Learnings on Love (2/x)

May 9, 2010

After proving to myself that proximity and nearness really is true, I am now faced with a big question that I know many of us have also asked once in our life. Would telling the person how I feel for him or her be worth it? Have you not? My learning lead me to believe that..
 
LOVE is worth telling
 
When I realized that the feelings I have for this person are real and true, I hid it for the fear that others might know, then he will know, then I would lose him for good. I tried my very best in hiding it from him. It never was easy. To be able to hide it, I have to pretend to be okay when he and his many crushes are texting each other. To endure the pain that he wanted to spend time with his crushes and he wanted me to accompany him. To be happy for him when one of his crushes actually says its ok that they would dine together and to listen to his excited narration of how happy he is with the turnout of the dinner.
 
I have kept my emotions always in check. An excerpt from my diary says:
 
As for today, it is enough that I did not declare to him my undying love and devotion.
(May 10)

(Come to think about that, I would soon be celebrating an anniversary for those words).
 
Keeping my emotions in check means, controlling the desire of wanting to hug him while he is driving, of wanting to lay back at him while I am driving, of just staring at him while he is talking, of wanting to show him how much I love him. I was able to control them all. Though there had been a million times that I have been tempted to tell him all about it. For 2 years, I was able to hide it. As I mastered the art of hiding, the feeling grew even stronger and the desire to let him know and to take the chance on the possibility of love, grew with it.
 
After a year of friendship, he left the city for work, to a profession which I thought best suits him. His work demanded him to cut communication for at least 3 months. The distance and not hearing from him gave me a chance to forget him, or so I thought. One morning he called, it was February 14, and greeted me Happy Valentine's Day. The chance of forgetting him flew out the window.
 
A year have followed. With his distance, we grew closer as he kept calling, updating me on the training that he is undergoing. The more my feelings for him grew. It soon went from tolerable to explosive. I feared it. Then a chance came. A chance to leave the city for good, to turn back from him, to turn my back on a love that have enslaved me. I grabbed it hoping that it would take me 5 years before I see him again. By that time, I was sure as hell that all the love I have for him would all be gone. Cowardice. I know.
 
Before I left, I got the chance to visit him where he was training. I left a letter telling him how happy I was to know him, to be able to grow in Christian faith with his inspiration. The letter basically applauded him for being a great guy. But it could never be missed that I said I have strong feelings for him and was happy to get the chance to experience that kind of feeling for him.

The decision whether to tell him or not was not easy. It took me two years before I could muster the courage to do it. And two write ups to be able to decide on it. A part of my write up says:

I have been asking that for two years now. Will I tell him?
 
My decision came about because I have been battling with that question of telling him or not, it’s all the same anyway. It’s a damn if I do and damn if I don’t situation.
 
If I don’t tell him, I would continue hiding these feelings, continue communicating with him, continue being just the friend whom he can depend on, continue to pretend to myself that I can get over the feeling of falling in love with my best friend. But can I really?
 
If I do tell him, I would risk our friendship. Am I ready for that? I would risk the time that I could have spent just being with him. But I could also set my love free and maybe, just maybe he return that feelings (1% hope), if not, at least, I could crush that hope and start moving on. I could stop pretending and denying to myself, and I would not have ‘what ifs’ in my life.
(Excerpt from Falling In Love With Your Best Friend.)

So you see, I ended up telling him. It was there that I learned that LOVE is worth telling, not only for the men but even for the women. Love is meant to be given and not hidden. Love is meant to be shared and not kept.
 
In this Christian culture that we have, society dictates us that women should wait until a man courts her, only then would she have the chance to choose among these suitors whom she likes best. It is prudence.
 
In my experience, I was glad I told him. I was glad to be given the chance to love him and to let him know that I do. It allowed me the freedom to express to him how I value him as a person. And most importantly, it stopped me thinking on the 'what ifs'. What are those?
 
Those are the things that keep you awake late at night thinking. What if he really loves me? What if there really is a chance? What if I try to risk? What if there really could be a future for us both? What if I could really be happy? Haven't you had any of those?
 
The ordeal though after he learned about how I feel was not easy. That even up to now, I am still experiencing the consequences of that action. I may say that love is worth telling, because the moment, that very moment that he knew, it was the happiest I have ever been. But on an afterthought, the action is worth doing only for those people who have the courage to face what life may throw at them.
 
As the days continued along with the feelings, I soon realized that, telling someone you love him is not for the faint of heart.