The Hardest Pill To Swallow...

.:After The Love Has Gone...:.

Tuyo Na’ng Damdamin
By The APO Hiking Society

Minsan kahit na pilitin mong uminit ang damdamin
‘Di siya susunod at di maglalambing
Minsan ‘di mo na mapigil mapansin
Na talagang wala nang naiiwan na pagmamahal

At kahit na anong gawin
Di mo na mapilit at madaya
Aminin sa sarili mo
Na wala ka nang mabubuga

Parang ’sang kandila na nagdadala
Ng ilaw at liwanag
Nauubos rin sa magdamag
Minsan di mo na mapigil mapansin
Na talagang wala nang naiiwan na pagmamahal

At kahit na anong gawin
Di mo na mapilit at madaya
Aminin sa sarili mo
Na wala ka nang mabubuga

Di na madaig o mabalik
Ang dating matamis na kahapon
Pilitin ma’y tuyo na’ng damdamin
Tuyo na’ng damdamin

Tuyo na’ng damdamin...

It’s been said before, but love isn’t like a video game, where you can just go back to your last savepoint after you screw something up. You don’t get too many second chances at love, and once you blow your chance, more likely than not, you’ve blown your chance. There’s no “restart from checkpoint”, there’s no “extra lives”. What you get is what you get, if that.

It’s been said before, but love isn’t like a movie, where things always end up for the best no matter how bad the outlook may be. If you’re the underdog, chances are, the universe won’t magically conspire to give you your happy ending. That’s all for the best, I guess. It’s harder to truly appreciate something if it’s not something you earned.

It’s been said before, that love isn’t just a feeling. But it’s still part and parcel of it.

I have learned a lot in the past year of this personal Hades I’ve been going through. I have learned what it means to truly love and to feel loss. It’s not something I haven’t gone through before, but the lesson has been more intense than it ever has, if only because I still share these lessons with her as I learn and re-learn them.

I wish her nothing but the best. I wish her nothing but happiness. It would’ve been an easier pill to swallow if I knew in my heart that where she is right now would be the best place she could be, but I know all too well that isn’t true.

And it may have been a year since I’ve called her mine, but I’d still hate to see her cry, and I still can’t bring it in me to tell her “I told you so” after everything has been said and done.

You can fight for love. You can shout from every rooftop in the world how much you want her for the rest of your life. But if it’s just you, then... it’s just you. You can’t force love to bloom again from whence it has faded away.

I still haven’t found my smile. But I know that it cannot lie in someone else. It can only lie within myself. Within my ability to forgive myself for everything I’ve fallen short of that has led me to where I am now. Within my ability to be a better person for the one, if there is that one for me to look forward to.

Either way, life goes on. Happiness is not an option. Not for me, at least.