On Feeling Old

Having a youngish face and a generally youthful outlook in life, and being small in build and height, I hardly feel that I'm aging in years. My husband always says I'm like a preschool teacher; I connect well with the kids (even those not my own) because I'm young at heart.

Sometimes, though, some little things remind me that the years are rushing by and that the one day I've been most dreading might actually be just around the corner. Last week, I was browsing through a friend's friend list on FB and noticed the name of a guy who I knew was living with a friend of mine from way back media days. I haven't talked to my friend in at least five years, and I wanted to know if she has an FB account.

So I clicked on the name of her boyfriend, Jing, whom I've met as well and was a friend of my husband during college days. I went through Jing's status posts and, true enough, he had a post on Mel Dominguez, my friend. He greeted her on the anniversary of their 12th year together, and I marveled at how time flies, as I've met Mel long before they've become a couple; now they're 12 years down the road. I'm happy for them.

I clicked on Mel's FB, meaning to just go through her timeline quickly to find out how things were going for her lately. Then I saw her photos of a Singapore trip that said "...with Paolo Alejar...". I know a Paolo Alejar from office. He's one of our junior writers in ERI, but he's about to resign to pursue further studies. I coach him once in a while when I handle his articles. Could this Paolo Alejar be the writer I know? How is he acquainted with Mel Dominguez?

Heart pumping, I went through all of Mel's photos and saw one with the caption "my beautiful kids" and Paolo, my officemate, was one of them!

Oh my God! Mel is Paolo's mom! I've seen this guy as a child when Mel would bring him along, and now he's my subordinate, working with me in the same office. He's grown bigger, of course, and he's also now a writer. Who would have thought I've seen this person in shorts, a kiddie shirt, and rubber shoes?

So now, I feel really old.

I'm okay with not looking my age. But finding out that the writer you're coaching is actually the "little" son of a friend (with whom I've been really close when I was still in media, and who acted as one of my confidants when I was having love life problems at that time), the years seemed to have suddenly caught up with me. Or the other way around. I was only 24 then, I realized, and I almost choked on my own saliva. That's 18 years ago!

Rush to the mirror, look at wrinkles, see eyebags...drowned self in coffee the rest of the day. Ulk! Does coffee make you old? (faint).

Haunted Dolls

My daughters have a new obsession: haunted dolls. Since we watched The Conjuring (at home, before the official screening in theaters, with a torrent from KAT), they have been surfing sites that sell "antique" dolls with a story. Yep, that's their term - they want a doll with a story. I admit, I have been intrigued with Annabelle, too, and have read up on her history in connection with the Perron family.

It's most interesting to note that the real Annabelle doll doesn't look anything like the one on film. In fact, the real one is more charming, cute, cuddly and not at all scary. Which reminds us that most evils are wrapped in beautiful, fancy wrappers. (Isn't it, Janet?) Well, I learned from my Annabelle research that the doll has done really strange stuff in its time, some of which were not shown in the movie anymore for lack of time. The Perron eldest, Andrea, however, swears to the strange and creepy things that happened in their family, including their experience with the doll, in the book she wrote, which was partly the source for the presentation of the film.

Anyway, my daughters' obsession didn't die down with the arrival of another doll in our home recently, a porcelain collectors' item from Canada, which was a gift to Marthe when she was younger. It has been on top of my mother's cupboard for the longest time, but since my parents are moving to a smaller place, they're disposing of the cupboard. So one night, I retrieved this doll (still intact in its strong plastic box) and brought it home. The two girls stared at it hard, marveling at how beautiful the doll is (she has flawless skin, curly brown locks and crystal blue eyes), and lugged the doll around the house wherever they went.

Mary Ann looks something like this but not exactly. Got this image from Ebay.

They eventually christened her Mary Ann (Marthe's classmate suggested renaming to Annabelle, but that would be creepy). During the days that followed, they did nothing but pore over porcelain dolls on Ebay, Sulit, Ayosdito; since Mary Ann belonged to Marthe, Fides was searching for a second one for her that would be Mary Ann's "friend". I allowed their fancy (they even researched about the difference of porcelain dolls made in France and those made in China and ended up knowing more about porcelain than me) until they began pestering me to buy a really lovely one on Ebay that's worth P10,000. It's time to stop them.

Robert the Doll

So then, they've moved on to haunted dolls. They've discovered a certain Robert the Doll, located in the Fort East Martello Museum in Key West, which was supposed to be possessed by evil spirits and who wants people to ask his permission first before taking his picture. If you don't get his permission and went ahead to get a shot, the doll will curse you and your family--or so the story goes.

Rebecca

Another two dolls are said to be haunted, namely Rebecca and Emily, who, as the story goes, seems to  be haunted by children who lived in a children's home (which is now a home for the aged in the West Midlands). The dolls were found in a storage room and were placed in the fireplace of the home. Since then, strange things have been happening. When the manager couldn't take it any longer, she asked paranormal experts to look into the matter and the latter discovered that Emily and Rebecca were owned by a child named Emily who had Aspergers (you can google the condition to learn more) and who was bullied most of her life because of it.

At 17, she became the embarrassment of her parents that she was sent to the children's home. She has been adopted since, but it looks like evil spirits are using these negative energies from her to possess the dolls and scare the old women living in the elderly home.

I'm already getting the creeps just talking about this. My daughters? Well, they're still into it, reading about haunted dolls, and scaring themselves to sleep.