The wedding, the fuss and the Valium
- Bridal stuff -
By Pennie Azarcon Dela Cruz, Executive Editor
Sunday Inquirer Magazine
ONCE I hit the mid-20s, the pressure began to build up. Subtle as a sledgehammer, Nanay would nag, “So get married already. What are you waiting for? Baka mahirapan ka nang mag-anak,” she warned, like I were an aging septuagenarian about to croak. College friends, saddled with one or two kids by this time, hinted broadly about my missing out on what they slyly described as “luto ng Diyos.”
But I had just come from a month’s tour of Europe, having won in a travel essay writing competition sponsored by this airline, and suddenly, I saw the world out there. The castles! The swans gracefully circling placid lakes! The majestic Alps! The Swiss chalets like I imagined from the pages of “Heidi”! Marie Antoinette’s excesses at the Versailles! I was the frog in the well who had leapt out of the fetid waters, saw that the world was more than just this piece of sky crowning the mouth of hell, and wanted more of it.
In the end, bowing to convention and my parents’ near panicked attempts to marry me off (quick, before The Boyfriend recovers from Ativan and comes to his senses!), I marched down the aisle looking strangely serene for my normally high-strung self.
