Sayonnara

delayed posting from April 22, 2007 12:43 PM

My good friend Shy wrote an entry in her blog about pre-nup agreements. These "agreements", however did not concern any material, financial or corporeal matters, but intangibles like friendships, loyalty to a party or parties, and choices needed to be made (or not). She argued that there should be a figmental pre-nup agreement made between a couple so that when these two part ways, their friends wouldn't have to go through the motions of having to choose which half they'd "pledge allegiance" to. Of course, this is such a reality happening everyday, albeit such a really puny thing to even waste one's time and effort on...considering that--as mature individuals--choices such as choosing one over the other is such a naïve thing to be done. The very essence of a relationship is that, as you enter it as individuals with separate wealth of experiences (and friends, for that matter), you are supposed to embrace each other's individuality to form a collective whole--that is, as a couple. Ergo, whoever one "accumulates" as his new friend or acquaintance transcends any "original affiliations" of that friend whatsoever. Literally: who's mine are yours, who's yours are mine.

But, as we all come to realize in the end, there are always exceptions to the rule. When you receive endless queries or "permissions" from your own friends as to the decorum of keeping contact with your ex (despite your constant reassurances that it's perfectly OK for them to maintain the friendship with the ex--but that they should not expect the ex and myself to be in the same room at the same time), or when you invariably receive unsolicited opinions (from the same group of friends you've had for the longest time) about how "evil" or "mean" or "impatient enough" or "inconsiderate" you are (despite the honest-to-goodness reality that you have been everything but those to your ex) in having to end the relationship and leaving the ex "forsaken" or like a "basang sisiw"...one's gotta reach a breaking point, and eventually change his stance.

Yes, about one and a half years later, I've decided to get out of an unhealthy relationship. After a while, I realized that I have been loving myself a little bit less than how I should, and that all the concessions, patience, understanding and sacrifices given were all in vain. After a while, I also learned that trust is something you can never force on anybody; if your ex had a history of cheating or "utilitarianism" (insert sarcasm here) or incorrigible lying, reason should only remind you of what your History professors used to teach you in school: "history repeats itself".

And, boys and girls of all ages, all friends and non-friends of mine, yes, I am mean...but only when you deserve it. Yes, I could be impatient...but only after I've exhausted all avenues and only when I've been pushed to a wall. But, no. I am never evil nor inconsiderate. You have no fucking idea what happened within the four walls of my condo (and apparently, even outside of it) the whole 17+ months of it...so keep your self-righteous, accusatory, and misguided opinions to yourselves. As Mother Melanie would have consistently said, don't judge me because I am not a book.

Randy Crawford's "One Hello" said a lot to me at the end of the break-up: If you're not afraid of what love brings, then endings are beginnings of beautiful things. The beautiful things, apparently, are those little things that you've missed or taken for granted when you were too busy making the relationship work. I guess Michael Johnson's "Bluer Than Blue" captures some of it: After you go, I can catch up on my reading; after you go, I have a lot more time for sleepin'; after you go, I've got a lot more room in my closet; after you go, I can stay out all night long if I feel like it; ...I can start my whole life over. I guess goodbyes are not necessarily bad...that is why it's called GOODbye and not BADbye. No matter how bad your breakup might be, the silver lining is that, at some point, you'd come to a realization that you may have learned a thing or two in the relationship that should keep you more level-headed (as opposed to being way above the clouds, that is) the next time you decide that it's time for you to get into another one. A disclaimer, however, was prudently passed on to me by my long-ago ex, Cassie: Before you enter a new relationship, you're going to have to unlearn some of your learnings from your past relationship(s), as these may not necessarily work with/for your new relationship. Amen. Yes, Ma'am.

Sayonnara, ex. If you spoke Nihongo, you'd realize that it doesn't mean "See you again", but simply "Goodbye".

And, oh, a pahabol. That Cake revival of Gloria's classic is what I'm looping in my iPod: I should've changed my fucking lock, I should have made you leave your key, If I have known for just one second you'd be back to bother me...lalaladida. Yeah...I am still fucking bitter.