Today I had the privilege to speak for 5 minutes uninterrupted, unjudged, and accepted by my peers in an intimate space meant for personal development.

I was given a week to prepare. And I could have talked about anything I wanted.

It was actually, at the back of my mind, an opportunity to enlighten people about something that has been sitting in my mind for a while. Something about effective blaming, God, the universe, life. It was big, but I believed I could say enough in 5 minutes to ignite something.

But right at the few moments before coming online, I felt nervous and needed something to hold, to ground myself. And i saw this teddy bear we have at home for display. I touched it, and in an instant my own Taddi flashed in my mind.

My teddi bear, the teddy bear I had since I was 11, that I would not sleep without every night, the bear I brought with me in all my travels, in every major decision-making in my life. The only teddy bear I ever truly held. And the one that I lost.

And I knew, this was the appropriate story.

Because this was me.

Not an opinion, or a perspective of an idea or an argument.

This was my history, my life, what made me Me.

So this is my story:

When I was 11 years old, my mom came home from divisoria with her paninda. In a big plastic bag was a bunch of teddy bears in red that I found adorable and desired so much. But I didn't ask her to give me one, I normally would, especially when it came to toys. But I had I had this moment of understanding that, so many lonelier kids needed a teddy bear more. So I just hugged one and put it back in the bag, thinking, someday I'll have a nice teddy bear for my own too, like the lucky kids who would get them The next day, mom suddenly called me into the room and... gave me one, for whatever reason. She never gives us any of her paninda.

And it was such a special moment for me. It was a divine moment, I felt, that it was meant to be. That he was mine and I was his.

The truth is, I needed somebody. I was, at 11, dying inside - hating myself, hating the world, hating everyone in my life. Anguished and alone.

That teddy bear was my best friend. I told Taddi my secrets, my pain, my anger. See, for as young as I could remember I had been molested up until a few days before my 18th birthday. Funny, right? Growing up I knew it would devastate the people I love and shake my life down to crumbles. I didn't want to hurt anyone. I was also self-loathing that time because in my younger years, I actually liked it, not knowing it was wrong. And the shame ran deep, I couldn't even blame the person because I felt I was part of the crime. I don't believe either that anyone could understand the feeling of being in that dynamic. In that situation, as me. So I suffered in silence, for others and to punish myself.

Each time I cried I made sure my tears would fall on Taddi's eyes, so he could absorb that moment, that emotion, that memory - and keep it for me. Hold it. A testimony of my pain. A token of my childhood. Validation. That what I feel is real, that it was true, and that it mattered.

I kept him with me over the years, through ever major event in my life he was there. In all my travels I held him with me. He never missed a turning point in my life.

But for some reason, the year before I moved to the UAE, I lost track of him.

I was at a time in my life then that I was healing immensely, and I was - for some unknown reason or inkling - I was so cautious about losing Taddi that I decided to keep him safe somewhere, in some corner, or box, or secret place, that only I know of. To protect him, protect the childhood me, somehow, preserve her. For whatever reason. To always know where I came from, what I have been through and what made me, me.

Moving to the UAE was a major life decision, I was uprooting the life I had built on my own as a person that painstakingly rebuilt herself through heartbreak and found self-love in unexpected places. All of this, sacrificed, to come back to something that was not even clear or sure. What am I doing?

I needed my Taddi with me.

Weeks before our flight, I frantically searched for him. Everywhere, all corners, inside, outside, underneath, above, within...without... and... Nowhere.

Nowhere.

Taddi was nowhere.

I couldn't remember the safe place I forged in my mind to preserve everything he holds dear. I couldn't, for the life of me, remember where I put him.

This part I didn't get to share with my peers, but I anguished for days. I thrashed my bedroom closet, the drawers in every room, the boxes and bags all over the house.

Nowhere.

Taddi was just. Nowhere.

I grieved, actually.

Some days I let go, and said it's okay... and some days I grasped at the meaning he represented. this is my childhood, this is ME.

Eventually days fast forwarded to the day of our flight.

Everything I needed was packed. My favorite clothes, my drawings, my favorite watercolor set, two books, my journal... but no Taddi. An emptiness in my heart echoed all over.

So I try to make sense of it. I had to, I needed some form of closure. I lost an integral part of myself' my childhood.

While travelling to the airport, I was thinking back on the last two years leading up to this decision. How I have met these amazing people who lifted me up out of dark times, how I've grasped at my sanity, and survived, how every session in every therapy was a battle of my past and my future, how in the in-betweens I keep wanting to be my best self for my son and how at the end of it all -  I made it this far without anyone telling me what is right, or what is good for me.

And somehow, in that last two years, I don't recall ever holding Taddi, or letting my tears fall on his eyes, or talking to him at all. He was just there on my bed. Just witnessing.

And I thought about how, all the things I've put into him, were the saddest, most agonizing moments of my life. My childhood wasn't all bad, but Taddi only ever held the difficult moments, never the happy ones. And in a way, that's what he ended up representing.

The molestation, the heartbreaks, the betrayal, the abandonment, neglect and rejection.

And at that moment, in my mind was, "Do I have to bring this with me?"

"Isn't it heavy enough to go through a new chapter that promises so little?"

And I understood... Taddi was my safe space. He held me when I needed that place to be understood, to be accepted, to not be judged. To be able to feel and think freely as my true, vulnerable self.

And now he's nowhere.

Because I don't need a safe space anymore. At least, not the one that he holds for me. Because it's already filled with pain that I can't make use of anymore. Where I'm going is another quest to figure out My Truth. Who I Am. What I Want.

And the only space I'll ever need, is the one I hold within me.

Because that's the one that I've built, that I'm continuously building, a home in my heart where I don't judge myself. Where I accept myself. Where I allow myself to feel and think freely. A space tailored for me, a space where I am loved, unconditionally.

So I concluded then and there... that it was probably for the best that Taddi is nowhere to be seen or held right now. Because everything he held - it won't be useful where I'm going, it can't define the person I am trying to be and while it is all valid and true -  I don't want it to be true anymore.

I want a different narrative in my life.

And we need to lose some things from our past, regardless of how long we've had it with us, in order to make way for things that will aid us in the NOW.

And NOW.

I am okay. I am fine. I am not crying about my childhood anymore, or anguishing about breakups and betrayal or abandonment and rejection.

Right now, I just understand that's just how the world is and how people are. And no, I can't blame or thank any one person or circumstance in my life for how it all turned out.

It's just absurd.

How can you explain Life?

In our group chat for our personal development program, I shared Taddi's photo, one classmate asked, "Would I be willing to see him again?"

I said, "Yes, but not because I need him."

Because I would like to reunite with Taddi someday too of course, wherever he is, and come face to face with him without triggers or regrets and jus pure acceptance.

That this is my childhood.

This helped make me.

But it's only a fraction. And it's time is done.

The purpose is served.

And I am still evolving.

And for once, I am coming home.

I hear people say, that you meet people either for a season or for a reason.

It's odd because both imply impermanence.

Does that mean relationships are not meant to last? Are we meant to hang on to it for dear life, in order to make it work?

I love people. I'm afraid of them, but I love them.

I spent most of my life sitting in a corner, watching them, observing the minute details of their behaviors. That brow lifting at the comment of someone, the twitch in the eye when they catch a whiff of some bullshit, that dead look they just don't know they have. How they give away everything when they lie: a shrug, a change in tone, a split second hesitance, swallowing, double blinks or not blinking, a cough - all these tiny things you think mean nothing but are actually everything.

People are so... complex. You could meet some and they could mean absolutely nothing, not a damn change, and then you meet some that just fucking ruin you. Tear you from the inside out and leave you begging for mercy. And then you meet some, that turns dark into light, and cold into warm, like a switch hiding beneath your skin you never knew you had in you. Like a mirror sometimes too, or a wake-up call, or just... truth retold, in someone else's voice - because you needed to be told.

That you matter.

That you need to show up.

That you gotta fucking chin up and get with it.

That things will never go your way, but that's fine.

That there's help. Somewhere.

I have met so many people in my life, who have saved me, held a mirror to my face, unfolded me, disentangled my messed up self-perception.

I have met people who gutted me, and made me believe I was not enough, and made feel lonely in a crowded room, in my own home, in my own skin.

And they have come and gone.

Some of them have left scars, an imprint, a lesson, hope, despair, regret... some of them I cut out of my life, walked away from, forgot, let go... some of them I came back to, held on to, tried to save, tried to love, tried to hate...

Why am I saying these things? Because right now I'm on the verge of making changes in my life. And I never know which people to take, to keep, to foster and nurture and let in.

Which people to love.

Truly, honestly, without fail.

I want to go somewhere in my life where I am enough.

Where love isn't conditional, or transactional.

Just free and boundless.

I am tired of people.

They are beautiful and scary and so fucking lovable.

But they're all so different... from me.

And it hurts each time.

Trying to be like them, just so we could be friends, lovers, partners...

And no matter how many years I observe and uncover all these tiny tell-tale things every human does... I never understand their intentions. What they want from me.

I never truly get it.

People are, infinitely, a mystery to me.

Maybe that's where the attraction stems from. But why do they have to come into my life and do what they do to me?

Why do they leave footprints at my beach when I don't have strong enough waves to erase them off my shore? Why make me feel the way I feel and then disappear or, worse, never leave?

Why do I meet... the people I meet in my life?
To what end?

Build my character?

Teach me a lesson?

Show me my weakness?

Show me my strength?

To be loved?

To love?

What?

Why?

I love people. They are scary, complex and just mysterious.

And they are draining. And fulfilling.

And never mine.

In the end, no matter how they make me feel, or how hard I love them.

There's glass in between, and I am always outside... looking in.

I wrote a lot in my younger years.

I have several unfinished stories, scratched poems and uncountable musings.

I was able to finish one short story, which I submitted to the Palanca Awards contest - I didn't win but the euphoria of being able to finish something, have it printed, notarized, sealed, signed with my name and signature and mail off... is surreal.

I also managed to compile some of my writings into a book - it's not printed or published or anything - tho I do want to have it published or printed or something. At the moment I am not at capacity to pursue that so here I am having it published here.

You could say it's a little bit of poetry, or prose, or creative writing - or just writing. I don't know the best words to intro it but the summary, I feel, is best described by my chosen title:

This is not about the kind of fresh love that rejoices discovering each other and bathes in the details of the person who you've been with for a few months or a year. I'm not talking about those breathtaking, giddy moments where you say, "this could be the one." nor fate bringing two souls together to kindle each other's fire. Not the passion ignited between two souls.

No.

I'm talking about time.

And Sisyphus; the god damned boulder and the never ending uphill trek.

I want to talk about what it means to love, time and time again, in spite of everything.

Love

I am, by no means, an expert. Not on this topic, not in marriage, relationships or what-have-you. I'm your average human meat pondering on these thoughts, with an intention to understand and learn something I can better my life with.

What this is is an internal discussion, an exploration, and maybe my way of achieving some form of closure. But I need to write this, because where I am in life right now is I am Sisyphus with the motherfucking boulder, going uphill, thinking What is this all for? To what end?

That may sound gloomy, and probably tinted with angst, but more than anything it's just me trying to make sense of this... Thing. This life-encompassing thing we call Love. 

TIME

Some people move forward in their relationships after just a few months, settle into a cozy life together, and plan things without doubt or fear of things not lasting after all. Some people take years before they even move in together, while others get married in 2 years or less, others take decades. It's different each time, each person, each situation.

Regardless of your relationship's age, time proves love. It's not in the intensity of the feeling, or the amount of gifts or cuddles you give, but the number of times you show up for your partner when it matters most. How often did you forgive? How many times were you patient and understanding? How many times, in every unique, trying situation, did you choose to stay?

"For better or worse" does not hold itself without the passage of time.

It's not just time: length - but time: frequency + length.

How many times did you set aside your personal interests, emotions, point-of-view or side-of-the-story, to put yourself in someone else's shoes, hear what they have to say and really listen, or simply forgive? How often do they do the same?

I guess it's not about time as in how long you've been together. But time as in how often do you come through for each other that really speaks about the strength of your love, or rather the quality of it. This is where long-term relationships do have an advantage over newer ones as it provides them more moments to experience these opportunities to show the quality of their love. And it provides them enough data to determine what works and what doesn't. Of course, some relationships, despite being quite new can have a lot of moments spent together where situations demand showing up for each other.

Either way, some time is required to have passed by at the very least, for us to have the opportunity show up for our loved one.

COMPREHENSION

We can spend all our lives trying to teach our partners how to love us or what makes us feel safe but if they can't comprehend that puts extra obstacles in our course. Maybe that's what marriage counseling is for, or well-meaning friends. You know, trying to find a translator so you both understand the mysterious "point" that the other is trying to make. Although that's kind of an issue isn't it? Maybe they're not making a "point"... maybe they just want to be heard, and seen, for who they are, what matters to them, what they value. And here you are, counting eggs in the basket.

EFFORT

It's not always the chocolates or the flowers. It's time spent dedicating yourself to your person, and it's for the menial things - not your scheduled dates - like accompanying them to their mother's, or picking up materials for a renovation. Even staying up just to listen to them talk about how they don't feel right in this world. What do you do that says, "You matter enough to spend time and effort on."?

What does Effort mean anyway? What effort is to me might be peanuts to you. That's such a bothersome enigma, isn't it? I guess this is something worth discussing together, since not all relationships have the same needs and wants. For some, effort is not just meeting your partner halfway but all the way through when they're momentarily incapable. For others it's going beyond what's usual for you, going out of your own way, changing your perspective - all for the sake of your partner's well-being. Or maybe it's simply choosing to make an effort to learn what makes your person feel loved, and adhering to it, instead of following trivial acts of how society thinks love looks like.

In any case, the makings of our relationships lie within our choices.

CHOICE

Sometimes you can spend over a decade giving your all to someone and they wouldn't even notice it's there. Sometimes you meet online and in just two months you're holding hands, making love, and forgetting everything and everyone else. Infatuation is such a precursor to Love that it's difficult to know that something will last long until it's fully dissipated. And Love is such an obstruction to your deep emotional needs, it's hard to see whether what you have is something that is right and good for you.

So how do we know?

We choose.

Time takes us across as we make effort to comprehend each other during our most unlovable moments. In between all these conversations, circumstances, opportunities and problems - we make our choice. Over and over again, we choose.

To move on, or let go.

To forgive, or forget.

To change, or walk away.

To hurt, or to heal.

WHAT IF

What if they don't choose us? After all the ways we've changed, improved, adjusted and compromised - in the end, we are not the choice? We can count all of the ways we've been the bigger person, have swallowed our pride and took the most risk - just for this to happen. Just for this to work.

And no matter how much of a saint or a martyr you've been, that still won't change the fact that it didn't work. It didn't happen. What now?

How do we love?

What do we do in response to the people that hurt us? That use us? That come, that go, that bring in happiness, and then bring in pain, and leave it there for you to deal with for months or even years. How do we come out of this?

And that's where it gets interesting, really. The more we cope through the absence of "love" the more we find that there's an abundance of it elsewhere - in different forms. There's love from your family, love from your friends, hell - even from your pets. We find love in a book, or an artwork in a gallery, by an artist you don't know but feel connected to. We find love in the mountains, while the sun breaks through the summit. In a beach, during high tide under moonlight. In a busy city street, eating Chinese, watching people pass by on the way to their lives.

In ourselves.

In the way we brush our hair after shower.

How we make ourselves a cup of coffee before work.

How we set time for movies and tv series.

How we treat ourselves to our favorite things.

How we allow ourselves to cry, when things swell up.

How we tell ourselves, "It's gonna be okay. You're okay."

And it's still a surprising thing, despite it happening often - it's not how we love them but how we love ourselves that brings meaning to the experience.

And maybe this is what it is.

It's not a love story between two people, but a love story of the self...

damn.