An Epic Weekend: How I Turned TERty8

It’s been almost a week since the most epic weekend of my life, and I feel like I needed every single day of this past week to recover from it.

No regrets here though.

Last week, I celebrated my 38th birthday, #TERty8 as I called it. There were at least three plans on how to celebrate my birthday, but we settled into going to our go-to resort here in Vietnam – a quiet weekend with just me, Che, and Vino.

Che always asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and really, what more could I ask for?

I get to work online, I have a routine going for house chores, I get to work out, I get to spend time with Vino, and we eat well. Che has been getting me good clothes as well, and if anything, I would have been happy if someone gifted me handkerchiefs because that’s the only thing I need to update in my closet.

But Che had other plans.

And it was a big one.

As my birthday approached, Che whispered something to Vino and he would light up whenever my birthday was mentioned.

I kinda knew something was up, but I pretended not to know so that Vino would feel good about himself for keeping a secret.

A couple of nights before we were supposed to go to our resort, we walked along Japan Town to check out some alcohol. She was choosing a bit more than usual, which made me think that we weren’t going to be alone in the resort.

In my head, I was thinking maybe she invited our friends here in Vietnam since it was mother’s day as well.

She then insisted that Vino won’t go to school the next day so that we could have lunch together.

And that was that. We got ready for the next day, Che and I watched something to sleep as per usual. I slipped in and out of sleep, as per usual. She greeted me at 12am and continued to slip in and out of the series that we were watching.

An Almost Heart Attack

At around 2am, after I went to the toilet, Che suddenly asked for food. Usually, I would just get a snack for her, but she asked me to cook Pancit Canton.

“You’re THAT hungry?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said.
At about this time, I heard a door close that sounded like it came from inside our house.

For context, Che would usually wake up in the middle of the night because she thought she heard a sound and would ask me to check it out. In our early days, I would do so despite my objections and would unsurprisingly find nothing.

Later on, I would just tell her to go back to sleep because we locked everything, and she shouldn’t worry about anything.

On this night, I actually heard something. I felt that it was impossible because I double-locked the door. I even put a hinge, so it couldn’t be.

I walked out the door and I saw a blue light in the living room, and thoughts came creeping in:

“What the hell is that?”

“How did someone get inside?”

“What do I tell Che?”

“Do I just go back inside and lock the door?”

In less than 3 seconds when I opened the door, my head was filled with all those thoughts and more.

Suddenly, a loud pop, and loud voices from at least 5 people.

First person I saw was Caeleb, the son of my two friends, but I thought it was impossible because why would he be here?

And then, the loud voices started to make sense, they were saying “happy birthday!”

The pop was the sound of two huge-ass party poppers that popped.

My legs turned jelly and it sent me curling down the floor.

All these things, from opening the door to me dropping down the floor, happened within 5 seconds.

My heart almost exploded, first from fear, but when the relief of seeing familiar faces came, it was from pure happiness.

The whole gang was here, with the kids, no less.

Who knew Che could top this insane Bali trip?

Team Flow Overseas

Fast forward to 2024.

I have no idea when this started, but it was apparently planned a long way back.

This year, I have been blessed to be able to spend a lot of time with my friends. We had an extended stay in the Philippines to start the year, and in early February, one of my friends came over to visit.

In March, we were in Hong Kong Disneyland together, and in April, we joined the Cabusoras in Hanoi.

Apparently, this birthday plan has been in motion even before Disneyland – which was amazing, when I think about it, because nobody gave any hint of this thing happening.

So when my legs gave out when they surprised me on my birthday, it helped me gather my emotions.

For one, I didn’t die because of a heart attack, so that’s a win.

But it also helped me compose myself to greet my friends properly.

It’s one of those things that I never asked for, but maybe pictured in my head from time to time – getting the gang together to experience some of the things we enjoy wherever we are.

We spent the weekend in an amazing villa in Melia Ho Tram, spending the first night singing our hearts out louder than the concert happening at the port nearby. The next night was a bit more relaxed because the cocktails started early, but still had its moments of fun and enjoyable talks.

We didn’t get to see much of the city, but experiencing the resort, the incredible food offerings, and the priceless moments together made the weekend just so magical.

I didn’t want any of it to end. I was among the last people to sleep and among the first people to get up in the morning.

Part of it was my body clock, but a lot of it is because I wanted to spend as much time with everyone as I possibly could.

I’ve gotten over my FOMO era, but when things like this happen, really don’t want to miss out on anything.

A Message of Appreciation

On a normal day, I don’t feel that I deserve anything of significance.

After all, I’m just doing what I have to do. It’s not something to be rewarded by.

And yet, my wife put together such a massive surprise that brought everyone together.

My boss, Bear, asked how I found someone who was beautiful, loving, and good at her job, and I said maybe I’m just lucky.

We have helped each other grow from being kids in school to who we are now. Almost 20 years into our relationship, I thought we couldn’t surprise each other anymore, but there I was, a curled up mess on the floor trying to figure out what I did to deserve such love from this person.

Maybe I saved a diety in my past life to be this blessed in this lifetime.

To Che, my wife, “thank you” is not enough to express how much I appreciate you and everything that you do.

To my friends, thank you.

We’ve been apart for years, and it may be easy to ease us out of your lives. However, we always find a way to connect like we never really left.

At times, I had this feeling that our friendship could just be a habit for you, that maybe you just got used to me so you kept me in your circle somehow, and I’m fine with that.

Seeing you all here, I felt incredible love from friends that I only ever felt from my family and extended family.

To Tian, Kali, Rey, Nix, Arianne, Carla, and the kids, thank you for making this the most memorable celebration of life anyone could ever dream about.

Here’s to hoping for more trips together in the future, and fulfilling more of our bucket lists!

The kids were asking “why are you taking so many pictures?” They’ll thank us later. 

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