Where?

Love is. I don’t know, That seems to be the best definition I could make off when somebody dumped me. Dumped? What a very straightforward word, maybe that was all there is when a lover brings it straight to your heart; that things are not working anymore and you should forget me, or say, stop this relationship. ‘Love is’ because you can’t recall that such feeling exists in a moment when right here, right now, You just can’t say farewell to sadness. But you have to. It is the ability of inability. It’s like singing goodbye yesterday…. (with fingers crossed stubbornly, ha!). Say, if a lover brings it straight to your heart…wait, Where is the heart anyway? I believe you can locate that by not pointing at your head too often and carefully pointing at your chest with denial. I’m not really sure.

I care not dwell on the details, but all you people probably know how it feels when the thing called love leaves you when you got too much to give on the line. I have loved. I would like to believe I gave something more than myself. I know it’s a line you hear much from movies, but hey, they come to life sometimes and I’m the leading actor. It is true that a scorned lover comes into different phases of recovery. Most of us can relate to this because we all are human, generic, unique, and relative.

Who amongst you disagree, please throw a boulder at me! ---Ouch, oh, let’s add uniquely relative to that.

I myself sought refuge in my strength, in books, in everything the world has to offer. I invented ways of rationalizing what happened to me. Aside from my mentor-friend who showed me the wonderfully bitter world of existentialism, I met new friends on my way to the so-called recovery. Kafka, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Kundera, Neruda, blah blah…they were there. I met them; they showed me how ‘scientifically romantic’ literature was when seen from a gloomy point of view. It was all revealing, and at the same time, excruciating. They taught me well, even Karen Kunawicz has something to say about a broken heart: only you can hear it. Kahlil Gibran on the other hand preached, ‘Love is self-chosen’, and I couldn’t stop myself from approving violently. ‘The body makes a promise when you make love’ says that movie Vanilla Sky, but sometimes, we have to break some. Funny, but I was happy to rediscover these things that sounded stale when I was in my pleased moments. I’m happy but I wasn’t smiling, I thought I had it all under control and suddenly Eros kicked me in the butt for not listening well.

See, I’ve known these friends, and they all exist in my head that I can readily point at and testify that we have come to an intellectual conclusion. But that was me talking; no one among them, not even my dearest Sartre assured me that an Einstein on love could bring you to the promise land of healing. You can only rationalize too much but in the end, it is your inevitable call. I had no choice, or I did have the choice to be with my real friends. I spent the rest of my time going out, like what we all do. One has to come out from the broken shell and hope to get even. Call that depression, better defined as not forgetting you’re sad. But I have to forget, rocking a chair won’t bring me anywhere. This may be patronizing but I have come to a point of realization to tell this. I somehow managed to get up that chair. Nobody said it was easy.

I ask you one question:

What do you call that time in the middle of the night when all your hopes are depleted, your body is wasted from too much booze, when you have puked everything aside from your soul, when everything has been said and fearlessly done, and you just want to stop thinking?

If you’ll ask me, I call that Tomorrow. When you wake up the following day, it’s something different. It can be more, or likely less painful, but at least different. That’s one inch closer to the promise land I was talking about.

Adios.

Now, where is the heart? You got a lot of pointing to do.