The First Bite of Reason

You thought you loved him, but after some time, you realized that you actually did not. The realization made you sad, because you thought it was real, because you thought and you firmly believed that what you felt for him at the time was as real as your existence.

After the fall out, you cried buckets of tears, thinking you won't be able to feel again, that you won't be as in love again. You thought he'd be the last person you'd love, but you were wrong.

Now, six months past your second heartbreak, you are in love again. And how you wish that this time, it would be real.

Gravity's Command

It is like falling in love for the first time.

You memorize every detail of his being--from his physical attributes to his core values. You know his smell--rustic and comfy; his eyes, those eyes that speak to you everytime you look at him; his lips that twitch everytime he thinks of something witty but refuses to say it; his nose that wrinkles whenever he looks at you; and his voice, that soft yet stoic voice. You understand why he keeps most of his emotions to himself, why it takes time for him to open up, and what keeps him from doing what he wants.

You keep tabs of little things that he's done for and with you like how you keep the fondest memories of your childhood. You remember the way he looked at you the first time you met, the first joke you shared, the first laugh you had with him, and the other firsts. You remember everything he says, whether it be about a random dog or a political dogma. You save everything in your memory. Heck, you even write about it. You write about the day he called you fat ass and the night he asked you of your weight. You take note of his random anecdotes on certain things. You write about him--the way he talks to you, the tone of his voice, the touch of his skin, the smell of his hair. You write about the way he makes you feel whenever he is around, whenever he cracks a joke, whenever he is with you. You write your memory with and about him. Everything that relates to him, you take note so that you won't forget.

With each day, you keep on reviewing, asking yourself, "Of all people, why him?" He is adorably random and awkward, a little humanoid on the side. He is hot and cold, not easy to understand and to handle. It is like you are dissecting and scrutinizing a masterpiece. You are gentle as you turn every piece of him inside out, inspecting, knowing, understanding, and accepting. Every part of him screams his name, of his uniqueness, but you know that he is more than the sum of his parts. Definitely more than that.

It is like falling in love for the first time and seeing the person in a different light.

My History on Love

Relationship request from [insert name here]: Accept or Reject?

Today, I will get too personal. Today, I will talk about my past relationshits and what I learned from them. Before we start, let me just tell you that:

• I am not after the looks.
• I rarely have "couple" pictures taken.
• I am not into labels.
• I usually make bad decisions.

So, it might be hard for me to explain whatever it was that transpired between me and him. Please bear with me. 

The Childhood Sweetheart. We were in fifth grade. At the time, I paid no attention to boys and attraction. The term "crush" was alien to me. All I cared about were books, friends, and physical games. I was a dork even before. I was a transferee, and he was the first one to notice me. He befriended me and we clicked instantly. Not long after, we found ourselves spending lunch breaks together, goofing around the school together, and pranking anyone in the school (even the teachers). We even walked home together. We were practically best of friends. In our sixth grade, he started acting weird and suddenly got shy around me. He then started sending me letters, which I totally ignored because I hated reading letters. Things changed after that. We started ignoring each other as if we were not friends. It was only four months before our graduation that he told me the content of his letters. Apparently, he liked me... more than friends. Being impulsive and totally mental, I told him, "Yeah? Let's try being more than friends then." His reaction: ecstatic. Mine? Bored. After that day, I went back to ignoring him. We didn't talk until three days before graduation. He asked me what happened between us. I shrugged and told him I was sorry. And we were back to being strangers. 

Lesson learned: Don't say something and then walk away like nothing happened. If you say it, then fucking mean it. 

The Easy Target. I was in first year college. I met him through a common friend. We started out as friends. Things were easy with him. We didn't have to pretend we were somebody we were not. I knew his secrets and how his mind worked; he knew mine. We talked to each other almost everyday always until dawn. We were smooth sailing. Not until he asked me to be his girlfriend. I told him I didn't believe in labels. At first, it was okay with him. But I could only push someone too much. Three months after the no label spiel, he wanted a label. I was bored, and said okay. Three weeks into the "label," I quit. At the time, I had a lot of issues to deal with, so I left him without even saying goodbye.  

Lesson learned: Some people were just meant to be friends. Relationship and feelings cannot be forced to someone. 

The Summer Love Affair. First year going second year college. He was the first person I dated. From the very start, I knew his intentions. He was very clear about it. He wanted me to be his girlfriend. With label. I didn't know what got into me, but I actually gave him a chance. I gave myself the opportunity to prove to myself that maybe I wasn't a frigid and heartless person. The day we got "together," he wanted me to meet his family. I told him I wasn't ready yet. Instead of saying okay, he told me that he wanted to meet mine. What I did was, I let him meet my high school friends. He was the first guy I tagged along to a Barkada Lunch. However, nothing was easy with him. I had to be feminine and perfect around him. I had to extend more understanding and patience, because our wavelengths weren't the same. I also had to make the effort to reach out to him. We were so different, but realizing my relationshit history, I had to make the relationship last for at least more than three months. It didn't last that long, because I caught him cheating on me with someone else. 

Lesson learned: Don't settle for anything less than what you deserve. 

The Teenage Dream. After being cheated on, I focused on acads, friends, and beer. A year after my failed first labeled relationship, I met this guy. He was one of the students in my summer class. He was funny and bursting with energy. He wasn't stunning, but he was interesting--interesting enough to get and to keep my attention. He asked for my number. He called me and things took off from there. Since then, my weekends would consist of Saturday Movie day and Sunday Church day--with him. He made me feel like a girl, like I was special. Effort wasn't much of an issue on both sides. Everything felt right whenever we were together. I didn't mind being mushy and stupid with him. I even made him a poem (yes, I did, judge me then.) The relationshit would have lasted for more than 6 months, had I not fallen in love with someone else. 

Lesson learned: Some things are better left unsaid. 

The One that Got Away. He came to my life while I was having my teenage dream fulfilled by someone else. I met him on a Tuesday (the day I decided to ditch my majors to think over my life and life choices) while I was killing myself with nicotine. He said something that made me smile inside. He was the first guy who told me that. I didn't say anything, but I smirked at him. Exactly a week after that, he asked our common friends for my number and sent me a message. My first reflex was to assume that he was being friendly since he was already warned that I was dating someone else. My second reflex was to friendzone him. So I did both. Things were going pretty well. We were friends who loved to talk about music, literature, and random stuff. We were friends until my Eros shot me with his arrow. I knew I had to stop. And I did. I stopped talking to him and vanished into thin air from his world. 

Lesson learned: Someone will come to your life, change how you view the world, and then leave you perhapsless and stuck in reverse. 

The Counterpart. It took me years to get over The One That Got Away. I didn't think I was ready to get emotionally attached to someone. So, I played the game I played before--the art of being a humanoid. I set foot on this guy's territory, marked him as my own, and left him years ago. Life was okay for him, until I knocked on his door. This time, I had no intention of running away, but I also had no intention of staying. I just wanted to kick back and relax. In the end, it didn't work out for us. We were too much alike that it became boring and predictable. 

Lesson learned: Beware of boredom. It will force you to make decisions you will regret later. 

The Revolution. Coming soon...

Lesson learned: You'll know it when you feel it. Fall in love again, because second chances are always magical. 

Love Will Tear Us Apart

Do you know what happens when you get your heart broken? You overcompensate.

You do the stuff you don’t usually do. You study hard, you get active with a lot of community endeavors, you read books you thought you’ll never read, you exercise and make yourself better. You become somebody else. You occupy yourself with many things, thinking that you’ll get over him sooner than you expect. You keep yourself busy. You keep your head clear from any of his memories.

You run from his memories. You opt not to watch the TV shows that he likes. You turn off your iPod once you hear the music he listens to. You hide him from your News Feed on Facebook. You delete his messages on your phone. You throw away your photos together. You try hard to disintegrate yourself from him.

You wake up early to start a productive day. You work harder, you push yourself to the limits. You go home, a little drunk and tired. You hit the bed. You don’t have the energy anymore. You sleep late, and the routine continues the next day. You become a robot, merely existing, barely living. You tire yourself. You work until you run out of energy, until your body cries for help, until your mind screams “Rest!” You work and work and work and work until you hit pit bottom.

You keep fighting the urge to regress. You fight off any unwanted emotions. You keep telling yourself that you are strong. But in the end? The fact remains—you have a hole in your heart that no one/nothing, not even the greatest accomplishment, can ever fill in.

The Great Perhaps

I failed my part of the bargain.

Do I feel remorse? No. Do I feel regret? No. But there's just one thing in my mind: The Great Perhaps. It is not regret that provokes this kind of question. No, not regret at all. It is more of human nature that gives me this kind of idea. What if I did my part of the bargain? What if I did what I was supposed to do? What if I did things differently? What if, will everything be different?

No, of course not. Everything will still be the same. I will still think of the The Great Perhaps, mainly because I have done things differently. And it's normal. It's human nature to want something we don't have. Why? Because we love the thrill. We love the chase. We love the challenge it poses to our humanity. Well, at least for me.

I like chasing something I can never have. I like the feeling of uncertainty, of whether I can really have it or not. It makes me feel as if there's still hope in humanity. It makes me think that maybe, just maybe, there's still more to life for me. It makes me feel as though I am made for something, that I could be someone else. It makes me feel alive even for a while. But most of the time, it kills me.

AAAAAAHHHH! THE GREAT PERHAAAA *some text missing*

Stupid Cupid

Love could be the most beautiful feeling ever...or it could be the most terrifying.

Either way, love is the most confusing and the most complex feeling of all. The rush, the thump, the rose-colored glasses, then the uncertainty, the fear, the anxiety--these emotions fill up your heart as butterflies swirl in your stomach.

You see him. Your heart skip a bit. You take a deep breath. You stare at him, and suddenly you hear music in the background. It is the kind of music that only people (falling) in love can hear. The kind of music that makes a heart swell with overwhelming emotions. Everything fades into the background. There's only one dimension--He. Everything's on slow motion as he walks towards you. He is smiling his lopsided smile, the smile that won your heart from the very start. He waves at you. You smile back, failing to wave in return because you don't have the energy to do so. You hear your heart stumping like crazy. You hold your breath, anticipating, waiting for him.

Then, the future flashes before you. You are spending your life with him. You have two kids. You are living in a two-story yellow house with a big garage and a well-maintained garden. Your family owns a dog named Bully. He is the youngest partner in a well-known law firm in the city, while you are making your way in publishing industry. You talk about random things every night before going to sleep. You cook breakfast for him and the kids every morning and make sure that they do not forget anything before they leave. You stay at home, writing your new novel. During weekends, he cooks for the family. He makes time for you and the kids. He is the one in-charge during the weekends. He makes you feel like a queen. He takes you out to dinner sometimes while the kids stay over at their grandparents' place. But most of the time, you spend the time together as one happy family.

Sometimes you argue over silly things, but make up after everything is cleared. Your life together as a couple is pretty usual, only that the love you have for each other has not faded, not a bit. Time passes. Your kids turn into adults. Still, the two of you is together. You still listen to your favorite songs together. You two still hold hand and share the same dream together. He is old. You are old. But time is nothing. He smiles at you, his eyes glisten with unwavering love. You smile back, knowing that you have made the right decision to fight for him long ago.

Now, he's in front of you. His smile has not faded. His eyes shimmer with happiness and excitement. You gaze at him, longing, gaping, thinking of what to say. You heart is in your throat.

Five years is a long time. Yet, you are falling in love with him over again. You feel your gut tighten. Then, there comes fear. You are supposed to take this chance to tell him what you feel. You are supposed to tell him you love him, but you cannot. You fear his rejection. But it is now or never. You open your mouth to say the words you long to say for five years. Just when the first word is slipping off of your lips, a girl comes into the picture. He put his right arm over her shoulders and gives her a peck on her lips. He introduces you to her. You smile. She smiles. He says something to you, but you cannot hear any of it. Your ears stop functioning. You cannot move. You are staring at them, yet you cannot see. Your heart has been crashed. Your hopes died. Everything in you is breaking into pieces. Pain is eating you away. It is not jealousy, it is pure pain and heartache. You wish everything is just a dream, a very bad dream. But you know that the pain is real, way too real.

But of course, you know that none of these are true. That all of these just happen in your mind. You just make these up. You are not in love. You are not hurt. You are just bored and maybe a little bit hormonal. There is no "He," because "He" only exists in your imagination. The emotions you've created are just words without meaning, nothing more. You lie on your bed, shake off any remaining ideas in your head, and sleep. You sleep until you don't feel alone and lonely anymore. You sleep until you are in that familiar world again. A world where love is not confusing and complex. You sleep, and worry no more.

Be the Starr of my life

Hell Yeah I Love Ringo Starr!

For the past days, I have neglected my Beatles duty. I have not heard Yellow Submarine and Octopus Garden in a week. I have not stalked Ringo Starr for the past few weeks. This is not good. Seriously. Is my fixation slowly turning into a thing of the past? Oh no no no. Time to get my head on the game. LOL. Whatever, Ringo Starr is still my favorite Beatle.

P.S.:

I only put this picture on my blog just to give life and color to the dull words I have written (which no one reads anyway).

Love Can Do Wonders.

Love can do wonders to people. It is a common knowledge that we fail to recognize once we are smitten by love. It is sort of a fact that most people ignore once they had their heart broken. It is a common rule for anyone who has experienced love, is experiencing love, and will experience love.

I am surfing the net and stalking other people when I came across some blog entries regarding love. Those blog entries are what I call works of love. Works of love, yes mushy. But it makes me realized some things.

Love can do wonders. Love can make us do things that we do not know that we can do. It can even make us do things we do not want to do. Love can make us sing at the top of our lungs. Love can make us write words of contentment and happiness, of total bliss. Love can make us dance in our hearts' content. Love can make us see beyond any truth. Love can let us see beauty underneath the ugliness. Love can make us dream even when we are still awake. Love can make us listen to the sound of our hearts. Love can make us believe in the unknown, the abstract, the unseen.

Love can make us experience nirvana, total happiness, absolute bliss. Love can make us feel different kind of joy. Love can give us the perfect kind of happiness and elation in the world. Love can leave us high for a long time. Love can leave us psychedelic for no reason at all. Love can defy all logic there is. Or is it more appropriate to say the love is the foundation of all logic and common sense that exist? Love can make us believe in magic. Indeed, love can do wonders.

Mushy as these statements may sound, but those are the things that love can do to anyone, right?

Teenage Love Affair

Almost two years had passed, and yet I still couldn't believe that I was the one who wrote this emotional blog entry. I couldn't believe that I have been this romantic and idealistic. I have been this heartbroken. And it feels like it won't happen again. It feels like I won't be able to feel this way again. Hmm. *Teenage love affair*

-----

Before him, my life was stable. I was emotionally stable and safe. My heart was safe from the love bug and whatever. I was contented with playing safe and being just okay--not happy, not sad either. Everything was falling into its place (or so I thought). Everything was perfectly normal... and okay. I was okay.

Then he came and started to change everything else in my life. Everything I have worked hard for my heart's safety had gone out in trash. He made me open my heart to possibilities and let my defenses down.

I started believing in destiny, in life, and in love. His existence alone made me believe in positivist's view of love and death, of destiny. His existence alone made me realize that there is such thing as destiny. I started believing in goodness of life has to offer. I started waking up each day with so much enthusiasm and with a real smile plastered on my lips, hoping that the day would turn out just right (and I knew that the day would end perfectly fine because there was someone like him to make everything else right no matter how bad it really was.) I realized that I was really happy in its truest and purest sense (by my standards of being happy). Then, I believed in everything else. I was figuratively floating due to happiness because finally, I let my heart decide for its own, for what it really wanted.

Then, as swiftly as he came, he left.

Heart shattering, yes. Heart breaking, of course. It was like I was in the middle of a wonderful dream, a happy dream, then someone snatched me away before I could catch the gist of my dream. It was like I was floating happily in air, and then there was the sudden crash. Everything I hoped and aspired for was then gone. He took it with him. All of it.

I wept for some time, cried for the love found, love lost. I was left with nothing but memories, with what could have been, with what might have been, and with a love that was true. I was left with heartwarming memories that brought smile on my lips and tears to my eyes. I cried myself to sleep until there was nothing left to cry for. I really thought IT was really there, and then it was not. It is, and then it was.

But like any wounded soldier, I got up and moved on. It was not easy, but I must move on with life like everyone else. I know I must face each day with bravery, hoping that I would break even with life in general. I cried sometimes, I laughed most of the time, but then I knew I was not the same person I was before I met him. Though I was left alone, I was left with a love that could withstand time and all. I was left with memories that would stay the same even after everything else in the world had changed. I was left with a belief that somehow, somewhere, someone is out there--unconsciously waiting for someone like me to change his life too, or maybe not knowing that someone like me exists. I was left with a happy-sad heart. Happy because somehow I felt the joy I had even for a short period of time, sad because it ended so soon. But who am I to ask for more when something great like that happened once in my life? What I had felt for that short course of time was real, I know. At least, I experienced being plainly and perfectly happy even for a while. And I know that no one could take that away from me.

All I have right now is the love that I am capable of giving. The only thing that is missing is the person who will be brave enough and deserving enough to take it and nourish it.

I still feel the same way for him, I still think of him sometimes. I still feel sad sometimes for what could have been if I had been brave enough to risk more of me. Even so, I am not closing my doors to possibilities, but I am not saying that everything will happen right now. Everything will take its course in time, I know. I am still young; there are lots of rooms for me to grow up.

I believe that my fairytale is there--it is just far away.

Do not fall in love.

"It is either we are friends or we are not."

Through rigorous contemplation, I have come up with a decision almost two years ago never to fall in love with anyone, especially when that someone is a close friend (note: opposite sex). Though it is easy to fall in love with a close friend, it has many hang ups. It has its disadvantages

For one thing, the friendship is in big jeopardy. A person in love with his/her close friend tends to act and to react differently. S/he perceives the reality with rose colored glasses, and may misunderstand some actions of the person s/he is in love with. The relationship gets messy. The emotion gets tangled up with the platonic one, which may result to confusion and worse heartache. A person in love, no matter how s/he may deny it, expects something in return. There is no such thing as a free gift, much more an emotional investment. Expectations always come up in the process of falling in love with a close friend. And that's where the danger comes in. Expectations have its way of ruining everything. Believe me.

Another thing is the awkwardness of the situation. Come on. It does not feel "exactly right" to fall in love with a friend. Everything gets awkward because something has changed, "you" have changed. Everything gets mixed up, and reason starts to be blurred. Emotions are cluttered. And then one thing you'll notice: the friendship is not the same anymore, and it is your fault. It is your heart's fault.

So you see. Falling in love with a friend is messy. It confuses the mind. It breaks the heart. And it leads to the deterioration of the friendship, which is more important than the sexual relationship because it can last longer than the latter. One might argue that we cannot choose who to fall in love with, but I beg to disagree. We can choose the person we fall in love with. We can, just as we can choose to be happy or not. It just takes time sometimes.

So for those who feel like s/he is already starting to fall in love with her/his friend, restrain yourself. It is either you are friends with that person or you are not. You choose.