Yeah, yeah. I know I haven’t been posting as frequently and as regularly as before. Sorry. I’ve been busy with “preparing” for my husband’s upcoming resignation. With all the pressure and stress that I’ve been enduring for the past few days since I got back from a four-day vacation with my friends, it’s by great chance that Marc decided that Cebu would be the best place for us to buy a guitar.

Guitar, Gail, and Aileen

I bought this guitar in Cebu (so did Aileen and Chris), with Abe picking the color closest to his flaming tomato red Adsense car. The guitar sounded great, and eerily reminded me of the very first guitar I ever owned—a present from a favorite uncle who passed away four years ago.

Back in high school, I used to love playing the guitar since my uncle bought me one from Cebu. I had an acoustic guitar, and even got myself a black and white Fender Strat electric guitar—a sixteenth birthday present from my dad. I played either of those two guitars on rainy days or when I didn’t feel like tinkering with Photoshop or playing basketball. I played the guitar whenever I was emotionally-charged (the electric one was my preference whenever I was pissed). I played it in the cafeteria during breaks, in my basketball teammate’s house, or just about anywhere it was allowed. So yeah, you can say that I was especially fond of playing the guitar during my teenage years.

But as soon as I entered college, I stopped. Just like that. I didn’t know why (actually, I still don’t know why up to now), but I just did. I even stopped listening to music whenever I was working on the PC—the noise pissed me off.

Funny. For the past few days, I can’t work in total silence—I get this awful compulsion to sleep whenever I don’t hear any music from the TV, my media player, or Marc (who, I might add, is a better guitar player than he is a singer wehehe).

Then came our new guitar.

Marc had always been musically-inclined (though I honestly think he should leave singing to me LOL), and he had long wanted for us to have an instrument in our household ever since we got married. I was against it—the “noise” would distract me from work. I bought the instrument in Cebu for sentimental reasons—it was the same place where my late uncle got me my first guitar.

It was my husband’s love for music that reminded me how playing the guitar soothed my nerves. I almost forgot the calming effect strumming a few chords has on a horrible, tensed afternoon. And I was pleasantly reminded of the feeling of getting lost in the music, a feeling that I usually get whenever I’m having tinkering on a graphic art, painting, reading while letting my imagination run wild, or heck, having some fun with my husband in bed 😛

Creating art works or music is just like sex with the one you love—there is nothing in the world but you and your husband, just like there is nothing in the world but you and your art. When it’s done, you get this feeling of comfort, of calm, of inspiration. It’s a great kind of high, not to mention a wonderful way to de-stress.

How about you? Other than sex (hehe), how do you de-stress?

Photo Credit: Inset photo taken from Aileen’s photo gallery 😛