Passed by sofia's blog, and there was this post about, well missing. It reminds me of a time when I did miss someone so bad, when I was actually thousands of miles away, that I wept.

I give out a little smirk when friends tell me I have no sentimentality (Patty), or as Chelo would tell me, "Wala akong ka-swit-swit sa katawan". That maybe true, and for the most part, I prefer people to see me that way. Heck, I don't even keep pictures!

But I do. In some personal, weird, strange, eccentric, lunatic way I do. When I was sent to California years ago, leaving behind a very special person (it was a pseudo-relationship, bad I know), listening to "Here With Me" by Dido and my mind would sink in a thousand mile deep chasm of longing.

And can you guess what she gave me to remember her? Aside from letters of reminding, there's this small envelope. What's inside is not another piece of paper, or picture, but a cotton ball doused in the perfume she liked wearing all the time. When I'm alone, I'd sit by the corner of our room's carpeted floor, open it a little, and let the scent soothe me. I close my eyes, and imagine she's just beside me, comforting me with her touch and her warmth, all the more enhanced by the vanilla-scented air.

It's a good kind of pain is it not? This missing.