What happens now?

This is what love or a desperation for love does to you. Everything, your friends, your work, or family, they turn into silhouettes that pass into the mist. Inside, you are a quicksand, sucking every thought, every rationality into this
reservoir of fear. You walk along the river, but it does not flow into your vision. Your eyes are set on invisible scenes projected by a mind that seems to lose itself into the air. And so you walk, and eat, and talk, and talk, and pretend to listen to your friends' admonitions, but alone at night, you curl up into a ball. Even the cold, or the people you watch from your window, even the season become a reminder of all that is lost.

And it feels like a blackhole. How you're stuck and nothing can ever change it. You're a goner, and you feel like the smallest, unluckiest, saddest creature in the world.

But one day it begins, unabated.

I woke up just wanting to be happy. Tired of the melancholy, of foolish hopes and dissapointments. I chatted with a neighbor on the train and slowly noticed the things that was once blurred by sadness--the rudeness of some of the old folks on the subway, the smooth and familiar rhythm of my workplace. And slowlyI open up to things that I once loved--- books, food and good conversations. Yes, I lost out on love this time. But this faith has began to buoy me. What would come out of a love that is both desperate and tenuous? Despite my flaws and regrets, I deserve a better love than one that is tinged with revenge.

And around me are people who is rooting for me. My closest friend in the workplace took me to lunch today, this was to be our last heart to heart talk until he comes back from his vacation in two weeks. He tells me he's planning to propose to his girlfriend. And I was genuinely happy. I told him jokingly that I was jealous but to be honest, it was more of the I-wish-someday-I'd-get-that too thing. When I told him this, he smiled. Because much as he wanted me to be get back with the one who shall not be named, he sees that I'm progressing to my way of becoming who I once was.
Because the truth is, all this drama can drain the personality out of you. I've missed laughing like crazy on jokes, I've missed obsessing on the lives of meredith gray and izzy stevens. I've missed dancing like crazy in my room. There are a million things I've put aside in my quixotic journey for love--train for my Mt. Apo climb in Dec., develop the little food business idea that I've began formulating months ago, and this, my writing.

There are people who've been with me these past months but to whom I've kept my distance because I was too preoccupied, but who are still nevertheless here. I remember two weeks ago, one of my kuya here told me, ang daming nagmamahal sayo. To which I retorted, asan, asan? But really, maybe it is the last thing I need at the moment--romance. I was under the illusion that what I need now was someone by my side, always. I wanted the same joy, the guarantee of a partner. But maybe it's not the time. What I can have now, what is within my power to get is to change my life--travel, change jobs, spend time with the family and friends. Maybe as Melissa Gilbert did, I need to eat, love, pray until I am complete again.

Time can be both a punishment and a gift. It is what I have now, time to push myself to who I could still be. Because, truthfully, for all my histrionics, my wails, I am blessed with a life full of opportunity.