the restaurant is cross-examined, their fashion style denounced, their hairdresser condemned, their personal history conjured, their financial worth assessed, and their body weight ridiculed.

sounds familiar?

in a word, married couples tend to be unfocused. they no longer see each other---for the other gets lost in the minute details of the background. like tuition fees. toilet training. house amortization. terrible two's. wrinkles and overlapping cellulite.

and then we complain that we have fallen out of love! as though we are victims to things we have no control over.

baloney. (too unFilipino? let me rephrase. longganisa.)

the truth is, we have control over it. couples must make it a habit to refocus. because it's quite normal to get distracted. so they talk. they txt. they pray.

and so i talk. i txt. i pray.

refocusing things up.