The passion of the pink bowling ball

Today, an hour before going to the opening of our company’s annual bowling tournament, I remembered some hazy scenes of my previous night’s dream – a girl with a naughty smile threw a pink bowling ball into the bowling alley. The ten bowling pins, instead of being afraid of the rushing pink ball, had decided to play with it.

That strange dream suddenly took me a few years ago on that same bowling lane, that girl was with me, a girl with a life entirely different from mine, and it was as if some divine force thrown a bowling ball into us. The wave of energy touched both me and the girl sitting beside me. She felt the vibrations of that pink ball, and so did I. We are not afraid. So what now?

We are always given a choice, to avoid the things that will hurt us or, like the bowling pins, have fun and take pleasure in that sudden rush of energy that set the lane rocking.

I have a name for that pink bowling ball: passion. I can use it in describing the beauty of an earth-shaking meeting between two people, but it isn’t just that. It is in the excitement of the unexpected, in the desire to do something with real warmth and in the certainty that the meeting is a beautiful dream, though not the realization of our expectations. Passion sends us signals that guide us through our lives, and the interpretation of those signs is always up to me.

I would like to believe that it is love. With someone I don’t know, I don’t understand and who didn’t figure in my plans at all. All those months of self-control, of denying love, have had exactly the opposite result: I have let myself be swept away by that girl to treat me a little differently.

And if that is what happens, if I have already lost her, I will at least have gained one very happy month in my life. Considering the way the world is, one happy month is almost a miracle.

As my tiger friend puts it, “Hindi mahalaga kung ano ang sitwasyon, ang mahalaga masaya tayo!” (Circumstances doesn’t matter, it’s our happiness that counts!)

I woke up, confused if it was really just a dream.