Feb 23, 2010 4:53 PM
Samantha's Reality
Started: 022310
Samantha's plurk: I touched Eros' picture in my wallet and I said what my heart had refused to accept but could not help but say, "I'll be removing you soon."
Helen: I can't believe that you still have his picture in your wallet.
Nor: Yeah, it's been years.
Valerie: And you said that I need to find myself someone else.
Queen: Purge! Seriously.
Samantha smiled at how violent some people's reactions were of some off-hang mobile microblog entry. Even her former student made a comment in what English he could muster.
Student: I hope you find another love.
She hoped to never find another Eros. It was too dizzying to be in that kind of love. It was too painful to have to let it go. And it was too exhausting to try to forget being that happy.
She was caught in an impromptu family reunion with her father's relatives from Canada and Isabela. They were all wondering when she would start her own brood of children. She had dodged every bullet by using her spinster aunt as her shield. They had argued that her aunt was not as happy as she perceives her to be. She was lonely. So they assumed that Samantha was also lonely.
“I’m not lonely. I am just lazy. “She said with a smile. They all knew how incompetent she was as a possible homemaker. Her mom agreed in good nature. Somehow, her mom not believing that she had marriage proposals at the age of 21 was both insulting and comforting. At least she wasn’t matchmaking me like the rest of the family.
“You’re just heartbroken.” One of her cousins hit the mark. It was funny that she was the one who just survived almost losing her husband. Takes one to know one, she mused.
She thought she had shrugged it off like before. She didn’t exactly want to push all the memories in the back of her mind. She just wanted to go through the healing slowly. She did learn a lot of lessons from that love. And waiting out her 5 year period of purging and mourning a failed relationship was one of them.
Besides, she gained 20 plus kilograms of break-up weight. It was about time she did something to stop Eros from ruling her life. He had wanted her to gain weight. And in the 24 or more months that she had mourned being without him, she had let that one wish of his that she couldn’t quite manage ruin her figure. It was high time that she stopped sulking and face life without him.
“Your cousin is getting married. It’s a beach wedding.” That was the bomb that shook her out of her comfort zone. She was once again going to be a bride’s maid. The idea of going out had faded when she started getting fatter so the inevitable beach whale look didn’t appeal to her this time around. So she decided to put her jumping rope and her dumbbells to good use. Decided, but haven’t gotten around to actually using them, she told herself that it was about time she retrieved them from her roommate who used them as often as she could. But she was forever making excuses against it. She was either too tired from work, where she had gotten promoted from a teacher to a group leader, or she was too sleepy or too busy with other things, like the comic book that she was making with a couple of friends.
She had cluttered her boring life with things to do, responsibilities and excuses not to go out that she actually believed she was happy in being excessively productive. But whenever she opens her wallet, she sees the reason why she hasn’t been happy, really happy, for the past few months. She was still hung up on him. It took two years for her to recognize that. Sure there were lapses of months when she didn’t think of him. But it was February. And she is always, she believe everyone is, vulnerable during this month. She chose not to be bitter and angry towards lovers and couples this time around. She thanks him for that. She was cured of her cynicism. She now believes that people can stay in love. But she is now also able to merge fact with fiction. People would continue to fuck up in relationships. She told herself that House, a character in a medical series, was right. Everybody lies. Okay, so she was still a little bit cynical.
And she knew for a fact that people lie to the people they love best.
They lie to themselves for years and some, those blissfully ignorant ones, never quite figure it out. She did. It took a ride home on the passenger side of a jeepney, a local means of transportation in the Philippines to make him realize that.
Langit na muli
Sa sandaling makita ang kislap ng iyong ngiti
Her heart felt like it was breaking all over again. Eros loved that song. She had considered it their theme song. She wanted to jump from the jeepney. But she couldn’t. She was four blocks from her stop and the jeepney driver decided to wait for passengers. She wanted to scream at him to move it. But she knew he was just trying to make a living. She would have to live through the song or die trying.
May pag-asa kaya?
Kung aking sasabihin
Ang laman ng damdamin
She didn’t know that it would hurt this much. She was supposed to be on her way to recovery by now, right?
Pinipilit mang pigilin
Na ika’y aking isipin
Wala na yatang magagawa
She was exactly that, helpless. She was helplessly listening to a song that she loved and hated all at the same time. She was helplessly seeing the flashes of her past. Those days when she thought would keep her afloat for the rest of her life. The moments that made her feel beautiful and loved.
Sana’y hindi ipagkait sa ‘kin ang sandali
Na masilayan ka at marinig man lang ang tinig
She hadn’t seen him since…she even forgot the last time she ever saw him. It hurt to know that her mind can forget but her heart was taking so damn long to release him, to release her from the grief of memories. She hated the local band that spun the song so well, so heartbreakingly well.
Laging bukas ang puso ko
Upang ibigin ka
Laging wagas ang aking pagtingin
At aking pagsinta
She had promised him that she would wait. She did promise that she would be there when he came back. When he was no longer trapped in his life that resembled the telenovelas that she hated to watch. She didn’t keep that promise. She changed her number, changed her status on all of her social sites to married so people would not bug her about her civil status, and had refused to look at the pictures that they had together. Or at least she put them all in private folders. For her heart’s eyes only.
Pinapangarap ka
Tinatanaw sa ulap
Ang iyong mga mata
She knew that she would dream of him again, something that she has avoided because the last dream she had seemed so real. She remembered that she had a prayer made from a poem he made for him. She hadn’t prayed that rhyme for so long. She thought about doing it again. But she stopped herself. She only prayed for people who she loved. And she wasn’t supposed to love him anymore.
Dinarasal kita
Hinihiling na sana ay lagi kang Masaya
She did. She really did hope that he was happily married now. If he wasn’t then her sacrifice, as she wants to call it would be in vain. The chorus repeated, twisting her resolve.
Pinipilit mang pigilin
Na ika’y aking ibigin
Wala na yatang magagawa
Sana’y hindi ipagkait sa ‘kin ang sandali
Na masilayan ka at marinig man lang ang tinig
Laging bukas ang puso ko
Upang ibigin ka
Laging wagas ang aking pagtingin
At aking pagsinta
“This is your stop.” The jeepney driver’s voice woke her from her trance.
That was it. Enough was enough.
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