The next chapter on Bear's side of our story talks about our wedding so I thought I'd wait until our anniversary to post that and write about my side of the story instead.
The oldest in a brood of six, who had only one thing going for herself--scholarly achievements! Yup, that was me! I was raised in a society where even my own family told me I was not blessed with physical beauty. No worries, it was never a big deal for me. For the longest time, I didn't even care if I had powdered my face or if I had combed my hair. I figured who in the world am I trying to impress anyway? It bothered my mom that at 18, I didn't have a single guy come to our home for courtship. Apparently, she had guys lining up at my grandparents' yard when she was only 13! I can totally understand her worry but like I said it never bothered me. I wasn't thinking about getting married any time soon so why bother? The only boyfriend-girlfriend relationship I had was with this Filipino from the northern part of the country whom I met chatting online but never met in person so I don't really think he should be counted.
Scholarly achievements were so important to me back then because I came from a financially-unstable family. At a young age, I was made aware that my future role would be to lift my family out of poverty and the only way to achieve that is to excel in school and obtain an advanced degree. I was well on my way to accomplish this goal when I was robbed (that's right "you" as in authorities involved robbed me and you know it but thank you!) of an award/honor back in my sophomore year in high school but it was actually a blessing in disguise. Because I failed to avail the scholarship that came with the award/honor, I moved to a different high school in my junior year, which led me to avail a work scholarship at a Catholic college. I was a full-time college student on a work scholarship, a program at the school intended for students who needed financial help. The program required that I work 6 hours on weekdays, 4 hours on weekends and any amount of time on Sundays if needed. It also required that I maintain a grade, hence the name. I, along with hundreds of incoming freshmen took a series of tests and a final interview to get into this program. I got in the top 2 of the final exam and passed the interview as well. Because of the said performance, I was chosen to be assigned in an office where work was expected to be more intense compared to a regular office with regular schedules. Because we needed to maintain a certain grade while working at the same time, they prefer students who showed high academic potentials based on the results of the tests they gave us to work at the computer laboratory or so I was told by the scholarship coordinator. You would think I'd be flattered and I guess partly I was but then my entire experience at the laboratory was not pure heaven for reasons I am not willing to disclose. However, I endured all that and actually got something great out of it; the ability to chat on the internet!
April 3, 2000 PH time around 11am, which would make it April 2 Houston time: It was enrollment time for summer classes so it was not a busy day work-wise. I met Bear chatting on mIRC #davao channel under the dalnet group, which had been my online hangout for quite some time. I knew almost everyone who chatted in that channel so when I saw the name "lonelyman"(I don't know why Bear remembered it as A_lonely_male), I chatted in. I asked him why he was lonely and he said "No one to hug me." I thought that was really odd but I gave him a cyber hug {{HUGS}} and he thanked me. I had no idea that he wasn't local at all, I just thought that everyone chatting in that channel lived in Davao so it was a shock to me when I found out he was American. He told me he was 45, I really didn't think anything about it that's why it came as a surprise that he didn't seem to like the fact that I was 19 but it did make him feel better when I told him I will be turning 20 in a few weeks. At that time, I really didn't understand why my age was such a concern to him. It's not that I was young and naive (well maybe I was) but the age difference didn't really bother me because I didn't think I was going to like him in a romantic way. As a matter of fact and contrary to what my peers might have thought back then, finding a boyfriend was not my intent for chatting. I just thought it was fun and I was just really fascinated with the whole "advanced technology" thingamajig.
We exchanged pictures right then and I guess he thought I looked pretty decent enough to continue chatting with me (HAHA!). Our first chat did not last that long. Apparently, his son called for some emergency that night but before he signed off, he left me his email address. After our chat, I emailed him just to say thank you and from then on, we chatted or emailed each other every day. A few days before my 20th birthday, he kept asking me, "hugged a bear lately?" I didn't really understood it at the time until my birthday came. On my 20th birthday, I was surprised to receive a package from Bear. It had a small teddy bear, a green shirt and a honeysuckle Yankee candle. It was then that I realized what his question meant and it made me smile. I remember the candle smelled so good so I kept it in my room and never burned it. When Bear sent me that package, my parents knew it wasn't going to be just a simple friendship like I had previously told them but in my heart, I really had no clue where we're going to end up.
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