We’re meant to lose the people we love…how else do we know how important they are to us? –Benjamin Button
Torn between reading an article and the last book of the Twilight series, I suddenly felt a drop of tear run down my cheek. I never felt this stupid, unhappy, and alone since way back who-the-hell-knows. I drop the thick book in my bag and scramble through the pages of the February issue of the magazine on my lap; it was too late when I realized that it’s the Love Month issue I am reading. I stopped at the page where there’s a picture of a beautiful couple, their faces radiating with happiness that I envy them and slowly I killed such thought in my head. I shouldn’t be feeling this now—like a total loser wasting her time reading such article when there’s so much to do—that I am doing fine. I run my fingers on the glossy page of the magazine, took a deep breath and read. You know how those foreign films like…it began. As soon as I finished reading the article, half happy half bitter, I immediately closed the magazine and put it on a desk two seats away from me and went back to reading Breaking Dawn. It was past eleven when I decided to resign from reading chapter thirty-three and decided to go home. It took me an hour to get in an FX going to Fairview, I settled on the passenger seat and paid the driver immediately—I usually forget whether I paid the fare or not—before I let my mind drift away to the things that happened early that day. The driver turned the radio on, he stopped at a station where a DJ was having a conversation with a female caller, and she was laughing at his comments to whatever it was their discussing. I try to reject their annoying voices but when the DJ called her, “ay gaga ka pala e...” something snapped in me that I try to make out what their topic is about that he called her that “…hindi ka mahal nun…” he continued, then she spoke in defense and told the DJ that she thinks his ex-husband still loves her, she kept on going that he’s happier with her than with the other girl. The DJ retorted, “…iniwan ka na nga nya e, sumama na siya sa ibang babae and still you think that way…ano bang proof mo at naisip mo yan?” she didn’t speak instead she began crying. I felt sorry for her. I guess I know how she feels, I was that girl many years ago the only difference is I didn’t broadcast it nationwide that I am in pain, that someone stabbed me, point blank, with a blunt knife and left it there for weeks until I decided to pull it out and let myself bleed in front of my friends. Like her, I was in denial and kept on hoping that person will come back and make things right but that’s bullshit.
She struggled to catch a breath between her cries. I wished they would just be over with it but they continued. “You know what?” The DJ asks, without expecting an answer from her “galit ako sa lalaking iyan…galit ako sa kanya kasi mahal na mahal mo siya pero iniwan ka pa rin niya…galit ako sa kanya kasi sinasaktan ka pa din nya…galit ako sa kanya kasi umiiyak ka nang dahil sa isang katulad niya.” He said with compassion to the caller, she responded with sobs ¾I never thought that a nakakalurkey na station would be that sympathetic with pathetic callers¾ and what made me in awe with the DJ was when he said “give him up, there’s no better way to express how much you love him but to give him up…sacrifice is what love is all about.” Perhaps he’s right…perhaps his wrong…it’s up to us to think which is which because there are questions that can knock you off whenever you’re ready to move on. How can you give up someone you love so much? It’s a matter of strength and courage, but what if the source of your strength is the one thing that you love and hurt you? Well I just want to fuck with your thoughts…it’s really up to how you want to live with your lives.
