360

In five days, it will be one year since you left me at the altar. I was at the Greenbelt chapel then and you were in the MRT already. I waited, like a groom, but you were the runaway bride.

Time passed rather swiftly, but not swift enough to get me to you. It's been almost a year since you, for some strange and cocoa-induced reason, decided to love me. I had told you before: no, love someone else, someone nearer to you, someone who won't be 10,000 miles away, someone you can be with and who can be with you everyday.

I pushed you away that night, but you pulled back and you held on. I had seen the world we revolve in and that was my baggage when I met you--I had very low expectations that anything could ever work. I was skeptical, not just because of the distance between us, but also because you seem to be bouncing back and coming out from a relationship that you cared so deeply, one that you felt was so right but just didn't work out. I thought that if at some point the person would want you back, you'd leave in a huff, with a post-it as a goodbye, leaving me once again at the altar. I was wary because of that. I cannot be too sure and I cannot assume too many things.

I certainly did not expect that you'd still be here, in a relationship with me. I don't know if, from where I am right now, what I bring into the relationship is enough. It can not be enough considering how far we are from each other. Words can only mean so much; actions will always speak louder than words.

I know I'm a man of (very) few words and maybe it compounds to the distance because I don't say I love you as often as you do. I'm not used to public declarations of affection. The most public I could ever get was a note in Facebook, where only less than 300 people can see. Still, it took me two days to push myself to write that, although it only took me less than 15 minutes to actually write it.

But it felt good to be able to write that, to say it to a wider audience and not just to you. I wasn't trying to be mushy or sentimental or cheesy. I knew that you had to face down some people; you've probably had dissenters who told you and warned you that we will never work or that I'd play you the way some people assumed I played others. It was my way of saying I'm yours and only yours. And I will be yours for as long as you will have me and want me and love me.

These are words, all words, and I still long for the day when I won't have to say anything but you'd still know that I love you. The day when I'm near you and with you and all my gestures and actions would speak volumes of the things I find hard to say.

In five days, it will be a year since you, for some strange and cocoa-induced reason, decided to love me. For now, it's been 360 days. That's one revolution, that's from 0 to 360 degrees, from point zero to all the way back. It's like getting back to where it all started, a homecoming of some sort, a remembering of what we have and what we've become. Thank you for all the love you have shown me and you continue to show me. I hope to have the rest of my life proving to you that I love you as much and even more.