The Story of my Life

Whenever I'd come across that line before, I was so sure no one from my past would qualify. But a lot has changed in four years and I'm saying goodbye to my Mr. Close Enough.

2002 was probably the worst year of my life. I lost my mom, my job and got involved with an absolute cheater. I was drowning myself of depression. It was a year-long struggle, probably longer. I couldn't wait for it to end so when I saw an opportunity, I grabbed it. A former boyfriend proposed marriage. He was my friend of seven years and my mom loved him. I believed it was the only right thing happening in my life. I accepted it thinking that, somehow, things will be better. Indeed, things started looking up. I felt stronger and I had more zest for life. But one day I woke up and realized I wasn't ready to get married. I was just starting to live my life the way I want to and getting hitched was the last thing on my mind. So I screwed up. It was unforgivable but he forgave me anyway.

Since then I've been in and out of relationships. Not one lasted for more than a year. I guess it was nature's way of getting back at me. He had relationships too but I never saw him seriously committed with someone. He's based overseas and all those years I never, for one instant, felt he detached himself from me. Whenever there was a major event happening in my life, he was there. He never missed my birthday. He made his presence felt in little ways he knows how. Whenever he's in Manila, he always made it a point that I get invited to most of his gimmicks, most of which I declined.

When he came back November of last year, he visited me at home. I was greeted with a tight hug, the kind that will make you wonder what he's been thinking. I was stunned so I just stood there motionless and cracked silly jokes to lighten up the awkward moment. I was in the mood to be bitchy that night so I let him do the talking and pretended I was listening. He noticed I wasn't showing a bit of interest so he left in less than 30 minutes.

He spent the holidays with his family here in Manila and that gave us more opportunity to spend time together. We had dinner a couple of times. We had our traditional drinking spree on New Year's Eve. On our last gimmick together he said goodbye in a very strange why. Said he was coming back in July but that I wouldn't see him anymore. I was too proud to ask why though I know he was up to something.

He was getting married.

We had a chance to talk before his civil wedding. It was the kind of talk I had been waiting for from him for so many years. The talk that I had expected we'd have over dinner...or when he brought me home after New Year. The talk I wished he had initiated when I got that warm hug from him...all those times I had waited for us to talk that way. No inhibitions. No expectations. The kind of talk where you unfold yourself to the person that matters most to you. The kind of talk where you take all the risk, you leap and hope you can fly (HITCH). Things could have been different if we had talked this way before.

Listening to him opened my mind to a lot of things. I began to understand why he kept me within his circle despite everything I've done. I began to appreciate why he worked so hard to give his family the life they are enjoying now. I began to understand why he kept calling the morning I got out of the hospital...I understood what unconditional love is.

The past flashed before me and I felt more unworthy. How could you snatch away someone five days from his wedding? How could you fight for someone when you know someone else is waiting to spend the rest of her life with him? I couldn't take him away from the one person whom I know could give him what I'm incapable of giving. He was better off. What right do I have to own him or to stop him when all I've done was take him for granted? The signs were everywhere and I missed all of it.

Learning of his marriage was an odd mixture of grief and relief. It was the sad realization that you will never really appreciate what you have until they're gone and the relief in knowing that for once, I did something unselfish for him.