sentimentally foolish

I’m feeling a bit sentimental today.

I think it’s because I’m sleepy. Waking up at 5:30 isn’t exactly a daily practice, you know? Maybe it’s the travelling to Alabang and back, something I’m no longer used to. Ten years is enough. Haay. Or it could be the revival of my current Broadway fascination (JJ kasi!). Listening to music from The Last Five Years isn’t exactly hoppin’, ya know?

I remember trudging up the familiar steps of St. James the Great, my old sanctuary, where I spent many of my teen years – Antioch meetings, singing with Te Deum, and the gazillion weddings I’ve attended one way or another. There was a certain sense of comfort being there again, after so many years.

I used to think I’d get married in St. James. Hahaha. A far cry from what I envision now.

Do you ever get that feeling? Oddly at home and yet out of place at the same time?

Things are different. St. James is, and probably always will be, a beautiful structure. Despite all the golden embellishments and overly ornate fixtures, it was where I felt most like myself. Now, six years later, me being a little older (hopefully wiser), it leaves me feeling a little distant, detached. Yet I am still strangely drawn to the church, more likely than not because of the numerous memories tied to it.

Seeing my nephew during the confirmation ceremony, at his best behavior and sitting attentively in the pew across mine, I’m moved to tears. It's my (used to be) little nephew’s turn to make his own memories of that beautiful place, as did his parents. Like me. Like so many of us, who, at at one time or another, found solace within the confines of those walls.

They grow up so fast, don't they?

Eep. That’s what happens when you listen to too much Mandy Patinkin.