h2>Dating : Act III: A Eulogy to a Love that Die
I was always the kind of girl who puts the concept of romance in the backseat of my head space. I remember, I would always act tough in front of the opposite gender and build an impenetrable facade. I was distant. I used to limit my time around them as I would make myself busy tending the love I share with my small, small circle: my family, my friends and myself.
I didn’t have the best childhood and witnessing betrayals and separations in such a tender age forced me to guard my heart from any possible harm in the future. It had become a colorless routine.
Towering walls caged me that even sunshine couldn’t send over some warmth to my heart. I felt safe, though, and I was satisfied with everything I had.
But there came one day when someone dared to stand by my gates. He was that warm morning sunshine that pierced through my old and rusty window. I looked over and I was surprised to see a broken soul.
He made my walls kneel and before I knew it, I let him in. He said he’s so tired and he’s looking for a place to rest. I didn’t hesitate to save him a space just adjacent to mine so I could get a peek of him and wonder about how a man can be so broken and still burst in colors.
It was a leap day and the moon was half awake when I decided to take a leap of faith and explore the eccentric world he lived in — beyond my walls. It looked to me that keeping him company would soon fill the void in both of us.
It was so soon when he made my heart swing open to welcome emotions I never knew I was capable to feel. We strode past a mountain after another, and when I looked back, I couldn’t see any hint of familiar walls soaring high and anything chained to the place I left. Everything was new, but I didn’t feel lost by his side.
As I lost sight of my safe zone, he slowly became my home.
I thought he would be that brightest star at night that guides my way. But he was not. He was clueless as I was. He was reckless and spontaneous. He always wanted to be away from reality. And I ran away with him. It made my heart feel terrified and excited at the same time. We climbed walls, burned bridges, jumped from the tallest towers and ran as fast as our heartbeat.
I learned to love the feeling when my lungs cry for oxygen after braving another meandering adventure with him. I knew love arrived somewhere in between these journeys. It came naturally and it grew unbounded.
Breathless, we found our piece of earth to rest our bones and plant our promises to grow. We fell in love with the comfort that materializes every time we leaned on each other’s shoulders, every time our hearts laid so close with each other, every time we talked about our dreams and even the littlest of things, every time we mended each other’s broken parts. These moments felt so pure and unending.
We faced life together. There were rejections, disappointments, failures and fall backs that tried to seek refuge under our roof but our little home became our immunity from the rainy days. We became each other’s hope. We felt so safe by having a person to go home to after a long and tiring day. We felt so far from being broken, or so we thought.
Freezing nights and storms had passed, and the wind had already drifted to a different direction. Our love grew tougher, and our paths rougher. It came clear to us that no matter how far we sailed to leave reality behind, the waves will always pull us back. He was a struggling artist and I was no one. We traveled to so many places that I lost my way back to myself. He became everything I had and I never got to fill my own void.
It was a stupid bet to place all my cards in one person and yet I did. And he was aware of that. I loved him, I supported his art, and I held him up. And it all slowly took all the strength I had.
It had become an unhealthy and unfair trade. He threw over his shattered pieces while I offered him rest and mending in return. I was as lost and I needed his help but he made me understand that in this shindig for two, he always owned the spotlight; that everything I felt was not valid. It was a traumatic phase of my life but I managed to grow my wings back only to protect him from any similar damage he insentiently inflicted upon me.
It was as unexpected as the day he came into my life when the day of his unceremonious goodbye arrived. He was with me physically but his heart had already wandered across the river we promised never to lay a foot on. I waited for days and nights to hear familiar footsteps announcing his return. But he never made it back.
I was left alone by a person who dragged me away so far. It never occurred to him that he needed to return me safely to the place I left for him, before crossing the river alone.
I witnessed how he became the opposite of his promises. He became a traitor to his words. He grew to be one of his demons. He shed all the colors off he used to wear to reveal a part of him that had never seen a sunlight. He fell into darkness and he never fought his way back up. He became reluctant and ungrateful.
He craved for the taste of temptation and he surrounded himself with people who burn their souls. He betrayed me and all the people who believed in him. He betrayed his very soul.
A winding year of growing pains had passed when he met me in the clearing. He no longer looked familiar to me. He looked haunted and restless. He was asking for forgiveness he was not ready for. And however hard it was for me, I embraced him with open arms. But a heart that’s sincere only scared him back into the woods.
But I was wrong. I realized I never really knew him, not even a single bit.
Entangling me in all of his loose ends didn’t feel quite enough for him. I always ended up getting flinched to the sound of his lies. He had mastered the art of lying while looking at my eyes. He did it over and over again as if repetition would dull the pain. And he chose to lie until the very end.
And that was when a love that was once so hopeful and strong, a love that had offered sanctuary, a love that had endured it all alone, a love that had chosen to forgive, a love that had fought, and a love that had brought hope, had finally rested and died in peace.
