1- My 1- love 2- for you 3- has kept growing, 5- continues soaring to new heights, 8- and will never stop expanding to galactic scales. 13- As the Fibonacci sequence tends to infinity, so does my love encompass eternity. I could read his letter repeatedly and still wonder how his words are reflected in his actions. We have been romantically together for almost two years now, yet I keep falling in love with him every single day. I never thought that I would feel this kind of love in my whole life- a love that's selfless, worth fighting for, inspiring, something that teaches me to be a better person everyday. A great blessing that I consider is to have that love be reciprocated and even more. I am writing this short story for us. Someday, we may go back to this page and be reminded of our beautiful love that I believe is worth a story to tell. Our story begins in a simple first meeting at a McDonald's branch in Kraków, Poland, 2016. We were Erasmus Mundus masters students back then. My fellow Filipino classmates, who happened to be his former workmates in the Philippines, introduced us to each other as we all decided to travel and explore some European cities together on that Christmas school break. It was only a week-long trip, yet a memorable one. A trip with fellow Filipinos is always an enjoyable one- sharing jokes, laughter, meals and even money, and not worrying about any cultural differences. I got to know him as a friend of my friends, but not yet to a personal and up-close level. We haven't contacted each other again after that Poland trip, until some time in 2018 when our Filipino group planned another trip together again. This time, it was in Switzerland. Such a nice trip and great company, wandering in the green pastures and picturesque Swiss cities. We talked, but again not to a personal and up-close level yet- maybe we really didn't think about each other nor we consider ourselves friends when we are not travelling together. Anyway, how I loved my experiences as an Erasmus Mundus student. Little did I know that through this scholarship grant, I would get to know the person whom I will love for the rest of my life. We had another travel experience together, in 2020, after the lockdown, when we visited our common friend in Germany at the same time. We were not Erasmus Mundus masters students anymore in 2020, rather we were 2nd year PhD students in our own fields. I would say that it is in this travel where we got more comfortable with each other. We started talking on casually like good friends, sharing stories and experiences back when we were still in the Philippines before our master studies, drinking beers together, and talking about PhD lives. It is in these travel that I sensed how true and kind person he is. He loves his family. He always stands for what is right and just. He values education. After 2 years, we met again in Germany. This time, he has just finished his PhD and just started in his first job in Europe. Yet he was the same humble man I got to know better in 2022. As for my status, I haven't finished my studies at that time. I had just resigned from my work contract as a PhD student, and found my first job in Europe as well. I was so down with my PhD that I had to quit it and moved to a new country. I was suffering from mental and emotional challenges and all I wanted was to start a new life somewhere, alone, and far away from my PhD life. I have worked so hard for in the past 3 years, yet somehow I was not able to manage well and ended up feeling I have not accomplished anything. We met in Germany, we started to talk more often as we are sharing experiences in moving in to a new country and starting our first jobs in the industry. I was able to share to him why I had to quit my PhD studies, but little did I know that he was so concerned with me. He truly understood what I had to go through, yet he wanted to motivate me again. He didn't want me to just give up my PhD. He knew perfectly all the struggles, yet he still believed in me. During those times, he encouraged me to keep fighting. I explained to him that I was having anxiety and depression with finalizing my PhD and it was a hard time for me. There were time when he would remind me of my Chemistry knowledge in order to explain my analytical results, read my discussions and comment on them, and asked me practice questions in preparation for my defence to the examination board. He guided me until I was able to pick myself up again. Fast forward, I finished my PhD in 2023 with flying colours, and we are still together in Germany, working in our same respective companies, and living our lives together in the best possible ways we can, and always with smiles in our faces. To love, to inspire, to motivate, to keep learning- these are, I think, the greatest lessons I'm learning from him since then and until our lives remain.

Onion side of social media Yes, onions. Remember that colleague who's just had that potato onion sandwich...or burger or whatever. Who comes slowly closer to you after lunch to explain something. Ughh!! You flinch…only u know in the world what you suffer at that moment. You feel like scratching out the head of this colleague (So much for the formal demeanor u hold in office). You fear that if you scratch the head out, there will be a lot more of that onion smell. Onions everywhere. Your thoughts shock you. You thought of murder and only onions stopped you. Murder or onion? Which is more lethal? You got the answer my friend. Onions!! So what is it about this pale vegetable that makes it so attractive to slice and eat it ourselves, but brings immense misery when someone else has it. That stinking smell. Strong, needed to please the taste buds, but so horrible to get a whiff of. Sorry. Enough of onions. I am extremely sorry I put you through this, for no fault of yours. I could only think of this when I thought of the flip side of social media. Everytime I think of discussing a serious matter, some mundane comparison comes to my mind. And I have to hide a laugh. What will people think. I thought in childhood. There was a fear that if I burst out laughing in the midst of a serious discussion, I would be scolded and punished. At times I did bear the brunt of it. But the comparisons didn't die. They kept growing funnier, as if some giggly stuff in my mind. Slowly I gave up being fearful of peoples reaction to my hidden giggles, or rather they gave up on me! So today I am into comparing onions with second side of social media. It all starts with that one profile you make, a facebook profile, a watsapp id, an instagram account. And there you are! Like a baby crab suddenly left behind by that big wave on the seashore. You are that crab yes, for all to see. This is just the start. There is this red carpet treatment you get at the start. People coo- cooing how they missed your friendship! (?) Long standing school, college, office, neighborhood friends. Even that classmate you secretly wanted to skin alive, is crying how they missed you all these years. You wave back, like back. Small crabby eh baby steps. Then all of a sudden you are in the sea, sea of pictures. The pictures of all those people you left behind in life for good and prayed they never meet you in hell again, are grinning back at you on earth itself. That school teacher who gave you that humiliating punishment in front of all, is alive and kicking. Whats more, you have to accept her friendship request and like her entire familys pics. That childhood neighbor who is the only living evidence of all your awkward growing years is back, reminding you of each embarrassing moment with an oh! Those were the days sigh. You smile back sheepishly. Why didn't they teach to strangulate living beings in school, your murderous thoughts are back again. People are born innocent, they live innocent, social media makes them criminals. Then there are the whatsapp groups. Congratulations! Today is that day when your graduation ceremony hat and robe will be taken away from you and you will be made to sit back in class with the same hooligans who sneered at you back then. So here you are, wishing their birthdays, nice pic comments on their anniversary pics, and so on. You realize you are still bad at the things you were bad at, in school and college. These guys are still good at playing one up over you and make you feel as useless as you felt back then. Your old time sympathizers are back too, this time with cute beer bellys, they give you some solace and remind you to bite into your burger. The instagram pics, numerous of all occasions. You wonder people are going to places or only clicking pics. The beautiful foreign destinations half hidden by the familiar teeths of your friends. They are all smiling pictures. Why would anyone be straight faced on a vacation right? No one suffers from journey exhaustion here. And no one has to rush to the washroom either. Everyone is picture perfect happy. Wonderful lives, perfect homes, perfect partners, sweetest kids. Exciting lives. Interesting events. You better smile too my friend, forget the onions for now, click click. Your picture is good. You are on social media!!

I remember when I was a child – when I had wide eyes and wore white. I remember trying to capture butterflies as I twirled and danced my way through the flowers. I remember the scent of blossoms, and mildew, and the smell of dusk and taste of dawn. The warm embrace of sunshine cocooned me as I echoed my laughter throughout a world that opened its arms and caught me when I fell. Today, I can now reach the top shelf and think for myself. Cracked eyes leak wisdom, and hands shake with effort. I see you and the world. I see it broken as it is – destroyed and decaying as humans run across it like ants. The stars glitter through white smog, and a single hand can count the trees. The pavement grazes my knees when I fall, and no one's words mean more than a shallow step to get ahead in the game of life. I realise as I have grown older that age is just an allusion; adults' bicker like kids, and when they shout, they don't get reprimanded. An adult is only trying to survive and look alive in a society that aims to tear each other down. Growing up is not a matter of age, but rather a matter of perception. Adults pull roots from the soil, destroy homes to build factories, dump garbage in seas, and murder animals for the chase of the kill. Today the world is broken, and no one (not even the grown-ups) knows how to fix it. I remember the exact moment when I became a woman and no longer a girl. I was 13. I recall looking around and realising how destroyed everyone was: how people held up masks, played charades, fought in a game that only they were playing. At that moment, it was decided that a grand gesture was needed – something to force Earth back on its' axis. Things needed to be cared for, and others made to feel like they mattered. I aspired to make reality feel like a fairy tale. My heart only knows how we grew up believing in things made of wisps of words and imagination; a princess, dragons, a knight, and mermaids splashed deep beneath the sea. The real demons were the ones under our beds, not the ones in our heads nor lurking the streets. Are we all drugged? We have all cheated, lied, or stolen; committed a crime that is better if forgotten. In the end, are we our enemy? I know the only battle I am fighting is with myself. Still, I yearn for when I used to believe in a world filled with fair-folk and folklore; a world where saying hello to strangers on the street was okay. I did not know that by today, I would be shattered like glass sprawled in pieces across the floor. I know now that the world only makes sense when examined in parts. I am searching for something blind. What I know is that I want to live, to be alive, and to no longer survive - to be free in a world that follows strict sunrise and sunset. I need to feel the grass beneath my feet and the wind blowing in my hair like a summer breeze. I wish to return to the world of make-belief. I mourn for whispered words, lullabies, and fables. The sunshine is shrouded, and the acid rain falls; darkness has bled into my veins. Now flowers bloom with poison, and the butterflies have flown away. My dress is red, my steps stilted, and only the scent of decay persists. The land I once knew no longer exists, and I refuse this new one that has swallowed me whole. Instead, I squeeze my eyes shut until the horrors of today leak from my head. Please, I dream of sanity. To be insane in a mad world, now that isn't of myths and fairy-tales.

Do you know what it's like to hear the word CANCER? This is my second round of hearing that word., Once was 25 years ago, and again last year. I heard stage 4 this time and when asking the doctor what it meant she turned her back on me. When she did that I knew it was time for a second opinion, and that's what I did.(To tell you what this Doctor did, there isn't enough space). Didn't have stage 4, but what I was told was just as bad. New doctors that explained exactly what was going on, and what the plan was that would save my life. Chemo started-phase one went well, phase two not so good. Chemo stopped new plan put into place and its working. 'There have been days when I sat and cried, trying to figure out WHY? Days that I cried how can I afford this, how can I pay for my medicine(over $3000) just to stay alive until surgery could be performed. Many days of screaming and yelling at my poor hubby telling him "stop changing things, I'm not dead ", stop treating me like I'm not in the same room. Pure hell as I look back now. The worst part was when I started loosing my hair-what a shock (actually thought it was the dogs shedding)-nope it was me. It was devastating and as I look back it was the worst thing I have ever been through. I had a support team that was unbelievable in getting me through that stage. My best friend had her hair shaved down to her scalp so that I wouldn't be embarrassed. Her doing that made me cry and made me realize that she was there for the duration. (There were others that spread vicious lies about me and my condition). Why would someone who claimed they were friends do something like that? . At this point in my treatment I couldn't go outside without a hat whereas I didn't want anyone to see me like this. After each treatment I would get sick and then three days later would be fine until the next round. For my own piece of mind I would go to our campsite for rest and relaxation, cry, and try to keep a stiff upper lip. My support team was there the whole time. They made me laugh, and helped keep my spirits up. If they didn't see me outside, they knocked on the door to be sure I was okay, had me over for dinners and went out for ice cream afterwards, along with lots of fires at night. These were the people that kept me going along with my hubby.(My hubby also got sick during this time with his sugar levels way out of balance, so along with my treatment, he had his own.Thankfully his is under control now). When you hear the words "Cancer" your whole life changes, You have to adjust to all the doctor appointments, the chemo treatments, along with staying positive. You sit and realize that changes have to be made. Stress is not an option for you at all. You don't need it in your life. I had to make a lot of changes, as there was a lot of stress in my life at that time. Hubby and I sat down and discussed all of our options, what would we do, how could we do it, and who should know what was going on. The hardest part of this was telling my daughter. From there we set up our support team and things started to go easier. The support team consisted of some close friends who are still on the team, and I couldn't ask for a better group. The next thing we did was get rid of the problems that was causing the stress. We moved our camper to a new place, got rid of the people in our lives that were causing the stress. That was the best part of all of this. You could say that we "threw out the trash". What a relief it was to have the stress gone. We have surrounded ourselves with kind and loving people, people who care and help if it is needed. What I am saying is this: when you hear that word "Cancer" , stop and think for a minute. Get your priorities in place. Sit down make a plan. Stick to that plan. Make sure that you have the right Doctors around you that will work with you, tell you what is wrong and what they plan to do, along with what you want done.. This way you wont have to go through what we did. Surround yourself with a team of people that will help when needed, give you support when you have a bad day, and believe me you will have them. Remember to have a sense of humor (you're going to need it). Laugh as much as you can, do what you want to, get a hobby or keep on doing the one that you have to keep your mind off of what is going on. My crafting helped me during this time., Take a nap if you need one, they are a good way to take a break,. Above all FIGHT like you have never fought before, you will be in the biggest fight of your life. I'm still fighting and looking forward to a better life, spending time with family and friends, Doing the things that I have always wanted to do: travel, crafting, taking photo's, yard sales and many other things, Remember stay happy, smile, laugh, love, and be surrounded by people that love and care for you.