Catch a Falling Star

I wish I could say that I'm over this state of feeling lost and directionless. It's been years now but so far, those feelings never go away - that every day that passes by, I'm wasting my life on some meaningless and trivial journey that I unknowingly set upon myself.

There are even no regrets now, just sadness at how everything in my life turned out. On good days, I could convince myself that it's not so bad and that I've done decently well for myself.

On bad days (and there are a lot of those), that's when my head becomes a really dark place, and I just feel so hopeless. I could be doing the things I usually do and out of the blue, this wave of sadness comes over me, and I can't help but feel so alone.

I'm not sure if everyone else ever experienced that kind of sad rush that leaves your heart so heavy that you just want to bawl your eyes out. Of course, as the usual case, that's not what happens next. Instead, I smile and keep trudging even though I just want to cry.

The sadness aside, these past few days have been really bittersweet. I've already mentioned in my previous post that I broke up with my boyfriend. After the fights and the hurtful things that were said, we finally started talking again. This time, there are none of the emotional outbursts that comes with the territory of being in a relationship. Instead, we talked like we're friends who want to keep each other up to date with what each of us are up to. That's okay, I guess. I've already accepted the fact that we're over.

Except on bad days, what happened between us hurts more than usual. Today, it was overwhelming, and I ended up deleting my Whatsapp and all our conversation right from the beginning.

Why We Broke Up

My boyfriend and I were together for a little over a year and started out without defining what exactly was our relationship other than we wanted to be together. After my previous relationship which also happened to be an LDR, I didn't want to go into another one. However, to make a long story short, I still ended up eating my words.

We both knew what we were getting into, we both knew what being in an LDR entailed, and we both knew it wasn't going to be easy. Despite these, we were hopeful that everything would turn out okay. Over the course of a year, we saw each other twice - when we went to Thailand together last February and when we visited Taiwan and went back to the Philippines together right after, back in August.

While it was three good weeks of being together, I guess that's when things also started to fall apart at the seams. At first, it was just little arguments here and there. It could be over something totally trivial and then things would be okay for a while. Eventually, the arguments became more frequent until finally, we broke up.

To be technical about it, he broke up with me. His reason? He didn't like "all the fighting".

I guess what really stayed with me with our breakup was not so much as our disagreements and fights but how one could just give up so easily over those.

I mean, I didn't grow up in a household where fighting was a normal scenario, other than me fighting with my brother over a toy. I never saw my parents fight and if they argued, it was never in front of us. Suffice it to say, I hate fighting as well, I'm not good at confrontations, and would never choose it if I had other options.

However, I'm also realistic in that in every relationship, I know there will always be challenges. All the more so in an LDR where any fight or disagreement, no matter how small, can magnify the distance in between.

When people fight, it's because of a problem - it could be because of a misunderstanding, miscommunication, disagreement, or for any other reason whatsoever. Of course, the only way to solve those is to talk things through.

When my boyfriend said he's breaking up with me because he didn't like the fighting, my brain could not grasp his reason. The logical part of me could not understand.

Like, say what? How is breaking up gonna solve the problem? How is walking away gonna resolve all those misunderstandings? How is ending us gonna fix our issues?

For weeks after that, I had a really hard time coming to terms with what happened between us. I tried to convince him to give us another chance because breaking up won't do anything to resolve our problems. Even I surprised myself because I never thought I'd ask to get back together with someone who broke up with me.

To make matters worse, he didn't even want to until I gave him an ultimatum. When he finally said that he wanted to give us another chance, that's when things started to really really unravel for me.

Barely 24 hours after we got back together, I realized I couldn't go on like that, that despite how much it hurt, I couldn't be with someone who doesn't want to be with me. That's when I ended up breaking up with him.

Looking back now, it's crazy how in just a year, things have changed so much What happened was a total opposite to the start of our relationship when my ex used to talk about all the things that we could do to make our LDR work - going on trips together, me visiting him in the US, talking every day, and just being there for each other despite the fact that we live on the opposite sides of the globe.

A year on, it's crazy to see how he couldn't even hold on to us long enough to talk things through. I'm always a firm believer that every relationship has its own challenges. It can't be all roses, but for some reason, he'd rather let me go.

Since then, it's been hard not to entertain thoughts like if he really loved me all those times or if he still thinks of me. I don't know. Maybe I'm just fooling myself. Maybe he fell out of love, maybe he never did, maybe he just changed his mind. Whatever his reason, I hope he's happy now.

For my part, I wish this experience is a little forgiving. For someone with serious self-esteem issues, this sure blows.

If I could catch a falling star and make a wish, I wish know what it's like to be completely absolutely happy.