Heartbreaks Heal Heartbreaks

Two years ago, I found myself trying to make everything good for a friend suffering from a severe depression over a love gone wrong. Like what I always tell others, I told my friend that the best way to get healed and move on is by getting through the pain of losing. That is, getting used to the pain every second, every moment that you can have. It is, well, in a way, a form of torture, but it gives you back bits and pieces of your life that was shared.

It is difficult to do it. Just by thinking about reliving the memories can push you to do things as bizarre as suicide. Try to make small steps at the beginning, then slowly command yourself towards the bigger and more dramatic instances. Time will cover you until you reach that point where you can finally tell yourself, “I’m free!”

The Fading Pain of Christmas

Four years ago, the pain was real. Everything was so difficult. Beyond explanation. Her sudden demise during the happiest time of the year (we declared it!) was the real deal. The explosion of emotion rendered me numb and emotionless in front of other people. There were no tears. Everything was so blunt at the surface. No drama. No tears. I looked like the coldest among them.

Fast forward. The pain is still there. But it is already fading. The memory did not give me enough motivation and drive to go home on Christmas. It did not give me enough power to endure the long line of passengers going home for the holidays. Staying in the city was registered to my humanity as better and more worthwhile than wasting my time falling in line for a ticket to go home.

But I am scared that one day, I woke up with the pain already a stranger to me. I read from somewhere that pain is essential to remind us about the love and the life that we had with a person. It is a good piece of evidence that we are alive. So they say that we should acknowledge it and move forward with it.

I am frightened that when the pain is no longer there, I would no longer have the humanity to be kind to others. That I might fall in the bog filled with negativity. That I might reject everyone close to me and start living my life like a criminal in disguise.

Well, I hope not.

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I’m Gonna Wear My Heartbreak Proud

Without you, there is no life in me.

Yes, I must admit, it has been a year but you are still in my system. I have tried to cleanse my sanity and remove all the residue of our story. But I can still hear your voice in my mind. Memories are still as crisp as a new banknote and the pain of losing you is still like a cut from a newly-sharpened knife. I can still see you in my dreams. I can still feel your embrace. I can still hear you talking to me about anything under the sun. And I am still here, waiting for you… writing about you with the hope that the letters and words take away the pain in my heart.

I remember the times when we were still together. I remember rainy nights of driving amidst a heavy traffic jam. I remember calm afternoons of driving towards the sunset. I remember our disagreements about one-way love and emotional strength, with me always debunking and telling you that you are stronger than what you think of yourself. I remember kissing you “good morning” and “good night.” I remember holding your right hand tightly when you feel down and lonely.

I remember telling you all the travels I did and convincing you for us to go on a road trip. But you told me you were scared. So we did not proceed with our travel overseas because I did not want to put you on the edge. And I remember learning that you had a travel with one of your friends. I remember realising that you must have gained strength. How lucky your friend was. I wished I was with you on your first travel because I wanted that piece of happiness. That piece of memory.

Oh God, I wanted forever. But you gave me the last chapter, the last statement, the last word.

I did try to move on, to get away from your memory. I did try to pick-up the pieces of my life prior to meeting you. I went back to traveling to near and faraway places. I did not mind the danger. I tried to find the fun in everything. But I ended up buying your favourite drink in one of the places we spent our Saturdays. I decided to go home and watch my favourite tearjerker films with the darkness, my towel on the side and my blanket wrapped around my body and my pillow.

That day of waking up not thinking about you is already at the horizon. I know it’s just a matter of taking the first step and steadily striving harder to get to it. I know there will be a day when I can consider again sunrise as the happiest time of the day. I know there will come a time when I can hold again somebody’s hand while whispering “I love you.”

But for now, I’m gonna wear my heartbreak proud.

(Image credit: Andrea Vallar)

My Heart Is A Blackhole

The rooster took the centre stage. It stood, raised his head and commenced yelling amidst the silence of the dawn. Its sound ripped the ears of the village because the other roosters soon started doing their own screaming. The event was well-received. People got up and offered standing ovation. Each villager picked up the pace and caressed the dark surroundings with their own starter task.

“Wake up, Ben. We have to go.” His voice cut through my consciousness. I slowly opened my eyes and figured out the images in front of me. I reached out for my eyeglasses usually placed at a small bedside table. I got out of my bed and started prepping up. We were scheduled to go to the city to buy supplies for the whole week. Activities like these make me forget what I am really going through.

Argh! The pain that I need to forget.. the pricks of loneliness that I need to ignore. It has been two weeks since I arrived at this small village in the mountain. I volunteered to be part of a literacy program of a non-government organisation. The group goes to far-flung areas and teach the local people of various things: English language, disaster risk reduction and management, livelihood and income-generation, and others.

Volunteers are not required to go to the city and buy supplies. The host villagers do that for us, as agreed upon during the planning stage of the whole project. But I insisted to go. It’s a Saturday and we have no scheduled activity. Together with the head of the village and two assistants, we walked up and down the hills and mountains to get to the city.

At the end of the trail after six mountains, we were greeted by a dirt road. People wait here for the local buses and jeepneys.

This is the first time I am going back to the city after two weeks in the mountain. Sometimes, you reach that point when you crave for a little chaos to get your sanity back from being secluded and monotonous. For me, I need to do it to break the pattern. I easily get familiar with things and go to that level where bad memories proliferate. I don’t like reaching that point where I need to deal with the same pain and heartache.

The noisy traffic jam made me smile. I stood at the corner of the street where I could see everyone and every vehicles moving in and out of the city. I was busy smiling with the roars and honks. I never noticed that they had been calling me. I turned to them when the head of the village tapped my shoulder lightly. We needed to move to another place to buy the other things.

At the last leg of our stint in the city, I saw her walking at the other side of the road. Of all places, I saw her here again. What is she doing here? A sight of her brought back everything to me. All the fear came rushing like a fed river. All the pain popped out like mushrooms surfacing from the ground after the rain. My heart became a black hole once more to suck all the life in me.

I Miss Everything About Us

While the sun sets in the west, I am reminded of the first time I had to temporarily go away for a trip to other part of the country. Do you remember what did you tell me when you called the morning after? How about the first message you sent to me? Do you remember how blunt it was? How about your first call to me? Do you remember how long it was?

Maybe not now. Maybe you don’t remember now.

And it makes me sad just thinking how fast time flies. How fast everything has become a passé. How everything about us has made me lonely. I tried to understand everything in sync with the normal flow of life and love. But I can’t understand myself. I don’t know why I have become too dependent on us. Is it wrong to love the idea of us?

In times when I miss you, I just take a deep breath and brave the road to where we spent one of our afternoons. In those days that everything is dark and the thought of you is plainly black, I listen to the waves and watch the stars switch on and off. The sight never gets dull. The blinks make me stronger. For someone with no one to turn to, the stars can be good friends.

The sun sets. Feelings may go. But I don’t have the courage to forget the story of us.

We’re Better Off This Way

Can you remember the first time we saw each other? Nah. Let us keep that under the bushes. Let us just keep those things on the good side of life.

It must have been hard leaving you behind without even a word. And I hate myself for being so weak-hearted. My fragility worked against us. I thought that the maturity given to me by Life at an early age would shield me from short-sighted decisions and fear. But I was wrong! Everything was submerged in the bog of uncertainty and fuzzy future. I know I am alive but I am losing my drive to stand up and seek the warmth of Life.

How many times have I tried to turn back and fetch you right where I jumped off perpendicularly? So many times I could make a beautiful pattern of lines. Everything has become so foggy. My vision was blocked with fear. Yes, I was scared to go back. Until now, I am not sure of my reason for being so afraid. Doubt might have overshadowed the promise of Us.

It is a real shame for being not assertive. For being not able to stand for us. Whose mistake? It might have been you who turned everything upside down. It might have been me. Whoever might have caused the rough drift, I cannot breathe. Whatever the reason, it led to the same deadend – you’re gone.

It is saddening to travel from the right side of the Cartesian Plane and end at the opposite side. And it is not enough to apologise for all the bad things I have done to you. But, I guess, we’re better off this way.

On Life and Lies

I never expected its abrupt ending. But I guess, it was meant to happen.

I do not mind the paces. I think about how the knob turned so faithfully according to the will of my hand. Yes, I blame you for not doing that extra effort of ticking the lock. I should have not seen the waves of your body. I should have not heard your soft whispers. And I hate my calmness. I hate why I did not drive out my anger to you. I hate that I just walked away. But sometimes I love how my mind reacted. Sometimes it is nice being coward. Because I might have gone to jail for killing two people. I might have hurt my heart, my ego and my physical body all at once. My life might have ended on that moment.

I let the days passed by. I drowned myself and travelled to dreamland via the alcoholic passageway. I never brought it up. Until that one Saturday afternoon in the garden, where we both nurtured our dreams. After finishing what could probably be the longest query I did ever in my life, I did not bother the wind. I quickly turned my head up to see the clouds because I did not have the courage to look into your eyes. Everything was frozen. Silence dominated us.

When I got tired waiting for the rainbow to appear from the cascade of clouds, I anchored my face on top of my hands on the table between us. I do not know how I physically registered on that very moment. But it did not matter how liquid flowed out from my nose down to my upper lip. How salty water was extracted from my eyes. I patiently waited for a word. But there was nothing. So I decided to stand up and proceed with my life.

There are questions in my mind that I did like for you to answer. But you never replied to my first question. I did not know how to proceed with the other questions boggling my mind. You did not give me a way to ask you if the kisses were lies. Or if you actually did like putting your arms around me? How about those nights when we had nothing but a blanket trapping us in its smoothness? Did you actually call for the Moon to light our playtime with the nocturnal waves of the great Ocean? Or was it a private movie filmed according to my rules?

Every morning without you is like waking up on the wrong side of the bed of Life. Sunshine makes me smile, but it is not enough. I prefer your smile to bring the sunshine. Every sunset reminds me that everything has crumbled to the floor. Please hug me and give me the assurance that everything is fine even when darkness sets in. Stars used to have the most magical pattern of light. They are now just dots of venal magic.

If you could see me now, then you could say that I was very successful in making my life a big mess. I still look for you amidst the crowd. I draw a pattern of your smiling face with stars. I hate the day I lied to you when I declared that living without you is something that I could handle.

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On Moving On

Every morning, the sun rises. We are given the signal to rise and bring forth the love and hope that we need to juggle the hardships and sorrows we may unexpectedly encounter along our way.

Every action that we do bears two consequences. It is to our choosing if we stay true with all the positives or deflect on the negative side. We are lucky if the two options lie on the right side of the curve where all the pluses reside. But life is not always that sweet. Sometimes, we are but unfortunate to get two losing ends – that whichever we choose, we end on the left side of the curve where all the minuses flaunt their negativities.

When we are presented with Hobson’s choices, we are given the chance and time to go back and correct errors. But sometimes wounds are so unimaginably deep and seemingly impossible to heal. Some fail to get up and just submit to the pangs of failure. But as they say, it does not matter how many times you fail and fall, what matters most is that you rise again and face the remaining journey. Yes, we are also given the chance to hold on to something and move on.