Reposting - Rascal Flatts

One Year Ago, posted this on my other blog site...

Your heart always goes out to that guy in the movies. That guy, the one who comes into the 2nd half of the picture after the unknowing lead character gets deserted by the lead guy. He comes in all nice and charming and eventually, lead actress gets swept off her feet. It doesn’t hurt that THE GUY is really such an eye candy. But we all know where this is going to end. Lead guy comes back. Shed his crocodile tears. There will be a few scenes of hesitation but cut to the next scene and poor ‘ol THE GUY gets left behind in the alter. Cue the sappy song.

It’s funny, you were this cynic who cringes at the site of couples holding hands. You and your best friend in fact used to make fun of couples walking pass by your usual spot during afternoons in Palanca. You thought that love was overrated and that things have a way of falling apart sooner or later.

Blame it on years of watching real life couples hook up, break up, make up, break up and make up again or never hooking up at all…You always held your head high and preached to no one in particular that you will never succumb to that phase. All the while, almost falling for someone who just wasn’t right. And realizing he really wasn’t right but nonetheless thinking for months on end that maybe, just maybe he was the one. And maybe all the drama, all the hurt and all his shortcomings could have been drowned by that one single fact, that he could have been the one…

And so you hoped. And you think things will change.

And you lie to your friends. And you lie to yourself. You put on your mask. You pretend you’re ok. And you hoped some more.

And then one day you wake up.

You start to see..The could-have-been’s, they are called that precisely because they are that. If you stop romanticizing all the drama, the excitement, the uphill and downhill of emotions you’ve had experienced, you will come into the realization that, that could-have-been, well, he was actually a jerk, or she demanded too much out of you, or he wasn’t ready to commit, she wanted her way all the time, or he was just using you to get over someone else, she was stringing him along and so many more reasons that made the whole affair an excruciatingly exciting ordeal.
But you don’t see that at the beginning. And you think, this has to be love or something equally intense as that, why else would you feel this overwhelming sense of loss. (although you would never allow yourself to admit that to anyone, much less to him) Months after, you still hold on to that notion that he/she was the one! And your mind begins to rationalized what happened…If only the timing was right, if only no words were left unspoken, if only she was more like her, if only you didn’t have that fight, if only you had taken back those words, if only you’d call, …if only, if only.

Your mind is suddenly plague with all these illusions of grandeur. Of all the wonderful possibilities based on the if-only’s.

And you hoped. And you wonder. And you hang on.

And then one day you are ok. You don’t know how that happens but it just does.

Take it from someone who swore off from dating after the crash and burn run-in with a could-have-been…things get sooooo much better when you meet that person, the one who’ll make you want to start seeing sappy movies. The one who will not make you doubt yourself. Who will not make you latch on to false hopes. The one who will go through any lengths not to see you hurt. You see, when you finally meet that person, you realized, it doesn’t have to be that complicated, that dramatic. That there is beauty in its simplicity. That you could be happy just sitting side by side eating god knows what. That there’s someone out there willing to do just about anything to see you smile and to go about his life making sure that that smile gets a teeny weeny bit wider each day.

And yes, you are now a reformed cynic, much to the amusement of your friends.