That hurts

I hear a cracking sound...

"It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse" 

         --- Yann Martel, Life of Pi

...ouch, it is my heart.

Number of times people fall in love

Saw on friend's Facebook page a quote which says (NV),

"Ladies, the right man for you will pursue you. He won't leave you wondering whether he is into you or not"

So... I realized that the right man came along and I let him go hahaha  Shocks... honesty! I think I ate too much ice cream.

I also heard from the radio that a person falls in love 4 times in his/her lifetime.  Hmm... I still have two more chances. Oh wait.. Oh my gosh. I have one left. Oooh...

Catching those who fall

I visited Vin's blog and saw a post regarding our conversation last week about catching and not catching those who fall. This is a sort of reaction to his blog entry…

Vin and I had a little talk about this guy friend of mine -- his feelings, his moves, his lines and the decisions he made with his friendship with me. After I shared the story to Vin, he said, "Was in his shoes a lot of times. Hard to fall when the other person wouldn’t be there to catch you Gerty. I recovered but it was a long process. But I still go on”.

I was left speechless. I don’t know how or why, but it hit me (yes my dear friend, it did). Hard to fall when the other person wouldn’t be there to catch you…  It kept running in my head.

Vin also said, “Well at least, you let him down easy…”. Let the guy down? I didn’t even know that I did! I was totally oblivious with his feelings. Why wouldn’t I? Everytime we go out and most of the time that we have a conversation, he always speaks about a girl. I, on the other hand, would give him encouragement, (which I thought he needed then) to pursue what he felt. And when he asks about how I am, I would rant about how I lose friends because cupid seemed to be drinking too much alcohol that he wrongly strikes his arrows on my guy friends, thus leaving me because they’ve fallen.

Now I begin to ask, did they leave because I didn’t catch them? Or did they leave because they THOUGHT I wouldn’t catch them?

Most of the time, people wouldn’t take effort of hearing the other side. Maybe because there really aren’t much to explain about or the explanations aren’t enough to heal a bruised heart.

But how can you actually catch someone when you don’t even know that the other person is falling? As much as you wanted to catch him/her, you can’t. It’s either because your attempt to catch someone doesn’t involve that person or because you were too busy thinking or worrying if he/she will catch you since you were falling for him/her not knowing that the other person feels the same.

We keep on guessing and there’s no other safe place to go but to think it’s unrequited.

We may never know, they might want to catch us but they just can’t for some reason. And you have to believe me, it’s equally tough for them.

Vin asked why is he so lenient with me when I did exactly the same thing other people did to him. He was right when he thought that it’s the fact that I’m still friends with most of those guys whom I wasn’t able to catch. It’s mostly difficult, but I do exert effort depending on the situation.

There are so many reasons why someone won’t catch us. We can’t always assume that they’re heartless or insensitive. Not being defensive after someone has actually told me I break his heart everytime I say NO, but there could be so much in it that we didn’t know.

Someone has boldly told me before, “I’ve actually deleted your number. It was just this morning that I asked ***** for it. It must be the sun… I was thinking maybe I could have breakfast with you” (Mr. I-am-not-avoiding-you-miss, if you’re reading this blog, forgive me for having a good memory).

I don’t take offense with these kinds of statements. I appreciate and respect candor, which are properly delivered.

I say, there are things that we shouldn’t keep. Just the same that there are explanations that we should hear.




JE2905

Waiting to expire

Some people have expiration dates. Worse is, others just chose to expire. Even if you consume them to save them from spoiling, if they decide to putrefy at any given time within a grace period, there’s nothing you can do.

I believe that the effort I’ve exerted is enough. I’ve run out of excuses why you treat some things like this, some things like that.

At times that you lose hold of your strength, you begin to exist. You make yourself part of my world and there I am, giving you what you need. And when you’re perfectly fine, back on your old cold self, you disappear.

I am tired of catching you on your moments of weakness.

Keep your feelings like they don’t exist because your actions always betray you. You need more practice to conceal it. You’re not as good as you think.

I value you so much but then if making defenses is the only way to keep this relationship and the only resolve to all these confusions, then it’s not worth it. You asked me to give you something which you are too coward to stand for.

So please stop protecting me. The more you do, the deeper the wound becomes.

They were right. I give myself away too much and you’re getting away with a lot.

Hindi porke nagtitiis ka, kailangan ko na ring magtiis. (It doesn't mean that because you are enduring it, I also have to endure)

You can keep all your issues and feelings to yourself. I don’t care about them anymore. Besides, I’m not the one who’s gonna get rotten….

It’s you.




NR0205

Myth of romantic love

For the past few months, I’ve been hearing the concept of “the one” from a number of people. Not that I don’t believe in destiny or fate (that would be too much) but the idea itself hasn’t existed in my thoughts for the longest time. When I was still a little girl, I believed that there is someone for somebody. But when I began to love somebody in a romantic way, my thoughts changed. It may sound odd because why would my belief change just when I learned how to love.

I see single people, I see people with broken hearts and hoping that “the one” would arrive soon to heal their loneliness and pain, and I see people who severely waits for the one meant for them. And some of them grew old waiting. Witnessing these cases, I realized that not everybody has “the one”.

The psychiatrist M. Scott Peck was right when he said that those ideas about romantic love is all just a myth. It’s a pure fallacy to say that there is one man meant for a woman and vice versa. Innumerable number of single people futilely struggle to adapt their existence with the falsity of the myth. Some couples hang on to the relationship despite all their conflicts and complains because they were thinking that they have to stay because their partners are the one meant for them. These couples forget that the concept of “the one” shouldn’t be used to accept every problem in the relationship. Instead, they should learn to make things work by fixing the core of the conflict. If the relationship doesn’t work, then it’s something that is just really not meant to happen. It’s not good to say that it is a horrible mistake. But to quote what Mr. Scott M. Peck said,  

“Perhaps it (myth of romantic love) is a necessary lie in that it ensures the survival of the species by its encouragement and seeming validation of the falling-in-love experience that traps us into marriage”

**********
title taken from Dr. M. Scott Peck's book entitled "A Road Less Traveled"
JY2104

Love: How far would you gamble? II

I wrote a blog post about this topic months ago but yesterday, I had a convo with someone about how the "love" thingie can alter friendships.

Of course you’re not willing to put a wonderful relationship to jeopardy. But is it always that dangerous? Why are we making all these sort of “agreement” on where we could only go? On what we can only feel?

Most would say, the only thing I have for him/her is friendship. We’re just friends. Really? *raiseeyebrow* Then what’s the extra smile? Extra time? And why even have that kind of agreement?! (Ouch! Did I just get hit?)

Why? Because we have been infected by an atom of… of…umm… THAT feeling. And we may not know it... It may grow, it may not. That’s how real it could get. Just as the sun will surely rise tomorrow morning. Whether one would fall or both would, the point is to have such thoughts would mean infection.

So are we really protecting the friendship or is it something that we have manipulated ourselves to believe? Didn’t it come from fear? Fear of the outcome, fear of what it’ll make us do, of what it’ll make us feel. We’re not doing it to protect the friendship. That’s crap! We’re doing it to protect other people and ourselves.

Why has there always been a conflict between friendship and falling in love? Why do most people close the possibility of moving friendship to another level? Should I take a seat and have some popcorn and soda while you utter every cliché about it? Is it about the thin line again?

There’s a thin line between friendship and falling in love. Uhuh… Yeah right… the thin line. It’s so freakin’ thin you won’t even notice you’ve crossed it!




AT0905

Temptations. Brrr..

Dear Temptation, 

Just when I was bragging that sleep is all it takes to remove my craziness yesterday and that I have enough self control, this afternoon, you proved me wrong... Palpitations level 10 in the richter  scale. What happened to my walls?! So hard to build them! Please. Stop. As in go away! Serious! Diversions badly needed.

To quote Edward Cullen, "You are the most dangerous creature I have ever met".

Breaking hearts

I admire girls who can profess their love to a guy. They’re very gutsy. Like a friend of mine in high school, she confessed that she likes this guy friend of ours after he told her that he is planning to confess his feelings for me and was asking her for some advice. Tsk…tsk… that is such a heart-breaking scenario. I actually felt bad for her. It already hurts when the one you like, likes your friend. What more if that person confides to you his/her feelings for your friend?

I remember the time my bro asked me to read an email sent to him by girl. He and the girl had been friends since grade school. It’s an email that has an “I refuse to wait for you any longer” introduction. I told my bro that if I would score the girl’s intro in her letter, I’d give her 8 in a rate of 10 hehehe

The girl just told my brother that she saved herself for him alone. Whoa! Since elementary ‘til college?!!! Wow!

"I was doing everything I could possibly can for someone who was and never will be mine. I refuse to believe that you didn’t love me. I wanted you to love me but I know that even for just a second, you really did love me but only… as a friend. I refuse to lose hope. Hope kept me going. The hope for better things to come, the same hope that one day I will finally be… over you”

Aww… poor girl. I’ve always told my bro.. never hurt a girl. Now she’s broken-hearted! Hmmm.. her girl bestfriend confessed to him too! I think that was before they graduated high school. Realizing that my bro doesn’t really like her, she wrote a letter confessing every hidden emotion she has. *sniff*

For my bro, here’s a song for you…. {Almost Over You by Sheena Easton}"Now I’m almost over you… I’m almost should be through…but when you come back around after painting the town you’ll see I’m almost over you…”

For the girl I’d sing… {I Love You, Goodbye by Celine Dion}“Wish I could be the one. The one who could give you love. The kind of love you really need. Wish I could say to you, that I’ll always stay with you. But baby that’s not me. You need someone willing to give their heart and soul to you. Promise you forever baby that’s something I can’t do. Oh I could say that I’ll be all you need but that would be a lie. I know I’d only hurt you, I know I’d only make you cry… I’m not the one you’re needing… I love you…goodbye”


*****
Hay…I used to sing that before wehehehe but I don’t break hearts! Never did! Oh wait.. I take that back. I did break someone's heart (he reads my blog so...) I'm sooo sorry. He said there is nothing to apologize for  but still... I'm just really glad that he is happy now so I'm happy :D 
AT2304

Tan's killer question

"How does it feel to be so close together and yet forever apart?"
- Tan (former officemate)

Misled

The lampshade was on with it’s gloomy light just enough to give life to a room enveloped with silence. I could hear the consecutive movement of the second’s hand of the clock as it continues to make the world rotate endlessly. The light from the lamp displays to me a poignant image of a girl as I looked at my shadow reflected on the wall beside the wooden door. I’m sitting on my bed that was covered by floral designed sheet and I could feel it’s cold touch as I stared into nothingness.

He’s gone. And I chose it to be. I heard a deafening silence from the moment I shut him out of my life. I never thought that this wonderful existence with him was nothing but a masquerade. Everything was plainly an illusion. He made me walk astray with my eyes covered by the belief that everything he had shown me was real. Now I realize I was wrong. I have been insensitive and oblivious to the situation that had happened, which before, gave a sign of imminence. Some people warned me before but I never had the ears to listen. I couldn’t stop the thoughts as it slowly fills my head that is about to burst. The feeling is painful. Its agonizing effect left me bathing in a bloody pool of bitterness. This pain which was covert inside my confused asunder heart makes me realize how illusive some things could be. Now I know that you can never see the truth if you are blinded by your emotions. You have to open both your eyes and your heart to have a grip of what’s real. Blindness from truth will make you a vagabond walking on an endless road of uncertainty. Everything moves. Nothing is constant but change. Now, life appears to be arid and absurd, without any vitality left. But the clock is ticking and the earth is moving. Life needs not to be fixated in an implausible world where happiness is simulated and ephemeral.

I moved my head and looked at the translucent glass of the window. I could not see anything. I could only hear the raindrops falling. Their  angry sound as they fall on the roof like pebbles falling on the ground is all I can hear. And as these crystal droplets of water fall, so too the glistening tears in my eyes fall on my hands as the frigid atmosphere in the room comforts me.




JE1704

Love: How far would you gamble?

“If you fall for a friend, the trouble is if you don’t risk anything, you risk even more” 

- Erica Jong

How dangerous is it to fall for a friend? If you feel such passion for somebody, how long should you keep it? When should you let it out in the open? Should you gamble even if the ground is too risky? To what extent are you willing to go to fight for what you feel or to save what you have?

Truth is, I don’t know how to start this entry without even thinking how I should verbalize some events and most of my thoughts. The original content has been edited so many times since last month after an incident happened which was actually the main reason why I’ll be talking about this subject. Then, similar events occurred lately which made me ponder really hard in order to understand how something good can actually turn out bad… and painful.

There had been so many cases where I lost a friend because of that inexplicable emotion. It was heartbreaking. I did manage to save a few, but if only I could save them all, I would have been happier.

What really happens on situations like these? Why do friendships shatter at the touch of a different feeling?

I think, the wrong part is when the person who has fallen decides to make a move which he thinks will be good for him without thinking of how the other end would feel. He is too busy with his fears of that emotion. That is why in most cases, people choose to just surrender the friendship than take the risk of admitting his emotions. For me, that action is so selfish. If you really are good friends, what’s to be scared about? You will always be given the chance to explain your point. And with that, you can express what you really want to happen. And if your friend is a really good friend, she will understand and would probably even help you compromise a setting which will be comfortable for both of you.

I remember what a guy friend told me before, “There is nothing to be scared about if you know that you’re not doing anything wrong. As long as it’s sincere, nothing bad is going to happen. Do whatever makes you happy as long as you’re not stepping on anybody’s shoes”

I had a friend before, who just abruptly ignored me. After so many months, he admitted he was falling. What satisfaction does it actually give to pull away and desert a friend? Do you know how painful it is to actually undergo mental tweaking just to figure out why someone just suddenly avoids you? It makes me feel like I have some sort of a disgusting disease.

A girl friend told me I should be flattered that those guys felt that way for me. But what’s the point of flattery or good feeling if it will only mean losing people you love?




SR0904

Hormones and cupid

Friday
I decided to go straight home from work to make things safe. I want something and I want it badly. But then I thought there’s nothing wrong if I would spend an hour of dinner with a guy who has an underwear-dropping mischievous smile and who thinks that his cigarette breaks should be spent calling a girl, who’s busy working, just to play teasing games for 10 minutes. (Well what can I say? I’m a pro!)

One of my overly protective friends decided to pick me up after dinner. He thinks I’m sick and staying out with a Grrrr-guy is not a good thing. Had a therapy before going home. Cold shower... Brrrr...


Saturday
7:30 am. So sleepy and so hungry. I stood up and went in front of the mirror. I am freakin’ blooming and I haven’t fixed myself yet and combed my hair. Eeeek! Cupid!!! You are so dead!

As I was having my breakfast, my mother gave me a small pink hallmark paper bag. She said it’s for me. “Late birthday or Christmas gift?”, I asked. She gave me a smirk then a grin. My mom can be so exaggerated at times.

“Inaantok pa ko. Ano po bang month na ngayon?” (I'm still sleepy. What month is it now?), I inquired. I have this tendency of forgetting dates and time when sleepy.

“Anak, February na. Valentine gift yan. Binigay nung neighbor natin. Galing daw sa cousin nya” (Child, it's February. It's a Valentine's gift given by our neighbor. She said it's from her cousin), she answered before leaving.

Thank you ... Santa Claus.

I opened the bag and saw a CD. It was a CD of Christian songs. Hmmm… safe. Then I saw a white envelope with a card in it. Oh my gosh. There’s drama. I picked the envelope and noticed that it was a bit thick. There was a letter inside. Oh my goodness. There’s more drama than I thought. If this is a 1 page letter, I would *sniff*, if it’s two or more I would cry so loud.

And I did. Cry so loud, that is.

It’s freaky how someone you haven’t seen tells you about how pretty he thinks you are, how nice your smile is and tells you that it must have been God’s will and fate that he saw you at this date and at this time.

I locked myself inside our house the whole weekend.




FY1606