my shoe box

It all starts again when you decided to forgive.

I stared at the instructions for a while. It said, “Think of one person that had done a tremendous fault on you. Think about forgiving them.” I sat far away from all the people that gathered in the same spot. I wanted to be alone. I couldn’t think of anyone but him.

I thought of every memory we had—with him and far from him. Then followed by what he did, the promise he just broke, the lies I put up with him. It was all just too much. I told him, I told him to be true to himself—that we stop this, we stop everything while we haven’t invested much feelings. I blamed him for everything.

But I guess, I was just scared. Scared of feeling left. Scared of feeling the pain. So I left instead. But what was painful was that, he didn’t come after me. He didn’t even try to say, “wait. Can we work this out?” or “wait. Can you give me more time to decide?” or as simple as, “wait.” I gave him two chances. Both he replied with “okay, so what now?”

As tears continued to roll down my face, I decided to let go. Let him go. Release the anger in my heart. It was hard seeing and feeling those things that he did; harder to miss him; and even a lot more harder letting him go… but I had to. All I wanted was to be at peace with myself. It’s now or never. I chose now.

I wiped the tears. Sat up. Exhaled. And left everything there.

But I tell you this… To fall in love again, for the second time, would be and awfully wild adventure.

That’s what I said in one of my early entries this for the year 2012. And, as I expected it, it was an awfully wild adventure… yet, it was not a happy ending.

My friends warned me from the begging that this would get dirty. I would just get hurt. But I had faith. I thought, playing my cards right would be enough to win… but it was not. Love is a dangerous game. Before entering it, you should be ready for the consequences, you should know the players (this is your ‘partner’ and you), you should be ready. And I thought I was.

“You’re so brave,” my best friend told me… and so did he. My best friend told me that she couldn’t do those, because she’s afraid to lose her special someone; he told me I was brave, because it took a lot of guts to tell him that honesty in front of his face. I couldn’t believe myself as well, “Be fearless,” they say. At the back of my mind, I was still afraid— to lose him completely, to get hurt, and to make a fool of myself. But I was already losing him; I was already hurting; and I was already a fool for love for sticking that long, though I know how he was treating me was not right. And while I was telling him all those, I wanted him to fight for one last time. Fight for what was between us. But maybe, there was absolutely nothing between us. It was all make believe. Maybe we created it both, just to believe that we could both feel something again. Become alive and feel fireworks… But you lost those fireworks, when you thought twice.

I miss him. I miss every bit of him.. the smell of his clothes, the blue light in my phone whenever he texts me, waking up to his good mornings and sleeping with his good nights, his tone of his voice, the look that he gives me when I try to joke, his poking on facebook… basically, my memory with him was everywhere. For the past months now, he was part of my everyday. I believe he was Santa’s or God’s gift to me for Christmas.

I guess some things happens when you least expect it. Until now, I’ve been searching for that moral lesson I’m supposed to be learning to be able to grow. But I guess, not all comes with a lesson. Maybe this was all an answer—a late answer to some questions I’ve left hanging before. I accepted and left those questions, I’ve left them in the past.

Maybe, God’s asking me now, “are you ready to forgive?”

And I’d answer back, “No… at least not yet.” In time I will. After all, scars are not just reminders of what we’ve been through, they are also marks of courage of how we got up from that painful fall and how we walked ahead.