“I found the most interesting article today,” Mitchie declared as we walked out into the parking lot after work. Thursday was household night, and Mitchie and I belong in the same household in our singles group. Mitchie’s car was still being fixed so she hitched a ride with me.

“Hm, you, reading?” I joked, and it was quickly followed by Mitchie’s elbow hitting my ribs. “Ouch! Geez, I was just kidding!” We reached my car and I unlocked it. My friend waited for us to be inside the car before she continued.

“Anyway,” Mitchie said, fastening her seatbelt. “It’s really interesting.”

“Okay,” I said slowly, checking everything in my car before putting the key in the ignition. “Go on.” Satisfied that everything was in place, I started the car. I just had it tuned up so it purred beautifully after one turn.

“It’s about singlehood. And finding your one true love.”

Now I know I should have expected this from Mitchie, but I was still startled that I accientally put the car in reverse and pressed on the gas. Good thing the handbrake was still on and we didn’t move, but I heard a high pitched sound coming from the engine as the car tried to move even if it couldn’t. So much a fine tuned car.

Mitchie gave me a strange look at my surprise and then reached for the gearshift to put it on drive. I released my foothold on the gas, and then the handbrake and finally moved the car in the right way.

“So anyway,” she said again, as if I didn’t react strangely at all. “I thought it was a really good article.”

“Really.”

“Yeah,” Mitchie replied. “Especially after yesterday, I realized how relevant this is. It’s so true, and I really think it’s the right thing to do!” She grinned excitedly. After yesterday? Which part of yesterday?

I opened my window to pay for my parking before I spoke again. “So is it what you did that made you and Noah together?”

She cocked her head and seemed to think about it seriously. “You know what, I’m not so sure. But anyway, I think it’s geared for singles, not for the married ones or the ones in a relationship.”

I knew it. “Right.”

“Anyway, let me read some lines to you,” Mitchie pulled her PDA from her bag and fiddled with it for a while. She never used to own a PDA back when she was still in the Marketing team, but ever since she became an Account Manager, she had discarded all her planner hardcopies and was inseparable with her PDA. I often urged her to not let go of all calling cards just because her PDA might unexpectedly crash and it’s an Account Manager’s greatest nightmare, but she was too much of a slob now to keep them. We just decided to put an alarm oon her PDA to back it up every week, just so she doesn’t lose anything.

“There, found it,” she said. She cleared her throat before reading aloud. “The success and failure of  your life is really up to you. No joke. You need to take responsibility for every area of your life. Including the area of your love life.”

Mitchie paused and looked at me, waiting for a reaction. I looked at her from the corner of my eye and raised an eyebrow. “Okay. That’s interesting.”

“Wait there’s more,” Mitchie presed a few more buttons on her gadget and read again. “…perhaps the reason why you’re still single is that you haven’t been marketing yourself correctly. ((From Bo Sanchez’s How to Find Your One True Love))“

I felt myself cringe at the words, but I managed to keep a straight face. “Mitchie, this is really interesting, but I don’t know how it relates to you, since you are already in the relationship. Do you still have to market yourself, as you said?”

Mitchie sighed. “It’s not about me, doofus. It’s for you!”

I groaned. “I was hoping you wouldn’t say that. Mitchie, really. Wasn’t yesterday enough?”

“Just listen to me, Ruth,” Mitchie said, putting her PDA down. “You’re twenty-eight, successful, smart, responsible, beautiful. And you’re still single. There’s something wrong here!”

“No, there isn’t,” I retorted. She doesn’t have to know I asked the same thing myself last night after all the guests have left the house.

“Nothing’s wrong with you, yes, but there’s something wrong with the entire situation,” Mitchie said, waving her hands for emphasis. “We really should do something about this.”

“Mitchie, you know what we always talk about before, right? I’m set on waiting, no matter how long it takes,” I took the final turn to the place we’ll be having our household, at Ate Mona’s place. There were a couple of cars outside the house already, so I parked behind one of them, making sure I wasn’t blocking any driveways.

“You’re willing to wait until you’re thirty? Forty even?”

“You know what we said before, maybe my Prince is just taking a bit of a long time to come,” I said, turning the car’s engine off. “Your guys just got faster horses.”

“So you are willing to wait that long? Without doing anything? What if you end up as old as Tita Vivian and still not be married?” Mitchie challenged.

That made me pause. Tita Vivian was our household head and she was the oldest member of the group, turning forty-one a few months ago. She was a really nice and motherly lady and she’s also very single. Regardless of this, she is still very romantic, and she never fails to pray for her and our love lives. If there was anyone who truly embodied waiting for The One, it’s her. I suddenly imagined myself together with Tita Vivian, ten years older, sitting at a coffee shop somewhere, giggling and gushing and dreaming about our knights in shining armor. Something felt wrong in that picture, really.

The idea of being forty and still being unmarried scared me, really, but Mitchie doesn’t have to know that.

“Are you?”

I looked at Mitchie and pushed the thoughts away. If it’s God’s will for me to be single until that time, then what can I do, right? Besides, I’m pretty sure He’s preparing The One really well for me, just as He’s preparing me.

“Yes,” I told Mitchie firmly, reaching for my Bible from the backseat. “I’m willing to wait, even if it means that long.”

Mitchie raised an eyebrow at me, still skeptical, but let the topic go. She reached for her bag, undid her seatbelt and got out of the car. “Whatever you say, Ruth.”

As we made our way to the front door, I repeated my prayer of waiting in my head, and asked God to remove all thoughts of impatience in my head. This isn’t how I should start a household, and I really don’t need to think about love life right now. Really.

Little did I know that there was more to come as soon as I stepped inside the house.

[1171 words]

Tags: 5, fiction, first person, i am single and everybody knows