myselfenroute

[myselfenroute]

etching

I’ve learned my lesson. Always have memories saved on back up. So here’s one:

On my mom’s birthday last year, you sent me a message. By that time, we hadn’t talked in months. 

It started innocently enough, with you trying to clear your drunk reputation, and ended with well wishes to me during finals week. 

I thought it would end with my “I don’t remember, don’t worry about it” message, but of course it didn’t. 

Tension escalated dramatically when you started accusing my sisters of spreading rumors, and by the end of it, I sent the angriest text I ever gave you. 

And I thought that was it; but of course it wasn’t.

In the middle of the lockdown, you sent another message (after erasing the whole conversation before that). It started innocently enough, with you trying to build rapport by talking about my archon, and ended with well wishes for my family and I. 

I sent what seemed to me a neutral enough reply, and I thought that was it, but of course it wasn’t.

A week after, I initiated conversation. Leon Bridges. We started sporadically messaging each other, both unsure how or if we should even proceed. 

What struck me the most was when you said, “This is nice.” Because it was.

But then when the Bar results came out, you disappeared again. Only to reappear about a month after, sending me a link to a tweet that read: “what do you mean i didn’t reach out i literally thought about you”. 

As the clown that I am, I just accepted it.

So we started talking again, until one day, we decided it was okay for you to show up on my street and help me bring back my books from school...

And I don’t know if this is it. 

[myselfenroute]

Bb, 

Today marks a year from when you first broke my heart. 

So much has happened since then, and yet so little. 

I feel that I am caught in a weird position – to be a year without you and still be missing you. To be more precise, to be missing a person I’m not wholly sure I remember all of. 

It is a bit like grasping at straws. 

I want to remember everything – the good, the bad – but I fear my memory is slowing fading. Little things about you that I could just whip out from my mind are getting harder and harder to come by.

And yet, there would be days where I am arrested by a memory. So palpably I want to cry – even when I physically can’t. 

Tonight, I want to cry a river.

So I go back to the other letters I sent, and I start remembering anew. Is memory a curse or a blessing, because I start crying again. Although not as hard as I want to. Not as cathartic. 

To this day, there are still things I wish I could tell you:

Did you know, they released Bar Boys on youtube today. I want you to watch it so you know what it feels like for me to be in law school.

In The Heights is supposed to be released over the summer. Are you excited too?

I auditioned for Chari just as you told me. I didn’t pass but at least I tried, right?

I finished reading Dead Stars today, and I think that being in love with you is a bit like that too: being blinded by the light of the stars long-dead. 

But then I start imagining what would it be like, if I somehow got picked at Rec*Create’s blind date cooking series. I imagine my date would ask about my last relationship or the last time I’ve been in love. And I know I would answer it was with you. He would be able to tell from the far off look in my eyes that I still cared about you, and if he asked if I would ever get back together with you, I’d say something like: “I don’t know... it’s not exactly that I want him back, but rather, I’m sad that I won’t ever get to see him happy. It feels like I lost that right after the break up. But until now, from the bottom of my heart, I still want to see him happy.” And in a small voice, I’d add: “Even if he doesn’t feel like he deserves it”

Do you think that makes me someone with a savior complex? I don’t know. But it doesn’t detract from the truth of what I feel. I want to see you happy. 

xxx

Bb, 

I hope you’re handling the quarantine well. Isolation isn’t good for you. 

[myselfenroute]

i wrote this palanca to a friend and it might be useful to present-future me so here it goes

Dearest,

I got your message asking me to write you a palanca as I boarded a jeep home. So you can imagine how I spent the hour-long commute thinking what I would say to you. There were quite a few ideas which is quite funny if you think about how, as of this writing, I’ve only known you for about a week. And quite strange, because I can think of people I have known a lifetime and still be hard-pressed to come up with something to say in a retreat letter. Funny, and strange, and wonderful.

And it is all because of heart break.

Now there are many approaches to comfort a broken heart. As I’m sure you’ve heard the many, “everything happens for a reason,” or the “life has something better for you,” and the many other variations of that. You take it not just because it’s consoling but because you know that everyone’s sentiments are well-meaning. And yet, there are stages of grief that you just want to be mad. To be angry. To be sad.

So this is the part of the letter where I give you “permission” to be sad – not that you need my permission, but sometimes we just need to be told it’s okay. So yes, it’s okay to be sad and hurt. It takes a lot of mental strength to hold space for negative feelings. It is arguably a lot easier to feel happy, after all.

As you hold that space, I hope you are consoled by this quote that has given me grace: “Nature is so exact, it hurts exactly as much as it is worth … If it didn’t matter, it wouldn’t matter.���

Feel free to repeat that thrice in your head. It hurts exactly as much as it is worth.

It must have been worth so much.

Now this is the part where I backtrack a little and will sound like the “there’s a silver lining to everything” girl but I assumed that since you’re in a retreat, you’d be more receptive to unsolicited advice and musings.

So here it goes:

In my a little more than two decades of existence, I have only truly loved two men in my life. I honestly thought I would loved far more people than that but life is funny like that. Funny, strange and wonderful.

Because I have seen first hand how rare it is to find something so precious, so beautiful even if it ends up being painfully so.

So I’m sure that your years-long relationship feels all the more rare. Because it was. It will forever be unique.

Which isn’t to say that you’ll never find a love again. You will, in time.

But at the troughs of your grief, gratitude will slowly but surely lift you up.  

We’ve talked about this before, but it is all the more important in this retreat.

Being grateful doesn’t mean that you look past his shortcomings or even necessarily forgive his dishonesty; it simply means that you see things for what they were. Because at the height of you love, it was good. No one can take that from you, not even him. It will forever be yours.

I give this piece of “advice” quite confidently because I feel that you’ll resonate with it. It might be presumptive of me to say, but I feel that you and I are kindred spirits. Both little girls who try to keep so much in big, bleeding hearts. We want to believe in the best of people, and in the best of whatever the world can offer. If we could change the world by loving it, we would, wouldn’t we? But alas, that is not always so, and still we dream and have faith.  

One of the things that my counselor said that radically shifted my perspective was this: The love you want to give is often the love you want to receive.

I know you have so much love to give – you know how they say grief is simply love with nowhere else to go? You can guess where I’m going with this, but I’ll say it anyway: It’s time the great big love you have for someone else be given to you.

You worry he isn’t eating well? Treat yourself to some desserts. You think he’s overworked at work? Go get a massage. You get the idea.

As for my last piece of unsolicited advice that is tangentially related: You deserve to be loved the way you love someone else. Warmly. Grandly. Wholly.

May you never settle for anything less.  

Always wishing you the best,  

xxx

[myselfenroute]

a list of inconsequential things

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. 

Mean Girls.

His Dark Materials.

Blue-green, like the sea.

Baked Fried Rice from Mr. Choi.

Mango Berry Medley from Amici. 

Basketball. 

Physical Touch and Quality Time.

The Office, and How I Met Your Mother.

Your Ex. 

The Hilarious World of Depression, and Wait, Wait... Don’t Tell Me. 

Lin Manuel Miranda.

January 1, 1996. 

Eskimo kisses. 

Joaquin, Gab, Gab, and Anton. 

Bigg’s.

Strawberry and Cream frappuccino with the whip mixed in; Mogu Mogu. 

a sunday playlist. 

Albay, Cavite, Pasay, Kalaw Hill. 

[myselfenroute]

Tonight, I say goodbye. 

I say goodbye to all the things I loved about you, and to all the plans we made.

I say goodbye to your smile that melts me, 

To your laugh that endeared me, 

To your voice that captivated me,

To your tears that reached to the very depths of my core. 

I say goodbye to all the moments I fell in love: 

When you held my hand for the first time, nervous and unsure;

When you kissed my forehead to say goodbye, so softly;

When you waited outside Starbucks after a tiff, scared and confused, but still apologetic; 

When you hugged me from behind and whispered “I missed you,” all of a sudden after our first big fight, 

When you told me you wanted to get away and just focus on yourself or to run away to Dubai, 

When I held you in the dark and I just felt like I had to protect you from the rest of the world.

When you called me bb for the first time and the many times after that. 

I say goodbye to the staycation you promised, 

And that Taiwan trip, the La Union trip, the planetarium date; 

To any long gown event we’d go to just so I could see you in that grey suit, or in a barong. 

To the dance I never got. 

I bury our pictures, our messages, our memories. 

I put all of them in a time capsule, in hopes that one day, I will look at it with fondness but not with longing. 

Tonight, I say goodbye so that if I ever see you again, I can say hello with lightness in my heart.

xxx 

I love you so much. I miss you terribly. 

I loved you so much. I missed you terribly.

[myselfenroute]

a eulogy

I have never known a loss by death, but I imagine it is a bit like this grief. The hard thing about break ups is that at one point, you have to pretend their dead, otherwise you’ll never move on. 

So here’s a eulogy he will never hear, and one I hope I will never use: 

I don’t know whether or not I have any standing to speak before all of you today. Compared to most of you here who have loved him for years, I knew him for a few short months. 

But maybe the “how long” does not matter, only that we did. 

And I did. Very much. 

Even as he broke my heart.

A few months ago, he broke my heart. 

I want to say that I was caught completely off guard – but I wasn’t. Early on in our “relationship,” he told me he suffered from depression and anxiety. I honestly thought I knew how to handle it. I’ve seen it in my friends so many times before. I thought I was strong enough. 

But I was wrong. 

It’s a vile disease: Relentless, suffocating, but most damning of all, it is treacherous. It turns you against yourself, and away from the people who love you. 

I can only imagine how much pain he went through.

And I felt it too. 

Of course, not with the same gravity, but when you love someone who’s in pain, it is easy to think that pain is yours as well. It is incredibly difficult not to take it personally. 

It affected our relationship. 

Depression made him short-tempered, impatient and irritable. Sometimes, quite irrational. Anxiety made him jump to conclusions easily, especially when I wouldn’t be able to answer right away. 

I admit, it was hard. There were nights I would lie wide awake in my bed, thinking this isn’t supposed to be how it felt like. Love should make me deliriously happy, right? 

I learned love wasn’t magic. Even with all the love I felt for him – and trust me, it could have very well been all the love in the world – I still found it difficult. 

It was hard, but as you all can tell by the fact that I am standing here right now, it was still worth it. 

Because while love doesn’t make the bad things disappear, love makes it endurable. Love makes you patient, and kind, and understanding. Love makes you see the most beautiful things about a person. Not in a blinding way, but through a grace that tells you good and bad can co-exist, and there should be gratitude for all the good. 

I can never forget how soft he was. His heart was just so tender. And when he laughed, his whole body laughed. It was the kind of the laugh that takes you back to your elementary years; a laugh that was so unguarded and carefree. It was the ugly kind of laugh that you didn’t care if it was ugly, because it was genuine. I loved his laugh. 

And the embarrassed smile after.

I loved his faux confidence, knowing that every time he spoke to a crowd he was terrified. And yet, he’d still do it. He’d  make his voice heard. He was so brave and so strong. I loved him for that too. 

He was so smart! If you asked me where or when I started falling in love with him, I can tell you it was in the front seat of his car. While he listened to “Wait, wait, don’t tell me” and got the answers right to questions on American politics. 

Then after, when he sings along to his Spotify playlist, clutching his phone as if it were a mike – He had such a beautiful voice. He’d hmp at me when I told him so. He had such a hard time taking compliments. 

When we started dating, he was far from the perfect gentleman. He wasn’t suave like other guys. Although I think it’s much harder to be suave when you’re ridiculously tall. That’s why it warmed my heart, when he started to carry my bag for me after I told him off for making me carry his laundry. And one time, when we crossed a street, he walked the side where the incoming traffic was. I think that was the first (and unfortunately last) time he opened the door for me. 

I don’t know if he knows I noticed. I spent so much time just staring at him. He made my heart smile just by looking at him. 

There’s just something so irresistible about him to me, and I’m sure to so many other people before and after me. I think it’s because his energy and presence was just so full of life. It saddens me to think he will never know that. 

When he broke up with me, that was one of the first things I missed. Along with his big hugs. Pull away too soon, and he will pull you right back. And then a second later, be embarrassed, and let you go. 

I now wish I held on longer.

But it was in one of those hugs that I knew for certain I loved him. I loved him in the dark and in the silence. As I cradled his head ever closer to me, a surge of warmth washed over me. It felt right in a way that I never felt with anybody else before. 

You can imagine how devastated I was when he broke up with me. I still think about, if I should have fought for us. Or we were better off this way. I didn’t know how to help him, and there was a part of me that was scared that I was making it worse. 

I still don’t know if I – or we – made the right choice in leaving. But I at least know it wasn’t a mistake to start even if it ended up breaking my heart.

Because as you know, a few months ago, he broke my heart. I thought the worst was over, but I was wrong. 

Today, he breaks my heart again. 

Today, tomorrow, the next day, and the day after that. 

It will probably keep breaking my heart as long as I love him. 

Which is to say my heart will forever be breaking. 

[myselfenroute]

Dear self, 

Today is the last day of the first half of 2019. It is a good a day as any other to leave all the baggage behind. 

Easier said than done, I know, but what’s important is that the intention is there. 

Niegel, it is time to move on. 

Do not stay where you are unwanted.

This time, you have to choose happiness. To make a conscious effort to love people who will make you happy. 

Before I thought that choosing happiness meant choosing love. But today you are two heartbreaks older, and now you should know better. 

We don’t always love the people who will make us happy, says Alain de Botton. 

It’s such a hard truth to accept as you grew up a romantic, and I honestly thought you were a better person for it. In some ways, I still do. But just because you’re a “better person,” it doesn’t make you immune from hurt. 

And you’ve been hurt so much.

You can neither keep carrying this hurt nor nursing it. 

As long as you love, it will keep breaking your heart. 

To love yourself is to unlove someone. Even if it’s against your instincts, you have to start trying. Or else it will just keep ruining you, and you deserve so much more than that. 

You try so hard to be understanding, to be nurturing. You who is too afraid to be a burden that you grew up scared to need someone. 

Love someone who makes you unafraid to be a hassle. Love someone who makes you confident enough that you feel you can be selfish sometimes. Love yourself enough to take up the space that you are meant to. 

You are a person. You are meant to take up space. You were not destined to shrink into yourself to make others comfortable. 

Niegel, you deserve love too. The kind of love you keep trying to give to someone else. 

Say goodbye. 

And then, we begin again. 

Yours, 

[myselfenroute]

Bb, 

I had a breakthrough yesterday! 

Although, to be honest, I’m not quite sure I can call it a breakthrough. But listen anyway: 

Ever since the break up, I’ve been trying to convince myself this is for the best. I mean, I’ve always felt that our relationship wasn’t perfect. Fragile. And maybe even that something was missing.

That I deserved better than this.

That I deserved a partner who would choose me. Who would be so scared to lose me. Who would fight for me. 

I still think that’s true. That I deserved a better relationship. We both did. 

Except, did that mean that we had to break up? Could we really not have talked it through? 

I realize now that we never did. I admit, it was partly my fault. I guess I was too scared that I would scare you off. 

But anyway. 

You know how we broke up and got back together and broke up again. 

That was hella confusing. For me. For you. 

I didn’t realize until yesterday that maybe, just maybe, confused as you were.... were you fighting for us too?

With all the chaos in your head

With the darkness seeping in

With all the arsenal you had

Were you fighting for us too?

...

Had I thought that then... would I have fought for us harder?

You see, I didn’t have the confidence to fight for us. 

I didn’t have the confidence that you loved me, that I could make you happy. I guess at the back of my mind, I was always thinking I was just a rebound. I would never be the love of your life. So we should just cut our losses now, and move on to better things, right? 

Would that confidence make a difference, I wonder. 

Bb, I called this a breakthrough. But what if this is a relapse?

[myselfenroute]

Each heartbreak is so unique.

Heartbreak # 1 was terrible. 

I honestly thought I would die.

But heartbreak #2. So much easier, and so much worse. 

[myselfenroute]

Bb, 

Can I tell you a secret? 

I was happy. 

But I was also sad, and hurt, and always on the edge. 

I was as happy as I could be, being in love with someone depressed. 

Our relationship always felt so fragile, with so many red flags that I actively chose to ignore. I knew this was gonna happen, but I still held on as long as I possibly could. 

Some would call it foolishness. I called it love. 

Maybe it was both. 

But I chose it, didn’t I? I chose to accept the incoming loss. I mean, sure, I didn’t know it would be this hard, but, I wanted to cherish you. Us. 

I wanted to let you know you are loved. Loved so hard. Loved so foolishly. Loved infinitely. 

Maybe because I knew you needed to hear it the most. 

I hope you heard it. Loud and clear. Even if a bit too aggressively. 

And one day, I hope you can tell that to yourself. 

[myselfenroute]

Dear ex-Love, 

There are many reasons why we broke up. 

But before I learned of the reasons, I should have seen the red flags

One of them being that you never quite asked me to be your girlfriend

You just told your friends I was, because it was easier that way

Or like the first time you told me “I love you”

We’d only been talking for two months then

And you only said it after a fight

Or that xxx

Not Yours,

[myselfenroute]

Bb, 

I remember the first time you called me that, “bb”. 

One line, “bb”. 

And then, I miss you. 

I remember the first time you called me that, “bb”.

A part of me was giddy, but the other part knew better. It said, don’t be too pleased. This boy knows exactly what to say. 

I remember the first time you called me that, “bb”. 

I really should have listened to the smarter part of me. She was right.

xxx

Hey, bb. I miss you. 

[myselfenroute]

Dear ex-Love,

It has been over a week since the break up, and eleven days since we last spoke. I think I’m forgetting the sound of your voice.

The first few days were the worst. Whenever I think I have cried enough, there’ll always be something else that would remind me of you. Of us. Of what we’ve lost.

My tears choose no time and place. I have cried in the morning, before the sun even rose. I have cried through the afternoon; my tears staining the words I’ve written. But I mostly cry at night, when I lie in bed. Although I am not entirely alone, it is the loneliest I have ever been.

I try to surround myself with friends, family, loved ones. People who will tell me that pain is temporary or that it’s your loss. But even in their company, I feel your absence.

It’s strange. We were long distance for almost two years. In those two years, we’ve only spent roughly a month together. And yet, yours loss still feels so palpable.

So physical.

Sleep is hardly a relief from my grief. I would wake up every few hours, and my first thought is always how I have lost you. And food hardly brings me joy anymore. Food tastes like gravel in my mouth, and I have learned to ignore the painful tugs in my stomach.

I miss you, baby cub. I really do.

Yet I have to live each day, knowing we might never speak again. Never see each other again. Never be in each other’s presence.

I’m slowly accepting I have lost a lover, but I can’t bring myself to accept I have lost such an important person in my life.

I have lost the right to ask you how you are, and what you’re doing.

How are you, my darling? Are you doing well? Is there anyone to help you? To listen to you? To cry with you?

All the while, I want to tell you how I’m doing, what’s happening in my life. I have a treasure trove of stories for you.

Of how I had to wade in waist-deep waters. Or how the OCS sucks. Or how you’d love this coffee shop I went to. Or how my dreams every night somehow always have you in it.

Or how I miss you everyday. Or how I still love you. Or how I can’t imagine ever stopping loving you.

I love you so much, and this sucks.

I love you so much, and I think I don’t believe in relationships anymore after us.

“Loving is so short, forgetting is so long.“

Not Yours, 

August 15, 2018

[myselfenroute]

Dear ex-Love, 

It is the eve of my 22nd birthday. I walked around the mall near school, and still, I see the ghost of you walking those halls with me. I see the ghost of you sitting on that chair installation near the jeepney stop. I see the ghost of you in this house. I see you everywhere...

Two years ago, you told me you loved me for the first time. 

Tomorrow, you won’t bother to greet me. 

Not Yours,

[myselfenroute]

Dear ex-Love,

How do I reconcile the man I fell in love with and the man who broke up with me?

How do I stop believing that the man I used to love is still in there somewhere?

How do I move on?

Not Yours, 

[myselfenroute]

Dear ex-Love, 

It is my birthday this Thursday. 

Two years ago, after getting drunk on the night of my birthday, I woke up to a message from you. By the end of the many paragraphs you sent, you told me you loved me. Just like that. 

I was angry that night because you didn’t even know it was my birthday. After I went through so much effort to make your birthday gift – a video of me singing “A Waltz for a Night”. 

I keep telling myself that you were a horrible boyfriend (great guy, but horrible boyfriend). Sure, you sent me flowers – 5 giant bouquets, I might add... they still sit at the top of my table, preserved – but I can only think of two gifts that showed you really thought of me. The black dress, and the pink umbrella. 

And yet...

I remember how excited you were, when you gave me my first bouquet. You had to ask Ada for help. 

The second time? My graduation. 

Two were for the two Valentines we spent together.

And the last was when I visited in Vietnam.

You were always so giddy when you sent me flowers. 

And then there was the time you stayed up all night drawing two dumplings. You looked so happy. 

I miss that. I miss you. 

I miss the man who loved me more than anything else in the world. The man who called me the day after we broke up the first time, crying in his kimono, because he really believed we could make it. 

Where did he go?

Not Yours,

[myselfenroute]

Dear ex-Love,

Last night I did something stupid. 

I messaged you, and asked if you were happy. You didn’t reply back.

Recently, the memory of when you asked my father for his blessing to be my boyfriend keeps replaying in my mind. You came to me after, went down on your knees to relay to me the good news. How you looked like God had answered your prayers. 

We have come a long way since then. 

Not Yours,