Whenever I think of young Love I see myself as a sixteen year old, tears streaming down my face, looking outside of my secondary school window. I was inconsolable and my friends felt that I was a little “out of it”. It was a case of “He doesn’t love me enough to be with me publicly but he likes me enough not to let me go or be with anyone else”. And what is it with playing games? I had thought that I would be able to keep up with the games and chasing but I guess when you care enough, you get hurt easily.

Looking back, I have realized that my personality tends to idealize people and relationships in general. I have this mental picture of what my relationship with this person should be like and how they should treat me. I had no preparation with managing my expectations. So when things don’t turn out as what I had thought in my head, when people don’t become what I had thought of them to be, I would get hurt, and bitter.

It was my first real taste of heartache, as I really cared about him. My first two years of secondary school was all about him. It was crazy love on my side, but I could never recall if it was the same on his. It was those years where my diaries were filled with analyzing encounters with him, and where I filled countless notebooks with poems dedicated to him (subsequently burned after four years). We ended even before we got there.

And you hope that he would change or at least reciprocate with the same intensity. So you give him chances, and that is with a capital S. But he never follows through, maybe he’s scared or just plain not interested. Then you think about how he talks to you when you’re alone, how he looks at you, what his friends say to you, and you know that somewhere beneath that untouchable facade you hold a place in his heart. Like an unspoken understanding, whispered in the wind and witnessed by walls.

When the truth hits you, when you finally know that you would never be to him what he is to you, it hits you so hard. It’s as if something inside you died, something that held hope and promise of beautiful things. Slowly collapsing inward, being eaten alive by disillusion, until all that’s left is a gaping void. The sad part is no matter how hard you cry, you can never cry the pain away. It still exists in what-ifs, conversations with your friends, documented in your journals, trapped within the scar that enclosed your heart.

My heart died. It’s funny that even if the physical aspect of our relationship was not at all there, I had poured out my heart to him. And with every tear that I shed for him, love was drained out of my heart.

Ever since then, even when I had moved on, I doubted myself in relationships. I just could not trust myself with anyone’s heart anymore. I always feel like I can never be involved with a guy and love him with the same amount of love that he gives to me. I became distant and distrustful. Those who I could push away, I pushed with all my might. Those who wanted to stay, I made sure they had a rough time holding on.

I pitied the guys that came after him. Unconsciously, he was the unseen factor by which all my relationships were based and the standard by which guys who I dated were measured, of course until A came along. Something always held me back, honestly, I was a lousy girlfriend. There was no affection or whatever. People admired me because I was a “proper” girl, but they didn’t know that I was very cold and closed. I know each one of them tried to reach out to me, tried to be close to me but I would joke around or just ignore the situation. It was with this attitude that I think I have ruined a friendship, broken a heart and messed up the greatest love story of my life.

Ace used to say that I had a short attention span when it comes to relationships and that he feared for the welfare of the guys that I dated and who eventually became my boyfriend. He has seen me through many of my romantic attachments and I still believe that he was accurate with that observation. Back then I harboured that knowledge with pride, because I thought I was invincible. He said I was heartless. And he warned me to be careful with other people’s hearts especially when I became attached to one of our close friends.

My heart died once.

It stopped me from being open and to allow people to love me. I had boyfriends because it was the social expectation and not because of love. The funny thing was I steered clear of guys who were very sincere. I flee from them like the plague. I found excuses, and manipulated my way out of them. They would go out of their way to do stuff for me but I did not appreciate it. I just didn’t think that I was good enough for them. It wasn’t fair to them I know but I was very confused and selfish. I felt that I was inadequate. I tried to love them. I cared about them, I was their friend but I was never their girlfriend.

My faith revived my heart. I prayed that my heart would beat again. That I would be able to receive love. So that by receiving love I can also learn to love.

I am not quick to get attached, because I know I am far from the person that I would want someone to love. I think it was Lisa Bevere that said that you must let love sleep, like Sleeping Beauty to be awakened at the right time. I am keeping myself pure, saving all my love poems and love songs, investing in myself, and being faithful to the one promised to me. Until the right time comes. My heart is beating again, with hope of a fulfillment of a promise.