My Lovestories
My lovestories are all about walking away and learning to love myself more. I am the unnoticed middle child in the family. The eldest was the first born and first son in the clan, the second is the first girl in the family, the youngest is the baby, the second to the youngest is the pretty baby. Studio-photographs and school programs would prove my point. I had to be the brainy one just to get attention.
Afraid I’d lose my family’s respect, love never entered the picture til I was well into my 30s. First, I had a run-in with the typical player. He kissed me on the first night we met, I didnt want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he taught me how to kiss so I kissed back. It was my first kiss. I knew he was with someone, but there was something wrong with their relationship. Was there ever. The next night he was kissing my friend whom I introduced to him. But I wasnt ready to give up just yet. From then on, it was all war, I wanted to win this game. I was so full of it that I didnt believe him when he says he isnt looking for a relationship bec he already had someone. Why did I eventually had my first and my second sex with him (inside his room)? He also said he didnt go dating, but we were going out for dinners and drinks alone together. Even his bf was kissing somebody else at the bar. I thought I would change him.
But after sometime, I realized that, with him, there would always be other guys. A player wont change for no one. I was rushing to go to meet him and meeting car accidents on the way, just to see him making out with someone else. It wasnt the love I wanted for myself. I started to distance myself. Our last message to each other is him telling me he was waiting for me to go to Malate one weekend. I said I wouldnt make it.
Third was this gasoline attendant who asked me to draw up some papers for him. When we met up he said he was bringing a friend because it was embarrassing for people to see us with each other. I handed him the papers and walked away.
Next is martial arts guy who was separated with his wife with a kid in tow. He was also still enjoying his new-found sexuality. (While I was at his place, he was texting with someone.) He had much to figure out for himself. So, I walked away.
Next is someone I thought would be the one I was searching for all my life. In him, I realized my standards were unreasonably high, I should come down from the clouds where my head was caught in. He was persistent, he said he couldnt live without me. He was not exactly my type, an illegitimate child, he works for his stepdad, and eleven years younger. I said he was too young to carry on with a relationship. He said he was mature despite his age. He was always on the phone, at my house every day. He appeared to be sincere, I gave it a shot.
Things went well for awhile. Till two years later, the visits and the calls vanished, the messages came once a day, replaced by days when there were too much to do or too tired to talk. There were so much work, he had to go to the provincial branch of his office. (I found out it was Baguio with someone.) One night, I got a message reading, "would you prefer the comfortable lie over the painful truth?" I woke up from sleep to reply, "The truth shall set me free."
On my 37th birthday, he came over for lunch, handed me a pillow which he said I would need in the days to come. He couldnt kiss me anymore. I asked if there was someone else, he couldnt speak. I knew this day would come. I broke down because I felt too stupid for believing we were something real and special. I told him, despite everything, I would make an honorable man out of him, called it quits, and told him to go to the one he really loved.
Since then, I learned to love walking. I walked seven kilometers from the house, for hours upon hours, in the rain, in unfamiliar Muslim areas on a whim, in a dark, deserted road on a late, dark night. It was my way of putting distance between myself and situations that would only hurt me. I walked away with whatever dignity I still had left and with nobody else but myself.
I havent stopped journeying ever since.
