LETTING HER GO, Even If I Love Her So Much

I LOVE YOU, GOODBYE

Author : Manuel Dalangin

My story started in college, way back in 1992, in one of the best universities for engineering and architecture of our beautiful and peaceful city of Cagayan de Oro, Philippines – the city of boom, blossom and bloom. I was a first year college then when my heart felt for someone I considered so dear to my heart. Yes, for me, she‟s the most beautiful girl in the world because back then I have loved her so much.

Her name was Jude.

During my college days I rented a small bedroom in an apartment near the school. The apartment was exclusive for boys. Beside the house, which was only a deck away, was another apartment rented exclusively for girls. This is the place where my first love story started.

Second week of November, I was reading my notes at around 1:30 early dawn, as this was the regular hour I usually studied my lessons. I considered it a very solemn time that I was free from destruction. There were lots of boys in the apartment and I felt very noisy to study early evening every day. This has become my regular study time because my body was conditioned to this as my regular study period. When this time came I can really woke up - even if sometimes I‟m not in the mood to study because my mind and body were both tired.

Until a few day‟s later, while I was in the middle of my study time, a little noise destructed me. Every time I read my notes, I heard someone knocking the wall so thinly but seemed giving me a warning to stop me from reading my notes. Then I said to myself there must be a bedroom from this apartment which was beside my my room? In a few minutes I didn't mind the knockings but later I also got mad because every time I read my notes, I felt somebody was destructing me. Then I thought for a while and said to myself, "she must be a girl because the other apartment was exclusive for girls." I wanted to talk to her that night but I was hesitant. What if the room beside me is the bedroom of the next apartment‟s owner - the big fat guy with his big-fat-wife. So, I decided to pack- up my notebooks and went to sleep.

The following night, the same thing happened. The renter from the other room knocked the wall again but not as hard as a mad person does. The knocking was a little quiet - I mean not so loud enough other room renters could hear it. So what I did was to say, "Hello does anybody there?" In minutes, no one answered my question but the „little‟ knocking had stopped. I continued my regular one-hour daily reading as this was my way of studying my lessons and then went asleep. On the third day, it happened again. Surprisingly someone answered back" Hi" when I

said "Hello." In short, we had some minutes of knowing each other. Yes, I was right. She was a girl from Quezon town, some few miles away in the southern part of Bukidnon Province. I had apologized to her because I had always destructed her sleep. But Thanks God we became friends. In fact, I considered her my friend from another world because she was in another apartment yet our rooms were only separated by a wooden plywood structure. I was lucky because my room was the only one separated from the other rooms in that apartment - and I had a newly-found friend without my board mates knowing it. Haha (selfish)

She told me she was a freshman in the same university and she took up Criminology course. I also told her mine was Architecture. Then we became friends and we made sure we shared stories every night. The funniest part of the story was that every time my board-mates and I watch the girls from the other apartment pass by our apartment, I still do not know physically who this Grace was. I started to ask but the son of the apartment‟s landlord said to me there was no student by the name of Grace. So the girl was using a fake name. I told myself: My God, I was being ripped off!

Later in months of our very weird kind of friendship she challenged me to make a visit and she would finally identify herself physically. So I did. The following day I prepared for my first visit, took a bath and perfumed my whole body to impress her. Oh God! This was my first ever visit to a girl and I never, ever did it before. So there was a trembling in my heart when I knocked at the other house and asked the big fat guy who opened the door that I would like to make a visit to ____ I was kind of deeply ashamed I could not even told the house owner who her name was. So I just said she was a Criminology freshman. So later, I heard the big fat guy, the apartment owner saying "Jude you have a visitor outside. That was the time I knew her real name and I laughed without uttering any voice at all.

Yes on that very special night she accepted my love proposal. Jude was indeed my first girlfriend, my first love. In her, I experienced all the firsts in my life. She was my first kiss, my first girl, my first sex partner (ha ha) and my first love. I won‟t deny it that I truly love her. But I was afraid because while it‟s true that first loves never die but usually first loves also didn‟t succeed. But we have very happy moments together sharing each other‟s stories especially during night time. We just thought we were sleeping together every night and before we closed our eyes for the night we always uttered the very sweet "I love you‟s." We could talk anytime - only that a wooden structure separated us. During Fridays I would ferry her to the bus terminal and whenever I also went home to my home town in Malaybalay we boarded the same bus together. Those days were the happiest days for me and I really cherished those very special moments.

The sad story for our love affair started when her mother transferred her to a distant place two years later back in 1994. You need to ride a commercial ship to reach to her new school. We still communicated but during those times there was still no internet and mobile phones. We communicated by snail mail but it didn‟t last long. In short, our long distance love affair just didn‟t work and we parted ways. That was maybe the consequence of a distant love relationship.

Back in 2004 or 10 years after, we met again. It was an accident but there was still love. During the meeting, we reminisced the days when we enjoyed our moments together. I had known that she didn‟t pursue her criminology course but instead she graduated from a teaching course. Wow, this time we became text-mates. A few weeks later I invited her to a dinner at a hotel in which she accepted. While we enjoy the meal we also reminisced our happy days together. Until we had realized there was still love in our hearts. Our simple dinner even ended up booking a hotel room and enjoyed the night once more.

It was the night we also cheated our partners and committed the biggest mistakes of our marriage life. Yes, we have loved each other so much but we have been married for so long years since we parted ways. I had already an 8-year-old boy and she had a 3-year-old daughter. The only consolation was we were far from both our partners. I worked in a different place, and so she was, and being far from our partners provoked us to be tempted many times. In fact, we have boarded an apartment together. So we really had a honeymoon for two months. "If loving you is a sin, I will be a sinner forever." Yes, we hold on to this unacceptable love quote and we don‟t regret it. What we knew was that we have loved each other so much.

We cannot deny ourselves that we still love each other so much that this feeling also made us sinners. Until one day, we had realized this relationship was wrong and has to be ended. We cannot be together again, even though how much we have loved each other. It‟s a sin - a big mistake in the eyes of everyone and we just thought the "you and I against the world" mind setting just wouldn't work in our situation...we knew there was always a feeling of guilt as we both cheated our partners.

During the day we parted ways we have cried so much. Yes, it was a hard decision but I told her we cannot be fully happy when our partners were being cheated. Truth hearts but we have to accept the truth that we were not free anymore. But despite of the heartache and tears we have shared during the parting time we sobbed and cried. I can see in her face the lamentation of why we have to part ways again - and broke those promises...again. BUT WE HAVE TO AND WE NEED TO FOR THE SAKE OUR OWN FAMILIES.