Wonderfully Strange

Last weekend, we sent off our first kid.

Steph was our “practice baby” since back in college. I didn’t know it then, but looking back, she was.

If we wanted to stay late with her, I needed to bring her home or turn her over to her dad at McDonald’s Quezon Avenue. When she eventually moved to Singapore, the role became greater.

When we were housemates, she would come into our room to just share what happened to her day even if we were about to sleep already. We took Tita Tess and Tito Jimmy’s mandate about taking care of Steph to heart because we knew how much they cared for her, and we needed to let them know that she’ll always be fine with us.

The Depot crew, our first home together.

With a lot of practice over the years, taking care of Steph became almost natural for me. It was fairly easy, since she is an adult woman who just had her weird quirks.

She would be a staple in our house when I cooked dinner. She would call me whenever she got lost somewhere. She would ask me to fix something that broke down in their house (honestly, she’s just asking what to do but my patience would eventually run out and I’d just drop by myself to do it.)

It was ok, but of course, sometimes we wished that she would have her person who would do these things for her.

After months of working on herself, Steph finally put herself out there to find dates on Bumble. It was a normal thing for her age, but knowing Steph, this was way out of her comfort zone.

One day, she told us about a date she enjoyed. She kept insisting that it was nothing.

“Siguro next month wala na to.” (Maybe next month, this is gone already.)Days turned to weeks, and then a month later, it was time for us to meet this so-called James.

A dinner that’s way past the “next month” deadline she self-imposed.

Not even a third wheel at this point because she was always included in our plans.

It took a while time for Steph to introduce him to us. After all, we were her pseudo-parents in Singapore.

Like any parent, we wanted to make sure that she was going out with a good guy. She hesitated to bring him over because things were going good and if we didn’t like him, she might think she needed to end it.

Dude was Filipino but for some reason, he would prefer to speak in English the whole time. Took it upon myself to drink to my heart’s content while I was with him and the night ended well in my mind, but reality told a different story.

Che asked me to watch the CCTV footage, and after doing that, I said I didn’t know the person I was watching. I called that time the night that James taught me how to drink again.

James looked like he genuinely cares for Steph enough to try to make a good impression, because later on, we learned that James does speak fluent Tagalog.

James was gracious enough to come back after the mess of the first meeting. But this was the night we gave them COVID.

One of the happiest pictures she sent us in our little GC.

Like Che said, the most important thing that night was Steph’s bright eyes everytime James spoke. She looked happy.

Suddenly, the home visits became less because she was brought to exciting new restaurants on random date nights. The calls about getting lost became less because someone was pushing her to learn how to follow directions.I practically got no more messages about broken down things at home.

She found her person.

Apparently, it’s the guy whose farts she follows up with a fart of her own.

He’s so far from the James Reids and Zac Efrons of her dreams, but dude’s confidence controls a room and would be the most interesting person for her there even if Reid and Efron were present.

She listens to him and gets pushed to do uncomfortable but necessary things like following a map or exercising. A guy who likes pushing her buttons but she can never quite walk away from because she probably secretly loves it.