The dilemmas we find ourselves in...

Time is fleeting. You wake up facing a day so much different from the others. Everything and everyone in this world is changing. Change - it is the only permanent thing in our mortal lives.

A day before I woke up a year older. People do not grow younger. We age, we grow, and we mature. The fountain of youth is but a myth rekindled by people who wish to relive their younger days. We look back at the path we threaded and we smile. We took on a journey... climbing every mountain and overcoming every obstacle in our path. Life is an adventure... a journey. It drives you through the lands of eternity, over the mountains of struggle, past the pits of sadness, and finally down the rivers of happiness. We take each path searching for a purpose, a reason, a dream. And for every stumble and victory that we take we learn something new.

I've learned a lot in sixteen years. I learned that for every river of happiness there's always a sea of sorrow. For every heart beating there is always a flame of passion burning and that for every heart broken there will always be an ocean of tears flowing. In a belief of a perfect world we tend to deny that bad things could happen. But then again duality on earth is mundane. For every pleasant good there is an equal and opposite unpleasant bad. Good thing though that in times of the unpleasant bad there are people you could count on... special people... people that matter in your life.

October 20. I've been receiving txt messages from different people the night before. Most of them were from my block mates. It was odd because none of my high school friends, save Julie, texted me. I thought they forgot. But I can't blame them because even I myself don't know the dates of their birthdays. A month ago my sisters and I were planning to organize a sleepover/gathering of my high school friends here in Cavite on my birthday. But we weren't really that serious about it because we lack the money and thought that it was impossible. I was alone all by myself that fateful morning on my birthday. Solitude. Good thing though my bestfriend came to accompany me.

My sisters meanwhile were in SM Bacoor. They arrived with Goldilocks plastic bags. I asked them why they bothered to buy tons of food when nobody's coming to eat them all up. The just shrugged their shoulders and said "Sus, problema ba yan. Di imbitahin ung mga taga church." They placed the food on the table and once everything was set up Jezi and I decided to eat. We stayed in my room eating pancit and palabok, supposedly for long health, and fried chicken. A few hours later I decided to go down to check up on ate Leeann. As I walked down the stairs and looked past the railings I saw someone familiar. I thought to myself "It couldn't be... nah it's not him." Further down the stairs, I finally saw them enter one by one. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. These were the people I grew up with during my high school days and they were all here for my birthday. Surprised and happy, those were my very feelings. Later they explained that Julie planned all of these, she even texted my classmates one by one begging them to come. Unfortunately Ryan, Ruel, Roselie, and EJ were in Abu Dhabi so they couldn't come. Those who came were Julie, Dorevie, Joyce, Irwin, MJ, and VJ. I wasn't totally expecting this. Even my sisters and Jezi were all part of the master plan to surprise me. They succeeded because I was more than surprised. A little later through the night we went to SM to pick up Kuje. VJ has to go home because she wasn't allowed to sleep over but the rest were staying for a day at my house.

The morning after, actually early early morning at around 1:00 am, we were all still up watching Troy. It made us reminisce of the time we portrayed the heroes of the war in a school play wherein the boys acted the girls and the girls the boys. The play was hilarious. Imagine Jezi, Mike, and Richard as the 3 goddesses fighting for the golden apple... if that wouldn't make you laugh nothing else will. After the movie the girls decided to sleep. Meanwhile the rest of us boys watched yet another movie, this time Shrek 2. When the film ended Mike and I went to my room to catch some shut-eye. Irwin was already sleeping in the couch but Kuje and Mj still wanted to watch The Day After Tomorrow. Hours later, while everybody slumbered; Mike, Mj, and I were still awake. I was all alone sitting by the stairs while Mike and Mj were in my room conversing with each other. I couldn't sleep even though my brain was forcing my eyes to shut. I was contemplating on a dilemma I was facing.

Amidst great happiness I was facing a big dilemma. It was something I got to share with only a few people. I remember when my professor in History said that love comes in three stages. The first stage is when people fall in love but not with the person you love but rather with the feeling of being in love - the feeling that keeps you high up in the clouds, floating, desiring, wishing to live through forever with your significant other. The second stage is when you fall out of love. The third, the decision, the stage when one decides to forsake the past and love the person for who he/she is and to be with them for the rest of his/her life.

I've been past the first and now I'm facing the second. My dilemma. There was no way out of this situation. I had to make the critical decision of staying or breaking our relationship. It's a Lose-Lose situation. Either way the consequences wouldn't be good. But I have to make the decision. Staying in a relationship where the love you feel is gone will only hurt you both. Breaking up will only do the same. I didn't sleep thinking about it. The sadness and the guilt that I felt inside took over me and at that moment every attempt that I took to come up with rational alternative failed. I had to do the latter. I was looking for the perfect time to break it up to her but it just didn't seem to come. That afternoon I took a leap of fate and approached her; the girl whom I loved and promised to cherish forever. Promises were never meant to be broken but the moment I sat down with her I knew promises would be broken and sooner or later tears will be shed.

The room was dark. Music streamed from the speakers and it filled the entire room. I swear I could feel her heartbeat race but maybe it was just mine. I took her hand, placed it on my chest and said, "Nawawala na." She looked away and understood everything that was happening with just two words - words that I never planned to say. We were silent and I could feel a drop of tear fall down my cheek. I wanted to reason out. I wanted to explain everything but finally I said that I wanted to start over. She knew that this was coming and I could feel the pain that she felt. The burden of guilt was on me and it was pulling me down. I'm letting go of a girl who loved me so much, even more than herself. That all she ever wanted was to make me happy. Hard as it seems it's a decision that I have to make to save us from the biggest heartache of all - staying in a pseudo-quasi relationship where love is but a dying leaf separated from its branch slowly fluttering to the ground.

We learned our lessons. We let ourselves fall in love with love itself. At first everything was real but things change. The impermanence of feelings took over and reality suddenly slapped me its premonition. Tears were falling from her eyes. I could kiss her tears but I didn't. My weary eyes were filled with sorrow but it refused to cry. She cried for me. After all this I asked her if she was ok. She said yes but I knew she was lying. None of us were okay. I stood up, took her hand, raised her up, and gave her a hug. As we hug our feet started moving and after a few minutes we were dancing. We danced in the darkness and I started singing Tony Bennet's song. We danced as if there was no tomorrow. We danced as if nothing happened. We danced our worries away. We danced as it were our last. And it was. When it was all over I smiled at her- she smiled back.

None of us uttered a word while we were on the bus going to Manila. She took my hand and I clasped hers. We both knew it was over. We both knew that every moment that we had with each other will just be a dream we once dreamt together. We thought our dreams would last for all eternity but suddenly reality woke us up with his song. As we neared Manila's city hall I whispered to her, "Don't ever forget me." She replied with a big smile on her face, "I won't, tetxt nga kita lagi e."

When we got down we started walking. I asked her if we made the right decision and she replied that it's for the better. As we walk we talked about anything and everything. Random thoughts poured out of our mouths and we were enjoying every moment of it. We may not be lovers anymore but we're still friends, the best of friends. Love doesn't last that long but friendship will. Experience taught me that. While we walked I told her that I love her, she understood what I said and she told me that she loves me too. We laughed. . It was ironic how both of us were happy and sad all at the same time. I started singing the chorus of rainbow...

Take a little time baby
See the butterfly's colors
Listen to the birds that was sent to sing for me and you
Even if there is pain now
Everything will be alright
For as long as the world still turns there will be night and day
There's a rainbow always after the rain.

She sang with me. The song we once shared we were singing for the one last time. As we approached the loading station of jeepneys, something inside me is forcing me not to let go of her hand. I know she felt the same way too but it was time. We had to say our goodbyes. Before she entered the jeep I hugged her and kissed her on her cheeks. She returned the favor and kissed me back. I wanted to stay but I started walking away. Walking away... I hope this would be my last.

A love story was written... and in it words turned into sentences then to paragraphs... soon pages were written and chapters grew from them... but it was time that it ended. The final sentence was marked by a dot and the book was closed. Only God knows when it will open again.

This by far has been the longest post I have ever made in my blog and I guess it would stay this way for quite some time. I'll end with a cliche... Like it or not, either way you'll get one...

"To live is to love.... to love is to hurt.... to hurt is to live..."

This entry was posted on October 22, 2004 at 10:32 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.