Daily Archives: 08/19/2011

(You know who you are. If only there’s a toast tomorrow, this is what I will say.)

We thought we’ll never see the day.

How you all persevere under gigantic, huge, tremendous hardship all through the years is beyond our knowledge.
Well, actually, we may have tiny knowledge on that, but often they’re buried under your cheeky laughter, your mischievous smile, and most importantly, beneath the layers of martabak manis special double chocolate and avocado juice extra chocolate we always cherished.

Besides that, there are other items to be treasured as well. Good food, occasionally good pictures that you two take with your analog cameras, but mostly good food that we never run out of.

We may not be with you from the beginning of your relationship, but I guess we were there during the most crucial moments of your life together.
People avoid falling to the same trap twice, but man, you intentionally took that risk. Boy, you do know the risk that’s all coming against you.

But then hard times never fail to define characters. Through these precious few years, we see how you two are progressing.
This wedding is not the final or the last point. This is just the beginning. And we gladly extend and renew our support behind you two. Why?

Because we can have a couple to look up to. Someday, I envision us here to say, “hey, you know that couple? They’ve spent years fighting the currents against them, and they never fail to fight. They’re strong by being together. That’s what makes a great couple. Just look to them.”

And we’re glad that today is the beginning of a lifetime journey.

We love you all, and we will always be next to you.

Love,

Nauval.

(This is the picture of where they will live. Taken by the groom, a talented photographer I’ve been a fan of since forever. Here’s to you, you two.)

Don’t we?

Especially the working-class singletons, who enslave themselves five or six days a week because being married to a job is better than coming home to an empty house.
Or a room, or a flat, or an apartment; all of which, regardless the size, will always feel too big for one.
Weekend is a thing to despise because with no one to wake up with, Saturday and Sunday feel longer than weekdays.
Looking forward to working days is something of a norm, because the job may be the sole thing that makes life worth living.

If it sounds sad, look around. It may be you, me, or anyone we know.

What we have in common is our escapade: romantic movies.

It is in movies that both singles-wanting-to-be-attached and attached-wanting-to-be-single find common ground to feel good about ourselves.

Every time we see images of two strangers bump into each other, we know what’s going to happen next: they exchange glances and smile at each other, perhaps introducing their names. Under soft light, generic score runs from being playful to glorious, enhancing mood that lasts either in a scene or throughout the entire film.

Ending, who cares about the ending? It is the journey that matters most, or otherwise, we cannot recite “I’m just a girl standing in front of a boy asking him to love her” or wishing that everyone is looking at the same full moon, and fall in love.

We all want to fall in love like what is being done in films.

We don’t care that scenes are choreographed and edited. We know that somebody up there suddenly plays orchestral sound, but in real life, we still want that to happen. When we kiss our beloved one, deep down we wish that somebody is suddenly playing An Affair to Remember theme, and we can see ourselves if we already do deep passionate kiss the way Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift did.

Because when we fall in love, we set aside logical thinking.
Those glorious feeling inside that appears after adrenaline rush kicks in, those yearning to have a big, lush scenes of embracing our significant other by the river, we all want that to happen.

Hey, I tried that with my ex as I tried to re-enact the scene when Julia Roberts tried to find Rupert Everett in a wedding. Wrong scene, right movie, but you get the idea.

See? The seemingly small gesture is still tucked in somewhere in my memory.

Guess what we want, indeed, are those fleeting, small moments.
We want to experience magic once in a while in our real life, already hard with pressing issues in daily basis. What else can give continuous inspiration if not those movies?

Recreating gives something to look forward to. Oh, the excessive planning, the anxiety of thinking, “what if it doesn’t work?”, the time when heart beats faster.

Like everything else, it doesn’t hurt to have a desire to experience these fabricated acts in real life.
In fact, we already do the re-enactment when we keep daydreaming and thinking that we can always win over guy by long phone calls. Or going to laundry, hoping to meet the cute strangers who do not steal our undies for their fetishes. Or while queuing in bank, hoping to strike up a conversation with strangers who do not point their guns at us.

If life brings you down, then maybe it is in the smile recollecting moments of romantic films can make us feel good again.

Don’t we all want that?