but it won't matter unless I hear it straight from you.

More than 4 years ago, I developed a huge crush on this hopeful on a televised Singing Contest Series. Maybe it was his perfectly chiseled face with such foreign features (think high cheekbones, strong nose and cleft chin to boot!) and towering 5'11 frame, but I really think it was that hot bittersweet chocolate fudge melting over a scoop of vanilla ice cream singing voice that got to me. At the risk of sounding like such a fool, I remember closing my eyes and pretending that he was serenading me.

Even as a 14 year-old girl, in my head, I already had a vision of what a perfect man would be and he embodied it to a tee - or so I had idealized him to be, and idealize him I did. I spent night after night lying in bed, alternately counting the impertinent cracks on my whitewashed ceiling and thinking about all the things that
made him the wonder that he is. I would fall asleep with his name on my lips and wake
up with a vague recollection of innocent dreams that usually played out to a soundtrack of the best romantic movies ever made.

From virtue of experience (otherwise known as watching Oprah everyday), I understand that when someone has an eating disorder or an unhealthy addiction, it is NOT just a problem with too little or too much food intake or a dependence on controlled substances. These people control their eating habits obsessively because they feel like they have no power or cannot control anything else in their lives or become a slave to over consumption of food, drink, drugs or alcohol to cover something that they feel is damaged or simply wrong about themselves and/or because they feel like they have no other place of comfort and refuge.

In the same way, I felt I was trapped in a pseudo-relationship I didn't have a say over and I dealt with it by distracting myself with a stupid obsession. I put him high up on a pedestal, set such an impossible standard and had many baseless expectations because I wanted him to be anything BUT the friend I was talking about. In short, I was heading towards disappointment to begin with even before I met (and eventually became friends with) him.

Don't get me wrong, he's amazing as he is. He's just not the guy I wanted him to be. It's like hanging out with your cousins and stumbling upon a movie poster that they cannot stop raving about. They insist on talking about it like it's the best thing that has ever been put to film and revere it like it's God's gift to the people or something. Scratch that, they revere it like it is a manifestation of a God itself and we should promptly bow down to worship the damn movie. Because it's pretty much all you can hear about for the next, I don't know, 5, 6 or 27 hours, you understandably become curious and look it up on the internet and find nothing but glowing reviews from the toughest critics. Upon watching the trailer hosted on Youtube and reading one plot synopsis to another, you are hypnotized into the craze. Another live one caught hook, line and freaking sinker.

So without further hesitation (or a hint of sanity) you immediately drag someone to watch it with you, curse the incessant Manila traffic under your breath and run like your life depends on it to the ticket booth, tap impatiently for the lady behind the counter to finish ringing up your bills, all the while thinking " MAN! This girl is soooo slow! Does she really have to take 3 seconds to take my money, give me change and give me my precious tickets?! 3 seconds!" and finally running towards the theater itself to spend the longest 5 minutes of your life watching "Next Picture" teasers. After all the madness and against all sense of reason, the movie just.. doesn't do it for you.

Sure, it was great but you were expecting fireworks in the sky or at the very least that moment that you feel compelled by an unseen force to cry or at least exclaim "whoa!". Maybe it was great for someone else but then you realize that at the end of the day, it wasn't for you. And the sad part is, there's no actual explanation as to why it isn't. It simply just isn't.

We build castles in the air with bricks of dreams and details of hope with rose-colored glasses perched on our noses and then out of nowhere, a sharp object pokes the bubbles away and we are faced with a simple but important choice: do we live with a lie in a world of make-believe or understand that we can still rebuild?

It's your choice to make but remember that not all of our dreams can come true, but maybe something better is on its way to you. :)

Labels: Katigbak, litfili week 6, Pantoja-Hidalgo