Canvass

It's Christmas.  It's also exactly eight months since you betrayed me.

I've been putting this off for the longest time, only because I know I have so much to say. I figured I have to drop all my baggage and leave it here, in 2015.

You were the love of my life. There is a grand painting in my mind; it's the painting of how I see my myself in the future. I don't add to the painting easily, because paint is difficult to wash out. Up until you, it was still a huge blank canvass. I could see myself settling down in any of several countries, or cities; I could see myself staying in banking, or joining my dad's business, or starting my own. I could finish my CFA, take up Master's, or focus on my career. I could see myself in varying degrees of activity in church, in music, and in sports. I had nothing set to paint into my dream future. I wasn't sure of anything yet, and that was fine; I'm only 22. I only had one thing in my painting, right in the middle: you.

It's painful that this will just be another story to anyone else. Another story of a friend of a friend who had a bad breakup. Only you and I truly know what we had; thus, only you and I truly know what we lost. Only, you aren't you anymore. So really, it's only me.

It's only me, alone in the refuge we built for ourselves. No matter what we faced individually or together, we always could come home to it. For two years, I never doubted the security of my soul, barenaked before you inside our walls. This year, I learned that walls are weakest on the inside.

You struck them, ruthlessly--and they came crumbling down. In numbing pain, I quickly built up my own makeshift walls, tightly around myself. Then I peeped over them. You were nowhere to be found. You didn't turn to knock, to ask me to come out, to climb over to get back to me. You didn't even try to help bring them down. You were already gone.

You aren't you anymore. I have spent many nights wrestling with your soul in my head. It was the soul that I thought was barenaked with me as well. I wrestled with it, held it hostage, demanded answers. What happened to you? When did it happen? What were lies, and what were not? How did you live with yourself? How do you still? Where did all your values go? Where did you go? Who are you?

For every answered question, there would be a dozen more to ask. I have given up attempting to understand. Instead, I have told myself a story. You died, the story goes. I lost you. No matter what emotion springs from my chest--anger, disgust, despair, love--I can no longer share it with you. Speaking to you now will be speaking to someone else, like an old man speaking to his dead friend's son, longing only for a moment to speak to his old pal. And so, in light of your death, I have grieved. I have mourned your loss. I will always remember the pain of your disappearance whenever I see your remnants. And it is in your death, rather than in your betrayal, that I will be able to march on.

Now, as I stand over your grave, allow me to leave my unfiltered, unstylized grievances here.

You told me, and everyone else, that you saw no future with him. That it isn't right. That it's still me. You had just posted on my birthday two months back: "The man I've chosen to annoy for forever." In retrospect, I guess you chose too light a word with "annoy." You always held it over me that I hid the full truth of my past from you. I understood, because one of the things I loved most about us was the strength of our values. And you valued honesty, and you valued fidelity. And out of nowhere, after two years with a clean slate, you commit a shameless act of dishonesty and infidelity. And, you went back for it. Again, and again. Not quite a mistake, then, but more a series of unforced and conscious decisions. And, to top it all off, you defend it to this day. You told me that the only hindrance for you to fully commit to me was for me to be able to tell my parents the truth about my past. You strongly requested for it as a birthday gift to you. I didn't want to; but I did, for you. Unbeknownst to you, I told them about it, a full 25 days before your birthday. Unbeknownst to me, it was also 11 days after your betrayal. I finally found out by snooping through a common friend's phone. She was the first to know, yet she didn't say a thing, even if she was with me for a 5-day beach trip with friends and I was pouring my broken heart out to them. You still blamed her and eventually ruined your friendship with her over the fact that she unintentionally left her phone free for me to pick up and snoop around while she used the restroom. I read your message to her. "When should I tell him when happened?" Even then, I assumed he must have made a move on you, and maybe you turned him down last-second. I was so positive that it was absolutely impossible for you, for your character, for your values, to do this to me. To do this at all. I defended you against my friends--both to the ones that knew and the ones that still did not. They all figured the worst had already happened. I defended you against my family, who had circumstantial evidence but no hard proof. I loved you, but most importantly, I knew you. It turns out, I defended a guilty person I thought I knew. I held down the pain, pushed it into the back of my mind despite all its efforts to come screaming out, and I waited two whole weeks to give you the opportunity to tell me. And then, when I could not hold it any longer, I finally confronted you. And when I did, you know what you said? You said this: "You don't deserve to know because we aren't together anymore." I don't deserve to know? You still telling me you love me, wanting to call me by our pet names, but I don't deserve to know? I let you into my innermost being out of my trust in you, and I don't deserve to know? I painted you into my mind's canvass, allowing it to dry because of my commitment to you, and I don't deserve to know? I loved you with reckless abandon because of my life's loyalty to you, and I don't deserve to fucking know? In our two years, I never cursed at you during an argument (you did). I never physically hurt you (you did). I will never physically hurt a woman, but let me rip out one of these: Fuck you. Ang kapal ng pagmumukha mo. When you finally did confess to me, you told me two things that I remember, crystal clear: #1 you told me you were "distancing" yourself from him already, and #2 you told me you had already left the group (is this a Facebook group? Is that supposed to help me?). By that Sunday, I sent you my first wall of words, containing all the pain in my heart and everything I wanted to say post-breakup. Post-betrayal. I waited, but you never replied. Monday went by, and the whole week went by. By Friday, my cousin told me that you two were already telling people in the office that you were "dating." What happened to #1? The next day (Saturday), I saw photos of you and the group trekking Mt. Pinatubo. The same place you brought me on my birthday. What happened to #2? Heck, over the next few weeks you'd also go to Subic (where we went for our anniversary) and Hong Kong together. Is a trip down our relationship's memory lane the theme of your new one? Oh, here's the clincher. You always say it wasn't cheating (that's why I now use "betrayal," which incidentally I find more satisfying). That's all you attacked me for (can you believe it; you still stomached attacking me after what you did?). We were "broken up." First of all, we were "broken up" trying to fix things. It had already happened before. We argue, we reach a stalemate, we take a break for a while. This stalemate happened on a Monday. The next day, you gave me these exact words of assurance: "I love you and I won't cheat on you." Now tell me, how can you "cheat" on me if we aren't together? So you acknowledge that even during a cool-off, because we were committed for life, and because we still loved each other (supposedly), that you can still cheat in such a situation? That Wednesday, you went to me in the coffee shop I always study in. And stayed with me and held my hand. Tell me what's up with that. Could you have left right after, hooked up with someone else, and then say to my face that it wasn't cheating? And then, that Friday, you invited me out for a movie. but it was the first weekend of Avengers, so ultimately we weren't able to get tickets. I always wonder what would have happened had that movie "date" (was it a date? weren't we "not together"?) pushed through. Anyway, I told you to just "watch with your parents." And you know what you said? You know what you said that Friday, the same Friday that falls exactly 8 months ago? You said these exact words: "My love for you is keeping me faithful to you." Faithful! I should've asked for the expiry date of your faithfulness. Or the expiry time, since it apparently expired on the same date. Now tell me why you were "being faithful" if we weren't even together and you couldn't possibly call it cheating because we weren't even together. Explain that to the courts. You always expressed your value for someone God-fearing, family-oriented, with good values. You never failed to show off what a match we were: our families knew each other well, we came from the same church, grew up in the same area, went to the same University, had the same circle of friends, had the same values. So I thought. You threw it all out the window for someone who checked none of your tickboxes. I guess it's the old female desire to be free spirits or whatever hipster excuse immature girls think of. After all the things you did to me, and all the things I contemplated on doing in retaliation, I only did two. One, I left your box of notes with your new guy. It was his turn with you anyway, apparently. And two, I made a public post online suggesting your infidelity. Only one. I took it down three days later and apologized to you and your family. Those are the only two things you can blame me for. It was only after your vehement reaction to the post that I realized that your image was what was most important to you. It wasn't me. You didn't react that way when I was in pain. All you could talk about was how much you "built up your reputation" and how even you dad "knows how much" you value it. And when we had finished that final talk, you told me to let you know when I got home. I asked, why in the world would I do that? And you know what you said? You said, "Well what if something happens to you, then your parents will get mad at me!" For your information, if something happens to me, then something happened to me. Not to you. Even if I died on the way home, it would still be about your reputation? I always had the inkling. I added to your pearly image. I had the credentials. But you learned that one of them was a fluke, and you couldn't take it. And here we are now. Just as we broadcasted the beautiful parts of what we had, now I cannot leave the ugliest part unexpressed. I have tried, but I cannot. So here it is.

I have tried scrubbing you out of my canvass. But paint doesn't wash out easily. I have learned to move strictly forward, using my experience with you--the good and the bad--as learning points. Instead of ignoring you, I've incorporated you into who I am now. It's daring, but you know me. I like a challenge. I will paint around you, through you, and eventually, over you.

I have continually asked God why I ended up wasting two years of my life pouring my all on you. In prayer I have gained the lesson I will carry from 2015 into the rest of my life: You never run out of love to give.  Love given is never wasted; only recipients do that.