Sunny Rain

After ending our correspondence with each other, I was inspired to write some more, albeit it took some time before I actually put these words to paper. Just like how I originally found solace in poetic retreat after we first lost contact with each other with our “falling out,” I again turned to poetry to let off some heat. What came out of my head is what follows—a glimpse into my mind after finally having some of my last few words with Jackie:

It’s like rain on a sunny day,
‘Cause when I look in your eyes,
I realize I was treated a bad way.
You did it, purposely.
Was it to hurt me?
Or was there another reason why I just could not see?
The hate in your eyes or the fault that I did?
I thought that thing we had was just so candid,
Until you handed me my heart back in a platter,
And when it splattered on the ground it made a sound,
That’s when I found out:
It wasn’t my fault, I wasn’t to blame.
It turned out that you were the one left ashamed
To be around me
But when you met me, it wasn’t like that,
Until we evolved and moved on from internet chats.
But I won’t take it back, ‘cause those were the best times:
The times that we spent, not the times that we didn’t.
But, even if I did, I would do it again,
‘Cause not giving you a chance is like committing a sin.
I can’t deny it.
Even when I try to hide it, I get excited.
Even when I try to suppress it, I cannot fight it
All the voices all in my head just couldn’t keep quiet.
Then they metamorphosed
To something bigger and bigger—all of the things to remember,
But I grew stronger and stronger till I remembered no more.
When you’re no longer insane, somebody mentions her name,
So then the cycle remains, and again the same game.
Damn! What am I to do, when I see you?
In the crowd amongst the people that I hold true?
Not you, I’m talking ‘bout the people around you,
Thinking back to the times when I thanked God I found you.
Not anymore, but let me think it again:
Do I really want to take you back as a good friend?
I don’t want you to do what you did to me back then,
Taking my heart back to the grave that you buried it in.

My Solace

I found solace in my writing. More specifically, I found solace in my poetry. Immediately after the events that unfolded years ago (before I started college), I composed a lyrical, rhythmic piece addressed towards Jackie in Tagalog that explained what I had been going through:

Dati ko pa ‘tong iniisip sa aking utak
Kapag ika’y ngumingiti, parang ika’y bulaklak
Maganda ang itsura, matamis pa ang amoy
Buksan mo ang pinto at ako ay tutuloy
Sa iyong puso, maramdaman mo lang ginhawa
Akala ko nga ikaw ang tangi kong kasama
Matalino na, kay-tamis at ang bait
Ang ating panahon sana aking mauulit
Hindi ako nagalit noong di mo ‘ko natawagan
Sa telepono ng bahay, maliit lang ‘yan na bagay
At ito naman, sa aking palagay
Ang ating mahal ay hindi mamamatay
Ako’y nagkamali kasi sa aking isip
Tingin sa aking buhay ay panaginip
Dalawa na nga’ng babae ang gumugusto sa akin
Pareho nilang alam at umiibig pa rin
Ama namin, ano pa ang magagawa ko?
Aking pangako, kahit ano hindi susuko
Sa aking siyota, pero pangako ko’y nasira
Ano pa ba magagawa ko para sa kaniya?
Wala, kaya sa’yo ‘ko humarap
At dahil sa’yo ako ay naghihirap
Hindi mo naman alam, hindi mo na nakita
Kung paano kita minamahal sinta

Roughly translated, it says:

I’ve been thinking about this in my mind for a long time already.
When you smile, you’re like a flower:
Beautiful in appearance, and the fragrance is sweet, too.
Just open the door and I will walk through
To your heart, as long as you feel the comfort.
I had actually thought that you were my true companion
Not only smart, but also sweet and kind.
Our time together, I hope I can repeat.
I did not get angry when you did not call me
On my house phone. That was just a small thing.
And, this, in my mind:
Our love will never die.
I made a mistake in my thoughts, that’s why.
I thought my life was a dream.
Two girls already liked me;
They both knew about it, but they liked me still.
Our Father, what else can I do?
My promise: whatever happens, I won’t give up
On my girlfriend. But my promise was broken.
Now what else can I do for her?
Nothing, which is why I turned to you,
And because of you, I am struggling.
You don’t even know. You never saw
How I was loving you, my dear.

It was a piece that Jackie was never going to read or hear for a while after I wrote it. It took two more additions, and two more editions, before I would give her the poem to read on her own.

Writing was simply a way for me to express what I felt to her without her having to hear my thoughts directly. Even though I never originally intended for her to hear my words, I felt better just having been able to release them from within.

Forgive...

Jackie replied to me that following January of 2004. I really did not know what to expect more from her. She had already said sorry. I was still searching for an explanation, but I was not sure whether she would offer me that.

She told me she was a new person. There was no mention of trying to revive any type of relationship, nor was there any mention of anything for the future. She simply asked for my forgiveness for what she did to me.

I wondered how she took my reply to her initial contact with me. Looking back at that time, my words may have been quite harsh—actually, they were very harsh. That usually happened when I began to write; my truly intense emotions come out on the page. When I finally received her second email, however, there was no sign of an emotional reaction to my words.

She explained in purely simple terms why she had distanced herself from me: she had just gotten out of a bad relationship and could no longer trust guys. She felt as if they always hurt her, and she thought that the only way to be safe was to act like one. I had mentioned that her previous boyfriend before she met me had abused her. The boyfriend whom she had gotten together with after her birthday had practically been a nuisance. It was understandable that she would start to think how she did.

I understood her completely, with those simple words that she offered me. But, I still could not forget what she had already accomplished in doing. Although I could see why she acted how she did, I was not completely turned around by it; I was still feeling a sort of animosity towards her. I guess I let one thing get to me, which I was unable to fully comprehend: if she truly wanted to distance herself from me, why did she still act as if we could have had a great relationship with each other.

Maybe she was just being nice, but I thought that she should have at least been honest with me about it. I felt as if she had led me to believe that there had been hope between us, especially when she invited me to be her date for her Freshmen-Sophomore Prom that one year. If she really wanted nothing to do with guys as she had indicated in her email, then there should have never been so much contact between us, no matter how little contact we already had. It was precisely that confusing matter that I could not forget.

I informed her that I had forgiven her long ago, but the memories that she helped in reminding me could not fade so quickly. I knew that she had been hurt, but in her efforts to cure herself of her distrust towards men, I felt as if she had hurt me in the process. I could not think about her in the same light again. Her image in my head had become tarnished since that winter break.

There were a few more exchanges between us after that, to put together the last few pieces in the puzzle. This time around, however, I did not end up calling her or chatting with her online. The conversations were strictly by email with each other. No further contact was established, even though I knew that she attended the same university as a few of my friends and she knew where I had been attending college as well (literally the two closest colleges to each other).

Then, like magic, I started noticing Kyleen more and more at school again. She was still busy with her new hip hop dance troupe that she joined the quarter before, switching from her former modern dance group that had been associated with the university’s largest Chinese organization—she was now in a dance troupe that had stemmed from the Pilipino student organization on campus, so there was more contact between us.

Ironically, every time I had contact with Kyleen for any reason, she always brought up Jackie and her other friends, although I had been in the process of forgetting her again. It was explained to me that she was originally part of Jackie’s core group of best friends when they first started high school. The four of them—Jackie, Kyleen, Charmane, and Lysette—had been split once the new high school opened, closer to Jackie’s house. That explained why Kyleen had possession of my picture, which I still have yet to see to this day. It also explained why Kyleen always mentioned Jackie and her friends whenever she saw me.

Seeing Kyleen more often only intensified my drive to forget Jackie because every time Kyleen came into my sights, I would be reminded of the one girl that hurt me. I needed an outlet for my frustrations, no matter how unwarranted they may have been due to their pure insignificance to more pressing manners.

It Shows

It was a freezing night in December, between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Three of my best friends and I decided to have a small poker night at one of their mom’s warehouse/office to pass the time. After a few hours of play, with no money won or lost, we packed up and headed out, locking the office behind us.

Standing outside in the cold, we began talking. The conversation that came about, however, was out of the ordinary because of one thing: I was doing most of the talking. The reason: I began talking about Jackie.

I do not exactly know how I began talking about her, but it just happened. Finally, I let my friends in on my secret life that I had had for the past four years. Christian was the only friend there who had ever met Jackie beforehand or even heard about her. For my other two friends, everything was fresh news.

I told them my story—the ins and outs. The freezing cold got the best of us and we all entered my car midway through my words. I finished my story inside, reaching the point where Jackie sent me the Christmas email saying that she was sorry. I told them about my reply to her, and every other detail that had come before that moment: the way we met, the confusion, etc.

Then, I felt like crying. My voice trembled as I told the story, but no tears ever came out. I felt as if I was incapable of getting emotional even if I forced myself. I was finally having the breakdown that I never had back when it mattered more.

The pain returned to my chest—the same pain that engulfed me when I heard Jackie’s reply to my request from her years before. It was the same contraction that made my chest cringe when I first read her email days before Christmas. I felt that pain every time I remembered my own story. I still feel traces of it to this day, but it has become faint, like my memories.

My friends seemed to be on my side when I told my story; of course, it may have been biased. Also, my story was missing a crucial part: Jackie’s emotions. I still did not know how she had felt throughout all of this. I never knew what she was thinking. I never knew if she was telling me the truth. I never knew her reasons for doing what she admittedly did.

I only had to wait a few more days before she finally told me.

Merry Christmas

With my luck, I never saw Kyleen again for the rest of that fall quarter. I kept telling myself that the next time I saw her, I would try to commandeer Jackie’s contact information, but the chance never came. I kept waiting for the opportunity, but in the end, I simply forgot.

The quarter passed and the same could be said about myself in my five classes. It was a surprise to me that I did so well that quarter especially with my busy involvement as a cabinet member and hectic schedule with back-to-back classes everyday. I even caught the flu at the end of the quarter, just in time for final exams. It was so bad that I could not drive myself home after one day of testing; my sister had to pick me up that afternoon, then I was dropped off the next day for my next exam. The sickness persisted until after finals week, which also prevented me from going to the winter retreat for cabinet members—I was one of only two people who did not attend.

With the fall quarter over, I had three weeks to do absolutely nothing. I caught up on sleep that I had lost during the past eleven weeks and also got over my flu. Christmas was nearing and I had no plans as usual.

On the 23rd of December that year (2003), I awoke from bed and went straight to my computer as I had gotten used to doing. It must have been before noon because there was still light on my side of the house. I checked my email and found the usual: junk mail, spam, and more junk mail. I deleted them all from my inbox except for one, which looked oddly mysterious. It did not fit the common characteristics of junk email—it did not have a weird subject line trying to sell me medication over the net nor did it have a purely unknown sender.

After having filtered out the unsolicited email from my inbox, I clicked on the mysterious email that found its way to my email account. At that split second before my right index finger landed on the left clicker of my mouse, I immediately had a suspicion from which person the email had originated. Once the thought completely formed within my brain, the page opened, confirming my intuition.

My first glance was at one phrase that had been typed in boldface font: “I AM SORRY.” I quickly glanced up at the sender’s address again, and then it hit me; it was Jackie’s old AOL screen name that I had already erased from memory.

As soon as I began reading, the emotions came rushing back in; except this time, the emotions were not characterized by joy and elation but by anger and betrayal. The email highlighted how she was sorry about how she had purposely tried to distance herself from me, not yet explaining why. It confirmed some of my old suspicions that she was indeed avoiding me—cutting telephone conversations short, minimizing contact, etc.

She also explained to me that it must have been some type of sign because that fall, she saw me twice within the span on one week. The local Pilipino student organization at her school in San Bernardino had had their first meeting on a Wednesday early that fall quarter. I attended as a representative from my school’s organization. She had apparently been there, but I just missed her during the meet-and-greet icebreaker. A week later, my organization had their first general meeting. I was so busy with what I had to do that I missed her within the crowd—she had attended with Kyleen, along with either Charmane or Lysette or both. She informed me that ever since then, she had been meaning to contact me.

What really affected me the most, however, was how she practically confessed to having purposely distance herself from me no matter how hard I tried to get close to her. It made me feel stupid that I even tried, especially for so long. I realized then that she lied to me. I did not know what was true and what was false anymore. Did she really feel anything towards me in the first place or was she just toying with me from the start? From what she wrote, it made me think that the latter was true, although I did not want to believe it.

I had yet to hear the full story from her, but I was already infuriated. I guess I felt as if my efforts from the past few years were moot. I realized that maybe I should never have wasted any time on her.

I wrote her a response, but out of courtesy, I waited until after Christmas to deliver it to her inbox. My reply to her email was quite harsh, thinking back on it. It was full of rage compared to how I used to approach her. Before, I used to be gentle when speaking/writing to her because I liked her and did not want anything to ruin that. That Christmas, everything changed: my true feelings came out at that moment and it became translated onto the computer screen.

Although she wished my family and me a merry Christmas and a happy New Year, I thanked her for adding to the unusual darkness of my holiday season. Christmas that year was probably one of the worst holidays I had ever experienced, in part because of her letter but also with contributions from other factors. I explained to her that during the time when I had no contact with her, I slowly began to see her on a higher plane of existence again. When I last called her during the remaining days of my senior year of high school, I felt as if she had already dug herself into a deep hole by avoiding me. Through the year afterward, I slowly started filling that hole again with the good memories that I remembered we had shared. The bad memories faded and only the wonderful moments remained. But, with her email that Christmas, the hole quickly sank again. Rather than pointing out our good times together, she highlighted the not-so-good thoughts I had of her.

I know that I may be thinking in circles now, but that was how my mind flowed at that moment. I wondered why she chose that time to say “sorry” to me. I wonder if she purposely did so around the end of December because she thought it would be a nice Christmas present. If so, it turned out to be the opposite.

After having sent her my harsh reply, I did feel a type of regret, but I brushed it off. My motto was never to regret anything because my past is what made me who I was, and I was satisfied with it. I wanted her to realize how I had been feeling inside all that time. I did not mean to make her feel extremely bad about having done what she did, I just wanted to point out to her that it would have been nice if she had just been honest with me from the beginning instead of leading me on to think that she still wanted to be close with me.

I just did not understand why she had done it yet. If only she had told me from the start how she really felt, then we could have skipped all of the pretending. It was not until a few weeks and months later when we finally reached a conclusion.