Veritas vos liberabit (The Truth will set you free)…

I have learnt instead, that its ugliness will suffocate you. One word packs sufficient potency to bring the fragile walls you put around your heart crashing down. And the only person you can effectively blame is your own self.

I have lived in a state of denial for a long time. I allow myself to believe the pithy excuses I’ve been given; rationally, they would have held up like a ra-ra skirt on a typical Melbourne Winter day but the mind (or more specifically, the heart) hears what it wants to hear. I suppose I have been hanging onto the tattered remnants of the past. If I have been living with false hope, it was certainly not from external encouragement.

I have never understood how it’s always good with men up till the moment they leave you. One minute, you’re laughing together and painting a picture of forever and the next, he’s gone, and it’s as he was never there at all, except for the burning imprint in your heart. Forgive me my generalizations but there seems to be a general modus operandi for men to leave as fast and as far as they can when a relationship is no longer perfect bliss.

I suppose it should not come as a surprise. He never loved me and never claimed to. It was I who was constantly searching for any clue that he could feel more for me; anything that would alleviate me from the status of “glorified booty call”. Yet, I still pushed. I demanded reasons for why he couldn’t (or more aptly, wouldn’t) consider taking things further with me. The reasons I got were typical: he was not ready to have a relationship, etc.

So, you can imagine my immense hurt to hear him refer to his latest “bit of fluff” as his GIRLFRIEND. He told me it was just fun; that she was leaving at the end of the year, so there was no long-lasting relationship there. LIES… I know his defense will be that circumstances change but it does not make it hurt any less for me. Nothing can soften the blow of knowing that there was nothing I could have done to have made things worked for us.

I’ve quoted Oprah Winfrey before:

“If a man really wants you, nothing can keep him away; if a man does not want you, nothing can make him stay.”

Sunt facta verbis difficiliora (Works are harder than words): It is easy to dish out platitudes but it is extremely difficult to practice what you preach. I did everything I could to show him that I could be the perfect girlfriend for him but like his friends told me, the issue was not my eligibility as a girlfriend but rather the fact that he would not make me a good boyfriend. You cannot make someone love you, no matter how much you try. That being said, sometimes, you do not have to do anything to make someone love you. It just happens. You are loved just the way you are. I know many people who would be letting out a cynical laugh as they read that last line.

After all, we all know that it is a “fact of life” that Varium et mutabile semper femina (a woman is always a changeable and capricious thing): women spend their whole lives searching for that perfect man and (if they are lucky) they marry him; they then spend the rest of their lives trying to change him. Women never really outgrow their love of playing with dolls. In this situation, boyfriends/husbands/significant others/partners become their KEN Dolls except that love allows them to do a holistic overhaul of said subject to suit their idealistic fantasies.

Yet, let’s not give women such a bad name. Yes, women do tend to harbor such characteristics but women exhibit behavior on the other end of the spectrum: “Is it (insert imaginary flaw)? I can change!!!” We’ve all heard (or used) that expression before. Three words that spell out the desperation of a woman in love: I. CAN. CHANGE. Does that not then defeat the purpose of what we define true love to be? TRUE LOVE demands loving someone the way they are. O sancta simplicitas (O sacred simplicity)…if only love and the matters of the heart were that simple.

We are people. We fought our way to the top of the food chain and we consider ourselves civilized because we communicate vocally and set rules for society to follow. But ultimately, the basic human instinct follows the laws of nature. Men are territorial and they will fight to guard what is theirs. On a similar vein, the spoils of victory cannot be savored unless a war is fought. Maybe it is a trait not as dominant in the present as it was with our ancestors but it does still remain a part of a Man’s DNA. Again, the basic law of Human Nature applies: Qui multum habet, plus cupit (He who has much desires more): we want what we do not have.

I was an easy mark. He never had to fight for me. He knew I was interested and I caved in way too early and easily. He had me, he had his fun and he got over me just as quickly. Pure and Simple? Perhaps to his male logic, it was; but in my female (complicated) mind, things just do not end (resolve) themselves so easily. When he walked away from me, I chose to play the martyr/victim and say that he was a bastard for treating me in such a manner and being cold-hearted in walking away. I am not saying the guy was the perfect gentleman or an angel but I have to admit that that is the usual modus operandi for most men: when you do not feel for the girl (or in his case, she has served her purpose), you walk away. If I were to be honest, I wish I could be more like a man in that aspect. To be able to walk away without first having to spend forever living in the memories of the past and the land of “what-could-have-been” and “if only”.

If it were only him, I could write this phenomenon off as a one-off and I would not be sitting here at four in the morning on a Saturday writing this; I should be summoning up the strength to undo the straps of my impossibly-high heels, taking off my make-up and hobbling on numb feet to my bed, exhausted after a big fun night out. My little escapade with Rebound guy ended on a similar note and the guy I was genuinely interested in after him went down the same path; Hinc illæ lacrimæ (Therefore these tears).Once is an accident, two a coincidence but three? It’s a conspiracy or rather to sound less paranoid (and more normal), there is a pattern beginning to emerge. Nemo sine vitio est (No one is without fault): Let’s not be a pompous, arrogant fool and say that I am blame-free but let’s also give one to the self-esteem and self-confidence department by admitting that maybe, just maybe…there is the remote possibility that it’s not all me.

“Marry in haste, repent at leisure”

I swear, it has to be one of the most ridiculous phrases I have ever heard. Marriage should not be entered into lightly. Desperation is in truth, not a valid reason to swap your maiden name for his and sign up for joint accounts. We all know someone whose choice of a life-partner continues to leave us bemused; I can assure you that when you ask someone incredulously why she married the fella, one of the most probable (and common) answer you’d get is “She turned 30 (or insert appropriate age milestone.” Crudelius est quam mori semper timere mortem (It is crueler to always be afraid of dying than to die): fear of spinsterhood (loneliness) spurs women into drastic action. Yes, like all little girls, I have dreamed of the perfect wedding but marriage is not just about the frou-frou white dress; the chance to make your best friend wear an ugly dress she’d never wear again just to make you look beautiful; the romantic church ceremony; the glitzy dinner or any of the superficial things.

Marriage is forever. It is built upon the foundations of love: Omnia vincit amor (Love conquers all); but most significantly, it is about commitment. What is commitment? Is it being able to stay faithful to someone in a long distance relationship? I suppose it could be. But to me, true commitment is waking up and seeing the same person brush his teeth every morning for 30 years (or however long you live after marriage). Marriage is not about the blissful romantic moments or the occasional fights. It is about being able to live with the person everyday in ordinary circumstances without feeling like you want to tear your hair out and run screaming through the streets.

Si vis amari, ama (If you want to be loved, love).We all want to fall in love and marry the perfect man (or woman). But the two do not necessarily come in a package: we do not always love the perfect person for us. For reasons we can never fathom, love comes in the strangest places and sometimes, Nondum amabam, et amare amabam (I did not love, even if I yearned to love):we can try our hardest but feel no passion for the perfect man (or woman). He/she may possess all the qualities we look for in a mate but if there is no chemistry, there is nothing there. Yet, we can love someone who is not quite right or totally wrong for us; movies and songs center around this theme of loving the wrong person and the resulting heartbreak.

I do not advocate marrying the “safe choice” or saying that the only marriages that will work are the boring, vanilla relationships. Security, faithfulness, trust, commitment and love are the tenements of marriage. But that is not what I am arguing about today. There are two kinds of people in this world: the ones who find love permanently and those who are meant to be alone. I feel that many women fear the latter greatly and hence, enter into marriage posthaste to avoid facing their phobias.

Non nobis solum nati sumus (We are not born for ourselves alone): The thought of marriage and the need to be with someone is genetically-ingrained in me hence, my constant laments over my perpetual state of singleness but I am beginning to learn that being alone does not necessarily mean being lonely and jumping from one hot frying pan only to land in another does not help to make you forget your initial woes; you just create more.

My opening statement is a phrase that is oft-used in the English language but what not many people know is that its origins come from the Bible:

“If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” (John 8:31-32)

The truth WILL set you free. If the set conditions are met: you need to know it, believe it and accept it. Otherwise, the truth loses all significance. I know the truth -even if tragically, it had to be learnt the hard way but then again, Quae nocent, docent (What harms, teaches). I am making headway in believing the truth given that it is hard not to when the evidence for the case it is building up to grows each day (that and the therapy sessions I’ve been through). But I am so far from acceptance that I cannot even fathom a light at the end of the tunnel.

Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor (I see the better and acknowledge it, but I follow the worse). This, unfortunately, is the reason why the ugliness of the truth suffocates me.

Yet, Dum Spiro Spero (When I breathe, I hope). Stat sua cuique dies (The date is set for each and everyone): I believe my day (of acceptance) will come and Forsan et hæc olim meminisse iuvabit (Perhaps even this one day will be pleasant to look back on) and if I am lucky, Suum cuique (To each what he deserves): the right one will come along for me and Karma will finally come around to bite him on his ass.

P.S: If this post sounds as if I have had a Latin dictionary grafted onto my brain, I do
apologize but I was tickled by the notion of Omnia dicta fortiora si dicta Latina
(Everything sounds more impressive in Latin).