Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May

“Kamukha mo talaga yung pinsan mong si Goryo. Sya yata ang pinaka gwapong anak ng Ninang Cristy mo!”

I’m not quite sure if this statement my mudra kept on repeating since last night was meant to compliment me or insult me. I’ve got to hand it her. She really has a way about her that offends me even if I’d rather believe that she means well.

Perhaps me being as handsome as cousin Goryo whom I have never seen in my whole hippocampus-developed life explains why I haven’t gotten myself a boyfriend. Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe that men, boyfriend materials to be exact, want a lady who’s beautiful or pretty, not handsome. Except, of course, if they are effeminate or, umm, ah, gay.

Before I go on, allow me to establish a backgrounder for this topic that I am once again exploiting for the sheer humor it provides. It is summed up by the recent question-and-answer portion with my officemate, Chris.

Chris: Wala kang boyfriend ngayon?
Me: Kahit noon, wala.

It’s that simple, really.

Incidentally, my lola/auntie who was an old maid died last Sunday, a week after her 85th birthday. Auntie Lydia, as we call her, is my dad’s dad’s sister. She left her younger and equally old maid sister, Auntie Belinda, behind, making Auntie Belinda the sole living Delgado in my granddad’s immediate family.

If there’s one thing both aunties impose, it will have to be how they both do not recommend being a spinster. They were lucky to have each other to look after each other, but, I guess, there were moments when they still felt lonely and regret not marrying.

Oddly enough, I have memorized a poem by Robert Herrick which speaks of the words of wisdom Auntie Lydia and Auntie Belinda has passed on to me. Knowing the poem verbatim is weird because I am not big on poems and I was never famous for a brain that could memorize paragraphs or stanzas. Nonetheless I am typing it today the way I remember it. Don’t expect me, however, to recall its title for, as it turns out, the glitch in memory did not permit me to retain its title.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
Old time is still a-flying
And the same flowers that smile today,
Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun
The higher he’s a-getting
The sooner his race be run
The nearer he is to setting.

The age is best which is the first
When youth and blood are warmer
But having spent the worse and worst,
Old time precedes the former.

So be not coy and use your time
And while ye may go marry
For having but once lost your prime,
You might forever tarry.

There. Ain’t that funny?

Going back, women in our family either marry early or marry late. Obviously I didn’t get hitched in my teenage years so chances are I may do the “I do” later in life, granting that I realize that I am meant to say those words. Otherwise I will forever tarry as said in Robert Herrick’s poem.

Honestly, I am not afraid to be a wrinkled single woman no matter how lonely they say it can be. What scares me more is getting old without living my life to its maximum. You know, being haunted by dreams I failed to fulfill. That I fear.

Lately, I’ve been mentally listing things I want to do at least before I turn thirty. So far, they all have something to do with career. I haven’t included anything about love or loving. Unlike most women, I’ve never plotted a timeline that involves my theoretical love life. Nor have I planned anything to do about it if it stays theoretical for an annoyingly long time. Perhaps I am too much of a ninny to realize that a relationship is as important as popular belief says it is. Or then again I may be your typical hopeless romantic who believes that if love is meant to be, it will be—planned or not.