There are so many angles anyone could take to tell this story. I am not here to save face or make myself a victim. I admit that I wasn’t the best partner too at all times. Roles can be reversed when the situation calls for it. I like to think that we both did our best.
As the title suggests, I started this on the second day of March. The same month when the pandemic lockdown began last year. The same month we met and our story began.
I left this entry for days, about two weeks now actually, because I wasn’t sure how to talk about it and how to face another ending yet again. Putting down my feelings into paper (or the world wide web) helped me over the years but there’s always something nostalgic about how it encapsulates an experience, making it history. Like a mere concept, untouchable at the present time.
Perhaps I watched too many romcoms or read too many novels about happy-ever-afters that’s why I held on for so long. Reunions are like sweet dreams to me. Individuals needing their own space and time but end up realizing that they want to be with each other through it all. Individuals who choose each other over and over and over again, getting better each time.
I prayed for it. I prayed for our very own reunion.
But of course, life happens and things don’t always go the way we want them to. He moved on. He is seeing someone new. He has decided to move forward with someone else. I owe it to myself to stop hinging my hopes on him and move on like he did.
I’m doing my best.
This is the third weekend that I deliberately chose to be away from social media to recalibrate myself. I need this space to avoid my triggers, to reflect about and prepare for the things I’m unsure if I’ll ever be ready to see, and to remind myself of the essentials that remain within me (and outside me in the form of such loving family and friends — THANK U all for standing by me throughout this). I want to rebuild in silence before reconnecting back to the world, hopefully more grounded on who I am.
I know I’m not the first person who got her heart broken after not being chosen then being replaced soon after. Still, the depth of our pains and the time it takes for us to move on from this kind of experience differs. A part of me is still stuck, quietly stranded in the chaos of trying and trying, only to fail time and time again.
I bought a card game from WNRS recently to have a conversation with myself about what I’m feeling and how I can move forward from it. One of the cards I got from the deck was this:
Describe your worst heartbreak. What did it teach you?
This was what I wrote: The one with E was the worst. My heart still breaks a little everyday from that. It was the worst even if it was civil because I feel like I carried all the pain from that break up. The way he talked about it, the way he talked to me…even if he said that it wasn’t easy for him to move on, didn’t get through to me. It’s easy to say that you’re not burning bridges when you’ve crossed to the other side.
This heartbreak is teaching me that we can only do so much. It is teaching me about my limitations as a human. It is teaching me that you can change for the better, be at your best, be happy, be good, let someone know how much you love them, and still not be chosen.
It is teaching me to be more gentle with myself for not knowing the things that could have saved us when we needed saving. It is teaching me to surrender, accept, and detach myself from everything that I couldn’t control.
For what it’s worth, it also taught me of my capacity to love someone so much to really trust the person with my vulnerabilities, love someone so much to choose them over my demons. It showed me what good love can do to you, how it can grow you.
It taught me kind honesty, patience, and more effective ways to communicate — something a part of me, maybe, will always wish I learned sooner.
Starting anew,
telle rey
