Hello, yes, I’m still here! I’ve been a little pre-occupied with YouTube lately (which you can follow here!) . If you want to hear the sound of my voice, you can go there.

Last month, Aurora Suarez, Life Coach and founder of Write Away PH (an amazing writing retreat!) , asked me to write a quick little essay about love for February. I thought I would share it here, just because. :) Aside from me, letters from Mina V. Esguerra, Bianca Mori and Brij Bautista were featured, too.

Aueeie sends lovely, heartfelt messages like these to her subscribers, so if you’re into that, sign up to receive a joyful little note here.

What I Know For Sure About Love

Love to me is cinematic.

I grew up with a box set of Audrey Hepburn DVDs and I always remember Willam Holden walking Audrey Hepburn through every important moment in the romance. Everything from the quirky meet up to that moment where "two enormous, highly-paid heads come together for that ultimately inevitable moment, the final, earth-moving, studio rent-paying, theater-filling, popcorn-selling kiss."

Movies taught me that love can be magical, it can lift you up from the ground and make your foot pop up behind you. After writing my own books on love, I still think it’s true. It’s why I love reading about grand gestures, I love reading happy endings.

But what I didn’t learn about love until recently, despite never really having been in a relationship myself, was that I deserved it. I didn’t have to be a glossy actress with sultry eyes, I didn’t have to have porcelain skin or a tiny body to get love. It can happen to anyone, certainly to me.

And I learned that from reading romance. Kissing books. Bodice rippers. Books that have made me laugh out loud and cry, books that have made me question everything I know about how I live my own life. Here I learned that love can be funny and full of passion. Love will always have a happy ending when you were willing to give it a shot.

So really, I know nothing about love. Nothing that anyone would consider "real." But I believe in it, with all this big body can afford, and I believe I deserve it.