For Everything (13) You don’t fall in love with someone for a reason. You don’t fall in love with him for his inviting smile. His uncanny, remarkable wit. His eyes that remind you of sunshine peering through forest foliage. His ability to make you laugh until your stomach is sore. His caring, loving disposition. His chocolate brown hair, always ruffled in the neatest way. His voice, the soundtrack of your favorite lullaby, a sound you don’t think you could ever get sick of. No, you don’t fall in love with someone for these reasons. There is no specific reason for why you suddenly don’t want to live without a person. You fall in love with someone when they catch you off guard, capture a piece of you, leave you feeling like something is missing. When they burrow into your heart, when their pain becomes yours. When you wake up one morning and suddenly think, “I love you. Screw everything else." You fall in love with someone before you even know what love is. I fell in love with Elmo before I even knew what love is. But we had our differences. People would always comment on how we had rubbed off each other; on how we already looked alike or sounded alike or even moved alike. They would say that one had become the other. But that isn’t true. Not entirely. Difference, no matter how obvious or subtle, is slippery. Perhaps the easiest way to explain our differences is to explain what we would do if we were to be left alone in an empty room. Elmo would start by standing at the doorway, studying the room carefully from his vantage point, noticing the bends, the nooks and crannies, deciding where the best place to sit would be, double checking for other exits and entrances to the room so he could make sure to not leave his back to them. Then he would head straight for the place that he had considered the best place to sit, and he would sit, cross legged, his back to the wall. Maybe, if he was feeling particularly restless that day, he’d fidget with the hem of his pants, or the edge of his shirt sleeve, but mostly he’d just sit there and wait until he was collected. I would also study the room, but not by standing still. I’d drag my hand along the walls, looking for any seams or creases that might indicate something hiding behind the paint. I’d step on anything on the ground that looked different than the rest of the floor. I’d knock on things randomly to see if there were any hollow spots. I might even try to jump up and see if I could reach the ceiling. When I am done exploring, I might sit down for a moment, but most likely, I’d start spinning. Slowly at first, arms extended like a child, but then faster and faster until I get so dizzy I couldn’t take it anymore. Then I’d lay on the ground and stare up at the ceiling until the world leveled again. If no one comes to get me in that time, I’d stand and I’d spin again. Spin and rest. Spin and rest. On the other hand, the best way to see our similarities is to ask us what we did while we were in those rooms all alone. We’d both give a half smile, shrug, and respond with “Oh. I was just thinking.” But thinking overdid us. Thinking killed us. And thinking, which was once my bestfriend, had become something I’d been wary of doing. Because thinking brings it all back. Because thinking causes pain. Yes, still. "Ang lalim na naman ng iniisip mo." "Hmm." "Ano bang tinitingnan mo diyan?" "Yung nasa baba." He looks up from his laptop to find me standing at the window. This isn’t particularly unusual. I am almost always standing by that window. I love looking down the busy street. If he had taken me down to that road, I would have a panic attack in less than a heartbeat, but watching the bustling street below seemed to have a calming effect on me. “It’s heartbreaking, isn’t it?” “What’s heartbreaking, Jules?” “Chino. How many people do you think walk down that street every day?” I ask, facing him. “I don’t know. Probably a couple hundred. Why do you ask?” I turn back to face the window. “A couple hundred people walking down the street. Some do it every single day. Others will only see it today, and then never again for the rest of their lives. For some it’s the first, for some it’s the last. There’s just no… certainty. Doesn’t that just break your heart?” He takes a pause. He knows that it’s one of those nights. That’s why he’s here. Because I need him. Because I just can’t be left alone. He stands up and crosses to just behind me. My shoulders stiffen. He hesitates. “I don’t know. I guess it doesn’t, Jules. But I don’t think the way you do– so hindi ko din siguro mararamdaman yang nararamdaman mo.” I fall back slightly, my back coming into rough contact with Chino’s chest. He wraps his arms around me, an automatic and protective gesture. I tip my head up just slightly so that I could see the outline of his face. “No one thinks the way that I do. And that’s heartbreaking, too.” He has no idea what to say to that. I’m right. There isn’t a soul nearby who thinks the way I do. It is heartbreaking in a way, but also spectacular. We just stand in silence until I tilt my head back down to look out the window again. “I think I want to go to bed now. I’m exhausted.” He guides me back to my bedroom, keeping an arm around my shoulder. He watches me carefully as I fall asleep, just to make sure I’m fine. Because my heart is breaking, and he doesn’t know how to fix it. And even though Chino doesn’t say it, I know that not knowing how to fix me is what he finds the most heartbreaking of all. I get up when he finally closes the door. I just can’t hold the emotions in. Because it’s one of those days. And I need to somehow let them all out. Dear Elmo, I still dream about drawing constellations on your shoulders, connecting them when stars begin to resurface in your skin, tracing them delicately like they ultimately lead a trail to your heart. In the silence, in the circumstance, in the abruptness of how your skin brushes mine, an infinite number of stars might have already exploded, but here we are standing still, waiting for a manifest of a greater spectacle than all the lights of the universe itself. I still foolishly imagine I could mend the landmasses of the Earth together, how I’d fit them like jigsaw puzzles so we wouldn’t have vast oceans separating us. I think of all the times when you’d tell me how you’ve caught sight of something astonishing in your city’s skyline and I can only point into plain air trying to get a feel of how it is to share the same sky with you. I still ask myself how for a second I could have not remember the pounding, when the intentional gaze of an eye-catching stranger in the train is devoid of the hymns you readily sing to my soul when I have become oblivious to the revolving world, or how I’ve never been quite accustomed to the unwavering surge of electricity running through me even when I’ve reached the post scripts of your letters — because maybe it is an impulse for me to wish that it would never end. The silence this time has lingered longer, though. It’s starting to become unbearable. I think of you and see nothing but how you’d want me to look at you in the graying intervals of a far future. Although my words carry pomp and complexities, it’s only simple what I ask from you: I still love you. Do you still love me too? Julie But it will never reach him. My letters never do. I just want to write, though. Because it’s one of those days. And I need to be okay.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Jul 2013 16:57:14 +0000
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