incidentally, i cringe whenever i hear the song i got this post’s title from. and cringing is never a good thing. someone told me earlier that i’m masochistic.

i spent labor day “laboring” over some personal reflections by members of a marriage encounter group we’re currently working with. some made me laugh (“where the sunlight could pass through me”), some made me cry (something or other that i couldn’t make heads or tails of) and some made me better appreciate having someone to love.

browsing thru my blog archives, i felt a tinge of dismay when i realized i never got around to writing about experiencing discovery weekend with javie last july 2008. well, i fully intend on remedying that now.

for those who are not in the know (you must be unattached OR simply not catholic) (and i’m not catholic either), discovery weekend is a retreat of sorts for couples who are looking to taking the next big step. they call themselves a “marriage preparation seminar”, which is (strictly speaking) inaccurate by their own admission because it is NOT a crash course for learning how to cook, keeping house or changing diapers. it DOES NOT teach you how to put up with your husband’s habit of leaving dirty socks on the floor, or give you the secret for turning him from his sinful, getting-the-toilet-seat-wet ways.

no, dear chicas (and chicos?). that counts as one of the greatest mysteries of the universe, alongside ufos and why la sallians insist on being called gang green.

what dw IS about is discovery (duh):

1. whether you are ready (you set your own standards, with some guidance from folks who’ve been down the aisle)
2. whether your significant other is ready (also by your standards, hehe, let me get to the next point)
3. whether the two of you should be together for the next hundred years (compatibility in values, goals, sex drives…)
4. and whether it’s a good idea to get hitched tomorrow, next year, or after one of you becomes an emotional grown-up (and if the last one, whether you wanna stick around for that, if it’ll happen). (we’re told that some people do break up after attending dw. better to discover things before tying the knot then; no divorce laws in this country and annulments are tedious and expensive.)

of course, i didn’t know about all that until after our first session (so aren’t you lucky to be reading this). attending was javie’s parents’ idea, and i’d be lying if i said there wasn’t a bit of resistance on my part. i’d thought that dw was about keeping your ass flat on a seat while some strongly-opinionated catholic couples lectured you against premarital sex and decided on whether you were adult and morally-upright enough to take on the responsibilities of marriage. i didn’t like the idea of sharing intimate details about my relationship with strangers (i actually thought there’d be one-on-one sessions), and i’m always dead-set against being told what to do and what not to do (i have authority issues).

it came as a pleasant surprise to know that not only were all sharings just between me and javie, no one tried to force religious doctrine down my throat or tell me whether or not i’m ready to be a mrs. (they did, however, distribute pamphlets on family planning and the literature said that contraceptive pills are abortifacients. ano ba? contraceptive nga eh, there’s nothing to kill, from what i understand. it depends on the type of pill. i feel very, very strongly about this but i’ve digressed enough.)

to sum it up, i felt really, really good after attending dw. javie and i discovered many new things about each other, and we enjoyed a deeper sort of intimacy as a result. one of the things that i really appreciated was knowing about his feelings, because he’s not a mushy type of guy. maybe it follows an important rule in writing poetry: show, not tell. well, sometimes, a girl likes to be told anyway.

as of late, there have been a number of engagements and weddings to take note of (thank you, facebook) and i do feel the itch to change my relationship status already (hahaha!) but all in good time. i’m absolutely horrible at the skill of waiting (i must have low eq) but i’m trying to be a good girl(friend).

so, yes, we should’ve raced down the aisle way ahead of you (and you and you) but we’re going to do things the right way, even if it takes longer than we want it to. you know that campaign for abstinence until marriage with the purity rings? i don’t subscribe to the idea but i will steal and imbibe their credo with my own definition of waiting.

just please, baby, i am not going to wear a cheesy signet ring like this.