Never Again

After much fail text conversations and multiple times of deciding to give up and let go without actually accomplishing anything to move on for real, I was set to meet him. I have so many unanswered questions. It was about time we faced each other again after more than a year apart. There have been almost-cancellations during the day itself, but I did not want to put it away anymore. It needed to happen. I needed to start moving on because it seemed like we have no chance of getting back together.

It was a quick 4 hours. In fact, I could not remember exactly any of the strings of dialogues we had, and the doodles on my planner are not helping. When the talk is over, I did not feel anything. Or I just did not know what to feel. But I can still recall how I felt while we were there, sitting beside each other facing the trees, the water and the ducks. It was a fleeting revived feeling of the love we lost. Of contentment and peace. Reminiscing and laughter. But I did not water it to grow, because at the back of my mind I knew that we were never getting back together.

We talked about random things like good old friends (plus occasional bitter hirits here and there). He answered all the questions in my checklist. Most of what he said were already what I expected, except for the fact that he did share my haunting belief that we had a weak foundation or an ugly start, and that for him she was more beautiful than me. It was a lie, but I know that who was prettier did not actually matter. He is with her now and I am the ex. Where we stand now is final. She won. We are over. We are never getting back together.

He loves her. She makes him happy, and I admit now that it is probably really in a way that I have never made him feel before. Some of my "what-if's" were not extinguished, contrary to what I hoped. Still, no matter how much I deemed it unfair that he did not give me my shot to try to make things work between us, and that he did not wait for me to become a better person before he considered looking for a replacement, things will continue to be just be as they are now. Unfair, and the only recourse for me is to accept that somebody else has already filled my space in his life, to accept that we are never getting back together.

Before we parted, I gave him back our ring. That one last thing that contained all the feelings of the past, all the promises, all the hopes for the future. I did not understand why at first he wanted me to keep it, but when I said that keeping it is tantamount to me still holding on to the hopes of us, he finally accepted. We hugged, but it was awkward and empty. And at that moment it felt more real than ever that we have no chance of getting back together.

He wished for me someone better, someone who according to him, deserved my love more. I did not hear the rest of his speech. I did not want anyone else, just him. He was enough for me and I know I can love him more than she does if he only gave me the chance. And he knows that. When we broke up, all that I wanted was for us to fix the broken parts of our relationship and establish a new start, a start we can be proud of, a start that is not weak nor ugly, one that will not haunt us or make us feel discontented, a start that is worth remembering. Yet, it is too late now. He did not care anymore whether he was the one who deserved my love or not; he knows deep inside of him and has decided that I cannot have him back anymore. For him, we are never getting back together.

He did not look back as he walked away. He was already moving forward, and I realized I should be, too. But first,  I need to learn to love myself again, to find that girl who was lost when he decided to walk away and love somebody else. I need to revive that girl who took risks, who loved passionately, who trusted wholeheartedly and who believed in happy endings. I need to love myself and learn to love again, even if it will not be him whom I would love anymore. I need to start learning to accept that we have no chance of ever getting back together.

Oddly, I did not cry. It seemed like I have become numb. I have been awake for more than 24 hours but I chose to run until I did not feel my whole body, until all the things around me had become a blur. I did not want to feel anything anymore. I did not want to curl up in bed and cry like a little girl. But no matter how long I jogged, I could not run from the feelings that haunted me. I could not escape from the sad breaking truth that we were never getting back together, that things were really over between us.

Still, I am thankful that he had been totally honest with me during this last encounter. That he admitted that he saw the love they share as something that would last forever, that he was happy with her. That he gave me the assurance that there was nothing I was waiting for from him anymore. That we are definitely never getting back together.

And so, when I send him back all the things he gave me, I am hoping that all my feelings for him will go with them as well. I will let all my feelings pour out and be gone, all the emotions that I have carefully kept hidden in the vain hope that one day, he will come back and accept them again. The love that I stopped acknowledging but continued to hold on tightly to.  Eventually, I will let it all go and move on to find happiness, trust and acceptance. I will start believing again that there is indeed love in this world, that it is just romance which fades, and that this love keeps relationships alive through commitment and understanding. Yes, we are never ever getting back together, and someday when I am ready to love again, it will be the best truth that I will learn from and live with.

#3 Hold your peace

Breaking up poses many questions:

Did you love me at all?

How could you think about losing me?

Am I not worth fighting for?

Yeah, you get the drama.

All these questions multiply and intensify once you ex finds a new partner before you do. Especially if you personally haven’t moved on.

Last week, I was planning on meeting Matty to talk. In fact, we’ve already made initial arrangements but we didn’t have a final schedule yet. He agreed to meet me either on a Friday night after work (yes, another midnight-to-morning sacrifice), or on a Saturday night. I didn’t bother asking him whether he’d keep it a secret from his new girl or not. I just wanted all my questions answered.

I drafted all my Qs as to be prepared should he suddenly call for our meet-up. But the days went by and I started to doubt whether it was the right thing to do. One night I randomly searched for articles online about relationships and breaking up, until I got the answer I needed.

I decided; I told him I didn’t need to do “the talk” anymore. Hi didn’t reply.

Up to now I’m clueless on whether he read my message or not, or if he cared at all. But I should be firm with my decision. No communication, no stalking, and if possible, no lingering thoughts about him.

If you can’t do that, how can you move on?

Moving on step #3: Leave the questions unanswered and build a new truth for yourself.

#2 Stop stalking

Admit it. Since you found out that he is already with another girl, you exhausted all of your researching skills just to know more about their love story. While it may help to make you feel good about yourself ("His loss: she's not as pretty as me. He won't find any girl like me.") or give you peace of mind, it can also be destructing. Think about all the tears you cried, the work you procrastinated and all the time you should have spent with other people that matter more. You get the picture.

Since I found out about Matty and his new girl, I was in the Internet constantly for days. The time I spent online in a couple of days was equivalent to three months worth of my net time last year! I couldn't get any other work done. All I cared about was obsessing over how happy they are and whether he has been that happy with me. Talk about self-doubt and pity.

But eventually, after much thinking and prayer, I realized it's doing me nothing good. Come the start of a new week, I made myself a promise not to look at his FB page nor his twitter account for one whole workday. And I did it. I am proud to say that it has been three working days now and I haven't visited his online pages, not even his girl's blog. And I don't feel paranoid at all that they may be having lots of fun and love behind my back.

I challenge you to do the same; You can do it too. If you're having a hard time, focus and distraction is the key. 

Weigh your tasks: which is more important, that report that your boss should be reviewing already or what your ex gave his new girl during their 5th monthsary? Think about which will matter more to your dreams, to your career, to your future. Then the answer comes easily.

I believe that my work matters more. (Though my boss gives me as much tears and heartaches like fallen relationship. Haha.) So does my family, my faith, and my friends.

Anyway, I hope you're with me in our second step to moving on: Stop stalking and set your mind and energy on things that are waaay more important. You'll be waking up to good vibes and more productive days after.

#1 Be honest

If you have somebody new with you right now after your recently-ended relationship (whether official, fling, flirt-partner, MU, or whatever you may be calling what you have), then you can relate with my first step to moving on: being honest.

You just found out about the truth about what happened after your last relationship ended (in my case, he already found somebody new, which is also the reason why we never got back together). Surely you have been bothered for days. After much stalking, emotional tweets and clingy night-outs and heart-to-heart with girl friends, you still haven't decided what you really feel and want. But since you are presently dating a guy who isn’t supposed to know what happened because you have been acting all happy when you are with him, you need to get intact with your emotions soon.

You might not think you are ready yet, but you should start thinking about how to tell your present guy, especially if he has become important to you or you are seeing yourself with him a few years more (if not for life yet).

For me, I figured this afternoon would be the perfect time to tell Jake what has been happening behind his back since I found out about Matty and his new girl. Yet, the spontaneous activities and happy feelings of this day made me conclude that I wouldn't push through with "the talk" today so as not to ruin the happy memories. But God made me realize that it needed to happen now.

As I was busy keeping my things and arranging my finances for the week, I didn’t notice Jake browsing through my phone. We never kept our phones private; in fact, until now, I did not have any conversations to hide. But he read a conversation I had with a friend and had a gut feel of what I have been going through. I was caught off-guard, but I needed to be honest with him, even if I was not prepared. I told him everything I could.

End of "the talk", there was no concrete "leave or stay" decision, but we were satisfied. In fact, I did not want to let go and go to sleep in fear that when I wake up tomorrow, everything will change. But at least I have one heavy thought off my mind.

This is why you need to be honest with your present guy, because sooner or later he will find out (hello, your tweets and FB statuses?). Yes, you are scared, I was too. But you should know that if he bitches out on you or doubts you after you become totally honest with him (not unless you do want to get back with your Ex, which is a completely different scenario), you may not really be meant for each other.

In my case, Jake was understanding. He offered to give me space but I still haven’t decided whether I really need it or not.

So there, we are done with our first step to moving on: being in the clear with our present about what has come back from the past, about how it has made me feel, and about what you want to do about it.

#0 Behind the scenes

Before I start getting on to the “moving on” process, I probably should share a bit about where all these are coming from.

For someone who’s hoping to find that one true love someday, I am non-committal. Partly due to experiences within our family and within the fallen relationships of people close to me, and partly because I am obsessed with my dreams, career, and with finding a fairy-tale kind of love so much that I’m scared of being tied up to anyone too early. But I did have official relationships on top of all the flings and MUs. In fact, I had two.

This blog stems from the second relationship. Even if anniversaries creep me out like worms, I celebrated two with this second ex of mine. And during those times, I was happy. For the rest of my blog posts, let’s call him Matty.

I won’t indulge in the nitty-gritty. Let’s just say that after two full years and more than 2 months with Noah, we broke up. I was the one who initiated but he agreed. We just didn’t have much time for each other and during that time he was consecutively missing on important days of my life. But I loved him so much and sacrificed a lot just to be with him. It hurt.

After the breakup though, we continued to meet up and go out. Nothing much changed. Except that there is another guy who started getting close to me. Let’s call him Jake (yes, I watch Awkward). At first I just took advantage of the attention from him as it filled the space created by the breakup. But during that time he was flirting with another girl so I didn’t consider what we have as something serious. I still loved Matty.

About three months after our breakup, Matty’s bday drew near. We started losing communication, and I realized I didn’t want to lose him. So I decided to ask Jake to stop whatever it is we were doing. I think I hurt him, but well that’s another story. Unfortunately, when Matty finally answered my calls, he confessed that he already like another girl.

Dumped.

Right now, the anniversary of me-being-dumped-by-Matty is near. I am presently going out with Jake more seriously now but I couldn’t get myself to commit yet.

Just recently, I found out that Matty and his girl has been together for almost a year now as well. Apparently they became official a few days after that dreadful phone call.

And suddenly all these emotions swept through me, as if our breakup just happened yesterday.

So there it is, the reason behind this blog. To finally let go of my feelings for Matty, move on from the past we had, and prepare myself to be relationship-worthy by the time I am ready to commit again.

How about you, have you just had your break-up as well? I hope together, we find the strength to get through this and be happy.  And to start believing in love again.