21 days of rai-ness (Day 20)
The most painful love there is, is the love left unshown
A love that cannot be expressed, affection left unknown
The love that withholds touching, afraid of what it would say
And the most painful thing about unexpressed love is... it never fades away
--Susan Polis Schutz
February 8. today is the birthday of one of the persons i have loved so much. pero he passed away a few years back, so there...
no need to feel sorry. i've always believed that the birthdays of the people i care about are special days, because it reminds me of how grateful i am that they were born in this world. birthdays are the times that i feel how lucky i am that i've met those people, because without them, i'm certain that i wouldn't be the same person.
anyway, he and i had quite a rough time together( but i think to put it that way is a gross understatement.) with him i experienced what i think was the highest and the lowest points of my life.
with him, i knew what true love meant...
joy
sacrifice
pain
loss
it was hard to accept that he was gone. back then, i thought i would never recover. i thought the pain would never stop. i regretted the times i had pushed him away, the times i had hurt him, the times i had failed him.
but eventually the tears subsided and the pain lessened. i was able to push the dark memories from my mind and the gnawing pain turned into a slow throb. i was able to forgive myself from all the hurt i had caused him and i tried to make myself forget the regrets i have. but it was difficult. there are still times that the thoughts "if only i had..." cross my mind.
now i know that my wounds have partially healed. i'd be a liar and a hypocrite if i'd say that i have completely recovered. but with each passing day, i could feel the pain slowly ebbing, the wounds closing slowly and steadily. i always remind myself not to dwell upon the past too much and focus on the present. i have trained myself to show my affections to the people i love as often as i can. i always try to show the people i love how much i care for them. i try to forgive others for the wrong things they have done to me so that i won't dwell on my anger so much and consequently, regret the wasted time that i could have spent loving that person.
through him i have learned that the best way to ease the pain is spend your time loving others. love is the best antidote for pain. wasting time regretting the past would only make us blind to what's happening in the present. and eventually, when the present became the past, then it would only add up to the regrets we originally have. so i made a resolution: to live in the present and let the past stay in my memories.
i decided to make each day count. so that i would never again come to the point when my life would reflect the quote i placed at the beginning of this blog. because the truth is, despite the the many regrets i used to have regarding him and the painful times we've been through, i could never regret ever having met him. i could never regret meeting him, loving him, even losing him. he had taught me so much, especially the meaning of strength and the many forms of love. with him i had felt what it was like to be truly happy, to be so close to someone that you need not use words and gestures to make the other person understand.
not everyone experiences the things i've been through, so i don't really expect people to understand me. but im thankful for all those people who stood by me and helped me get through this.
pepot, chel, aiel, dan, nikki, jana and val,
i will be eternally be grateful to you guys for everything you've done for me. thank you for listening, for comforting, for loving. thank you for just being there, even though there are times when you said you didn't know what to say. the truth is, i really didn't want you to give me empty words of comfort, nor false reassurances that everything would be alright. i'm just glad that you were there by my side. i'm happy that you stayed there. i'm grateful that you allowed me to hold on to you, to cry on your shoulders.
i know i probably havent thanked you enough for everything you've done for me. i hope that we could be friends for as long as we could so that i could spend the rest of my life making up for all my "utang na loob sa inyo'.
happy birthday kyle...