letters and boxes

i finally bought the boxes i've been eyeing at nccc mall for months already. it was mainly to organize my things, which is just another way of saying putting all my mess inside a nice container so people think my room is neat.

when i finally took time to find things to put in the box, i realized, there isn't much of my stuff to put. most of them are large things or things that should be seen immediately, or belong to shelves rather than boxes. so i decided to just put old letters in it.

the bulk of my letters are still in manila. i remember having piles and piles from my volunteer year, when my letter-writing was most busy. but the mail didn't stop coming even after as former students in the seminary and in bukidnon kept writing me. those were the letters i have with me in davao.

so one by one, i put them neatly in my nice yellow artsy-fartsy looking box, until i came across one letter with a very familiar handwriting.

it's from almost-was-but-never-did.

when i scanned the letter, i couldn't help but smile. i always thought him young, not only by age (i'm 16 months older) but in emotional intelligence (he was studying in an all boys college then. go figure). and reading his words again five years after, just made him seem more juvenile then. and maybe if he read his letters now, he'd be amused at himself then. i'd probably laugh at the notes i sent him as well.

another unearthed letter was from my first beau. a rare artifact, as he is not the writing type. thus when i received it seven years ago, it was a highly cherished treasure. and even until now. i didn't read the letter. just looked at the date which indicated it was written a month away from our 2nd anniversary.

nostalgia coursed through my veins reading my personal history. these were two people i gambled with in the past. of the many people i fell in love with and of the some that fell in love with me (i realized i really wasn't much of a plain jane after all), these were the two that i tried pursuing.

toni and i talked about our exes once, and i told her how grateful i am to them (especially JT). both of them made me feel beautiful and special and loved.

my relationship with KL taught me endurance. we knew our relationship wouldn't go anywhere (well, i did), yet we still loved each other. decisions have to be made constantly. we kept on trying to find ways to make it work. but it was just really a story that was doomed to end even before it began, but the journey was a valuable lesson to both of us.

JT loved me without boundaries nor reservation. he showed me that a person was capable of giving everything but still love himself. my relationship with him showed me that there is no such thing as loving partly. there is only loving wholy.

and having been loved like that, i could never let myself even entertain the thought of settling. potential relationships came after him, KL being one of them. but i never committed to any of them, because it would have been just settling. just to get rid of that desire for companionship. it felt like cheating myself. (but of course, harmless flirtations were welcome. especially with rock stars. right tat?)

and so i waited patiently, enduring sleepless nights thinking of lost loves and loves yet to be found.

and now, those memories are placed neatly in boxes.
memorabilia of great people.
great people who in the end led me to him that i prayed for.

my room looks the same way as it did before. slightly messy.

but on my own, i know part of it is fixed nicely.