**As published in Sunstar: http://www.sunstar.com.ph/baguio/opinion/2011/10/02/brett-love-story-182725
THIRTY DAYS has September. And so is a lifetime.
I rarely, if not never, write about matters of the proverbial heart seeing as I’m not really a romantic. I’m a self-confessed cynic when it comes to romance. I’m very far from being a love expert as I’ve been quite unfortunate in related experiences. My perception of a love story has been badly-tainted and gone were those dreams of having my own version of dashing-prince-saving-the-damsel-in-distress scene. (Quite a long disclaimer eh?)
But I can say that fate is indeed playful. This story is very far (as in way too far) from Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers but for someone as romantically-pessimistic as me, it comes close.
I’d like to believe it was destiny, among other circumstances and factors, which brought this person across my path. I would further like to think that I often rely on my logic when it comes to deciding if I should pursue something or not, but the passé idea applied this time; this was a situation where logic was defied. Before I knew it, I was falling for someone who was practically a stranger. I chose to be irrational and succumbed to my impulsive tendencies because it just felt right. That was simply it, it felt right. Hence, I could not really blame other people if they have their apprehensions about the relationship that we had. If I was being my rational self, I would surely be having the same lines of thought; why risk so much and invest your emotions on someone whom you’ve never met?
In life, there are risks we have to take, and for me, this was one of those risks that felt worth-taking. I took it expecting that something great will come out of it but not really losing that tiny reservation that not everything will go as anticipated and hoped for. I told myself that it will not really matter if I’ll be gloriously rewarded or not. Thing is, I won’t have to end up eternally regretting what could have been the possibilities if I won’t take that gamble.
More importantly though, it was a risk I was willing to undergo because I trusted not just my instincts but the person whom I was taking this chance with. This is perhaps the most crucial factor, the faith and trust that I had in him, in us.
To cut the story short and as not to make this into an overly-romanticized piece, I just had one month to find out if the risk I took was worth it. A month because that was what fate had given us. I braced myself for all the possibilities—good or bad.
Then I met him. Time stopped. If there was a seventh heaven, then I had a glimpse of it. True bliss with someone is felt when every second is treasured. There are times when it seems like there’s just so much to talk about while there are moments when you just opt to stay silent and linger in that strange calm that says a lot. Either way, you feel sincerely ecstatic—contented by the mere presence of one another.
Love is a phenomenon where most often than not, we are not dictated by logic. There are these magical instances called tugs of the heart, prickles at the spine, butterflies in the tummy, jellied knees, breathlessness, and all those seemingly unexplainable emotions that will tell us if he or she is possibly the one. Small and subtle they may be but powerful enough to make us realize that that single flutter of the heart is a telltale sign for something much bigger. That certain someone can be the person sitting next to you on the jeep this morning, the one you bumped with while rushing across the pedestrian lane, the childhood playmate whom you grew up with, the friend you never saw for a long time, or this stranger miles away who made you believe that special relationships can exist across tremendous distances.
People come and go. But choosing to stay, to stick with someone is a choice and a decision that even fate cannot intervene with. We had only one month to truly get to know each other. Thirty days to find out and decide if we could go on risking. Thirty short days but it spelled a lifetime for me.
“I would rather have one breath of her hair, one kiss of her mouth, one touch of her hand, than an eternity without it.” Probably one of the sweetest but most tragic lines ever uttered by a character whom we all fell in love with in one of the most powerful romance stories in years, I don’t want to go overboard by saying he must have come across the same thoughts when he decided to take the risk with me and made it possible to close the oceans that kept us apart. But this I must unabashedly say, if he would love more than just one of these, then he knows where to find me again.
THIRTY DAYS has September. And so is a lifetime.
I rarely, if not never, write about matters of the proverbial heart seeing as I’m not really a romantic. I’m a self-confessed cynic when it comes to romance. I’m very far from being a love expert as I’ve been quite unfortunate in related experiences. My perception of a love story has been badly-tainted and gone were those dreams of having my own version of dashing-prince-saving-the-damsel-in-distress scene. (Quite a long disclaimer eh?)
But I can say that fate is indeed playful. This story is very far (as in way too far) from Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers but for someone as romantically-pessimistic as me, it comes close.
I’d like to believe it was destiny, among other circumstances and factors, which brought this person across my path. I would further like to think that I often rely on my logic when it comes to deciding if I should pursue something or not, but the passé idea applied this time; this was a situation where logic was defied. Before I knew it, I was falling for someone who was practically a stranger. I chose to be irrational and succumbed to my impulsive tendencies because it just felt right. That was simply it, it felt right. Hence, I could not really blame other people if they have their apprehensions about the relationship that we had. If I was being my rational self, I would surely be having the same lines of thought; why risk so much and invest your emotions on someone whom you’ve never met?
In life, there are risks we have to take, and for me, this was one of those risks that felt worth-taking. I took it expecting that something great will come out of it but not really losing that tiny reservation that not everything will go as anticipated and hoped for. I told myself that it will not really matter if I’ll be gloriously rewarded or not. Thing is, I won’t have to end up eternally regretting what could have been the possibilities if I won’t take that gamble.
More importantly though, it was a risk I was willing to undergo because I trusted not just my instincts but the person whom I was taking this chance with. This is perhaps the most crucial factor, the faith and trust that I had in him, in us.
To cut the story short and as not to make this into an overly-romanticized piece, I just had one month to find out if the risk I took was worth it. A month because that was what fate had given us. I braced myself for all the possibilities—good or bad.
Then I met him. Time stopped. If there was a seventh heaven, then I had a glimpse of it. True bliss with someone is felt when every second is treasured. There are times when it seems like there’s just so much to talk about while there are moments when you just opt to stay silent and linger in that strange calm that says a lot. Either way, you feel sincerely ecstatic—contented by the mere presence of one another.
Love is a phenomenon where most often than not, we are not dictated by logic. There are these magical instances called tugs of the heart, prickles at the spine, butterflies in the tummy, jellied knees, breathlessness, and all those seemingly unexplainable emotions that will tell us if he or she is possibly the one. Small and subtle they may be but powerful enough to make us realize that that single flutter of the heart is a telltale sign for something much bigger. That certain someone can be the person sitting next to you on the jeep this morning, the one you bumped with while rushing across the pedestrian lane, the childhood playmate whom you grew up with, the friend you never saw for a long time, or this stranger miles away who made you believe that special relationships can exist across tremendous distances.
People come and go. But choosing to stay, to stick with someone is a choice and a decision that even fate cannot intervene with. We had only one month to truly get to know each other. Thirty days to find out and decide if we could go on risking. Thirty short days but it spelled a lifetime for me.
“I would rather have one breath of her hair, one kiss of her mouth, one touch of her hand, than an eternity without it.” Probably one of the sweetest but most tragic lines ever uttered by a character whom we all fell in love with in one of the most powerful romance stories in years, I don’t want to go overboard by saying he must have come across the same thoughts when he decided to take the risk with me and made it possible to close the oceans that kept us apart. But this I must unabashedly say, if he would love more than just one of these, then he knows where to find me again.