BLOGGEDEBS

No, this is not what you want to read to get over a painful break-up. This is not an enlightening vision to move on or an inspiring tale of how to salvage you self-worth. I am not like and will never be like Coelho or those love gurus. This is just my tale and if you happen to share it, good. Good for you, good for me. If anything, at least we know that we are not alone.

I don’t dispense advices that much anymore. I quickly learned that people don’t need my opinion. It is I who need to air them out. I am not in any way smarter, better, stronger or happier. Goodness, I’m a kid. There’s nothing you can learn from me. There is no resolution to this because life operates ambiguously. Why should my little piece of crap have a denouement?

Anyhow, for the sake of my personal entertainment, let’s proceed.

When you get your heart broken and I mean, your heart, your being, your soul, whatever part of you that you deem houses what you deem to be love and everything that’s truly important to you that doesn’t have an exact physical, tangible, visble counterpart- when that massive part of who you are gets hurt, you die. I’m serious. You really die. It’s a different thing when it dies on its own from when you treat it by amputating a part of it. When you break up with someone, when their part in your story has ended upon your whim, it will only feel like you lost your ears or the 10 pesos firecracker you bought from your suking tindahan has devoured your finger on New Year’s Eve. It’s painful. You’re hurt but you heal and then you go back to your old life. And then come next year, you’re playing with firecrackers again, only this time, you use watusi. (Nagiging cheap ka na eh. Mahal ang surgery.)But the pain I’m talking about is different. There’s an abrupt death. The first time it happens can be the last time. If it happens more than once, you’re one lucky SOB. Painom ka naman diyan, tsong.

But to some people, it happens only once and that first time kills not just one person. It kills a generation, a country. Because that pain originates from true love. Corny, isn’t it? True love. Ang labo, ang baduy. But it is true. Here’s your scenario: You are not a beginner in the game of love. You have experienced love. You’ve had a love that could have lasted a month, a year, a decade. But when that love disappears, nothing in you changes that much. You haven’t learned a lot, really. You haven’t truly given yourself.But hopefully, once in your life, you’ll experience true love. It is a great love. Everything you believed in your life before will alter. It’s not a stupid love. It’s mad but it’s not stupid. You don’t become a drug addict or a bank robber or a pimp when you have this love. Ok maybe, you will. I try not to be preachy when it comes to people’s preferences. Whatever it is, it’s a love that makes you do a hundred and eighty degree, cartwheels and all these twists and turns that will make Madonna feel literally like a virgin.


Everthing around you is heightened at first and then, you gradually calm things down, depending on your situation. If you know that this could last a while, there are no threats of dissolution, you relax, the relationship relaxes. But if you’re always on the verge of losing that person, for some reason beyond your control, you don’t take things for granted. Whichever way it goes, you’ll know a great love once you have it.One of the signs of a great love, at least from experience, is when you know it’s the right person. He is not the right man because he is everything you want in a mate. But somehow, all the nitty-gritty parts of him, parts of him that usually make you vomit, all these are things you manage to live with. Sure, you hope he would change a bit. But you accept who he is because you suddenly realize that the saying, “One is loved because one is loved” has finally come true here. And even if he changes, say, he suddenly grows a beer belly or he’s losing his hair or there are more wrinkles in his forehead, or he has stopped giving you flowers on your anniversary or you fight more, it’s ok, it’s alright. Having him in your life is a privilege in itself so although you are not a bouncy cheerleader anymore, you get bored sometimes, you get angry, you’re still happy. You’ll have your moments but they’ll pass.


Another sign of the true love is when you feel brave. No, you won’t get deployed to Iraq and have a screamfest ala When September Ends by Greenday has but you know, you take risks. When you fall, you don’t follow Dan Brown’s unrealistic suggestion to take a cloth out during the fall so you can reduce the possibility of death by 20%. You fall and you don’t think. All your adult life, you were dead set on never getting married, never having children, never living with someone. You wanted an uncomplicated, laidback, pain-free life. Not only was that more economical, it was less hassle, less emotional baggage. You never believed that you can be with just one person the rest of your days but somehow, with this one, all your childhood fantasies you thought you’ve lost come rushing back and you take a step forward every single minute. You’re still a little scared but you know it: you want to take that risk with this person. Sure, your love might lose its steam but who cares? You want to take this person’s s**t. You want to see his monster and you want to unleash yours. Maybe you already have. But seeing and becoming those monsters everyday, getting hurt every minute, losing some of your original dreams- you are ready for all these and more.


Aside from it being a choice, the great love elicits a lot of passion and energy as well, especially in the beginning. Love is a decision, I agree with that. But it can’t be just a decision. There has to be genuine feelings in there. I tried the whole decision thing and it didn’t work. When it ended, I was relieved. But with this one, you feel passionate about him. Not that all you can think about is sex everyday. But you want to be close to him, you want to snuggle, you crave that physical intimacy once in a while. You can’t help but touch him and you feel like the world is alright, everything is rosy when he hugs you from behind. You’re tender towards him and you feel a tug in your insides when you stare at each other. “This is it, man, this is it!”, your brain screams.Then, all of a sudden, it’s over.You break it off because of too many reasons: could be that you outgrew each other or he has another girl or the long distance thing isn’t working or your relationship is blocking your career or your cultural backgrounds could be much of a conflict or his family didn’t like you or time was never on your side. (Whew. Hiningal ako dun.) Too many reasons to break up. Logical, practical, matured reasons. They make sense. They’re right.


In a black and white world, these reasons are enough. Environments are stronger than people and we all dissolve into them. We have to. We’re not superhuman. We’re ordinary folks trying to live our lives the best way we know how, trying to have it all, trying to do the right thing every single time.So you break up. It’s a done deal. You move on, he moves on. In your head, you think he’s moving on quickly. In fact, you’re wondering if maybe he has moved on a long time ago. You wonder if any of it was real, if he was lying all the time when he told you that he loved you. You feel used, you feel stupid. You wonder if he really loved you and that’s your biggest question. F**k that crap about love being a completely selfless thing. If you don’t care if he loves you or not, why bother being with him in the first place? Of course, you want him to love you. Love is intrinsically a selfish thing. It’s what you do with it that makes it a little selfless. But inside our teeny-weeny brains, inside our bitter hearts, we want to be loved by the people we love. You spend your nights and days, crying. Muffled sobs, you prefer muffled sobs. You can never talk to your parents or your siblings about your pain and truth be told, when you broke up, you wanted to pretend it didn’t happen. You wanted to believe that there was a fighting chance to resolve all things. But when you cry alone in your room, you hide those tears from people because if other people didn’t know, you could pretend that it didn’t happen.


Aside from that, you wretched lover you, the bastard breaks your heart but your first instinct was to protect his image. Then slowly, gradually, you try to go back to your old life. You can’t. I told you, you die after this. Some people experience rebirths but you, you might not. Why, you ask? Well, your history molded you in such a way that you never believed in love, really. So when it happened, you felt weird. Why did it happen to you? You grew up believing you never deserved the great things in life so it actually makes sense that you’ve lost the best thing that happened to you. You keep losing people. You always get left behind. And when people leave, you always wonder if you even existed to them, if you mattered. No, you are not emo. You’re just stating a fact that some people are fortunate enough not to experience.But this one, his disappearance, this end. This one hurts the most because this is love that was brought upon not by blood or consaguinity, not by responsibilities but the simple magic of circumstances, nurtured by your growing and irrevocable fondness for someone.


Out of the many important things in his life, you wonder why you were the least important. He was your top priority which is even why you accepted why you had to let him go. You ask why you’re the one he was willing to give up. If you were truly loved, isn’t it that he should worry most about how you would feel upon losing him? You’re the one who would steadily need him. You’re his equal. So why didn’t he fight for you?So here you are now. You are reading this, you are typing this, you are thinking this. He left. It’s over. While other people reassure you that there’ll be someone better, there’s a reason- you look back at all the losses in your life. You reflect on all your questions you’ve been carrying for more than a decade and none of them had been answered. You are not worried about feeling love again. You might, that’s true. Heck, you might even get married. But the sad reality is, life is not a series of replacements. You loved this man, you still do and he was the right person. You had that conviction. What are the chances it’s going to happen again? You’re not even scared about making mistakes or getting hurt, getting screwed over.

But some elements, some things, some love, some kinds of happiness never really exist again. You have a flicker of it, it leaves you and you’re never the same after. You’re doing good with your job, you pay your taxes, you hang out with friends. You’re not a poster girl for depression. You’re actually doing fine but you can’t forget the pain. It’s there and there’s no escaping it.


Suddenly, you understand people who get drunk all the time, those who resort to drugs and people who have countless one night stands. Even people who get attached too quickly after. They want to be in a trance. So do you and you envy them because that’s not your style. You wish it was but it’s not.But since you’re a wreck, a major idiot and you’re really still a child, you still dream. You wait. You wait eventhough you know you’re not supposed to. There might not be anything to really wait for, to hold on to. Your cellphone is dead silent. You’ve checked your e-mail for the nth time. You’ve logged on to YM. There’s nothing. It’s just another day in the office. Then you go home tonight. You have dinner, you talk with your dad, you watch Family Guy and you laugh hysterically. Then when you’re finally alone in your room, before you go to sleep, the muffled sobs come again.

A while ago I was chatting to a friend who was ranting about this guy whom she had semi-regularly hooked up with for a few months. After how many weeks of not hearing anything from the guy, one night, just right out of the blue, the guy’s name pops out from her phone (bluntly speaking, guy walks in & walks out on her at any time). Now, elusive guy is inviting her to his pad, saying that he keeps on thinking about her & that he wanted to do it with her again. Now you get the picture?While my friend is fancying for an emotional connection with this guy (after a series of intimate moments with him), the latter is not only as upsettingly elusive, but is up merely for his carnal desires. Perhaps the guy thought of my friend as a 24-hour convenience store that can be delivered anytime he wants to his house (free pa!). She was so furious that she decided it was a snapping point & finally dropped him after his last call for a hookup.

But really now, why do a lot of women put up with these kind of set up – of pseudo relationships, flings, the no-strings arrangements & such. Or further yet, the sex with no strings. No dinner, no movies, no clothes. You play the game with him. You convince yourself that you can be invulnerable too, constructing all your defenses to keep up with him. But gradually you realize that your heart starts to betray you. How could you send regrets, he is a charming temptation. You bite it, fully aware of those premises, & yet you end up choking. Or worse, poisoned. I am not entirely generalizing, but I know a lot of women who end up falling in love in this kind of arrangement. And the sad part here is knowing that the guy isn’t just into you totally & has no intentions or interests in anything heavy right now.

So how do you deal with this part?Just how do you get rid of the sparks of feelings of attachment (in the middle of his kisses, his caresses, and the moments between the sheets)? Or have you ever wished for a love-immunity-pill to save yourself from the pits before playing the game? Sabi nga ng isang friend ko, pag nagkataon meron, she’ll overdose herself. So after everything else, there won’t be any funny ways of backfiring. hayy.. sad.. but thats true.. that's love ( kuno)=p