On waiting.

"Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful.

But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering."

Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept

When I was ten, I had a childhood sweetheart. He was my uncle's family's neighbor in the place where I spent my summer vacations and we spent a lot of afternoons playing together. He promised me he'll ask me to be his girlfriend when we turn 18 because a relationship at that age will be much better since we'll be more mature and all, therefore better equipped in handling issues and whatever. I looked forward to visits there so I could see  him, and oh boy were there a lot of sneaky glances and long conversations over the phone even when he lived just next door. When my uncle's family moved here, I never got to see him again except for one time when we saw each other at the mall when I was in college. I never got to be his girlfriend and the last time I heard, he already has a wife and kids.

When I was in 4th grade, I had a crush on a boy who also had a crush on me. I waited and waited and waited for him to make the first move but he never did. He transferred to another school the summer before 3rd year high school, and I consider it my first heartbreak.

When I was in 3rd year high school, I "fell in love" (I'm using the term loosely here) with someone who I thought was so dense to not notice the signs I was "in love" with him. It turns out he was in love with one of my friends who then became his girlfriend. It broke my heart, but now everything's good - their relationship has ended but all three of us belong in the same barkada.

A couple of months before I graduated in high school, I had my first boyfriend. We broke up two months into college because he then pursued a relationship with one of my close friends. (What is it with friends screwing me over? LOL) I waited for my heart to fully heal, and one day it finally did. Our paths never crossed again even though we live in the same city.

In 2008, I fell in love with an officemate who was one of my closest friends. There was a lot of pain and tears involved in that "relationship" and I blame myself for letting it happen twice. It took a while before I was able to stand on my own two feet again, but after some time I eventually did. It's sad that our friendship is one of the casualties of the whole fiasco, but something's got to give. We've damaged each other far too much that to be friends right now is out of the question. Who knows, maybe it will happen one day, but right now, I don't think it would be healthy for either of us.

Last night, I dreamed I was with the guy I consider to be the one that got away. It felt so real that I thought he was really there beside me, so you could just imagine how much it sucked when I realized it was just a dream, he's not really there and he won't be, at least until the next three years. He is now abroad working, and to be honest I wouldn't mind waiting for him. The only question is, does he want me to wait for him? I don't know... Probably not, especially after how much I hurt him. I regret everything that happened, but it is what it is. Try as I might, I can never undo anything I've done. For the past two months I've been doing what I can to try to tell him how I feel, but it seems like all I've been getting are half-hearted responses. Do I keep waiting? I want to, but if all my attempts remain unanswered, maybe it would be best to give up.

So what if there's someone else out there, also waiting for me? What if he wants to reach me as fast as he can, but he's stuck in traffic? What if Google Maps gave him the wrong directions? What if he got impatient and just decided to end the search? Curiouser and curiouser, lonelier and lonelier. 

Does this post feel like too much of a Debbie Downer for you? I apologize. I promise to talk about clothes and shoes on my next post. Have a great week ahead!

* Photo taken by one of my friends during our out-of-town trip last weekend.