I was telling R about my frustration on this long distance dance of ours. Told him, this relationship is not normal and I miss normal. And I soon as I said that, I realized I don't even know what normal means. I looked back in all my relationships - every single one of them, and I couldn't find one that fits that bill of normal. All the relationships that I've had, yes, even the ones in high school or even the puppy love in grade school, have been anything but.

Let's talk about puppy love K. As most kids do, his way of showing me his affection was via embarrassing me in front of other young boys or picking a fight with me. And my way of showing mine was throwing away the sketch he made of me in the trash can (only to pick it up again as soon as everyone left the room, but that's another story). And in all our "courtship" period, we kept doing this ping-pong of hurt each other (albeit in a very childish way) in our efforts to show each other we liked each other.

How about my high school relationships? There's C who my parents hated because he was a grandson of the political nemesis of my grandfather. We eventually broke up, because aside from the family feud pressure, I also found out he was still in love with an ex, who incidentally, is one of R's best friends now (actually the wife of his best friend, but yeah, they are good friends as well). How so very friendster of us.

And there's J, who was 2 years younger than me, and that got one of my teachers telling me I was like "an old cow eating young grass". Yeah. I was already an old cow at 15. (And the realization just hit me, I'm talking about a so-called relationship of a 15-yr old and a 13-yr old. And that is not normal in so many ways!)

Now college may have been the closest I ever got to normal. If normal means, living in your own little world. Because that was how it was with C2. And it all worked perfectly, until I rediscovered the world outside - my dreams, new friends, vast opportunities. Getting involved in student politics did more to me than just open my views and my horizons. It saved me from an early marriage. (And how is this not normal? I don't even want to begin to count the ways).

The 2nd relationship that got closest to normal was with R-1. Except that when we first got together, he was still very much in love with his ex, as I was with mine. And yeah, another friendster testimonial, turns out my ex was his former grade school classmate and barkada. I almost left R-1 because my ex, M, suddenly reappeared in my life after a year, professing he has been looking for me (I already lived in another city at that time). But then I remembered why I broke up with him - because aside from me, he had girlfriends in the rest of the campuses of our university, and there were more than 3 campuses! Going back to R-1, he was great, a very good man like C2. And eventually, we got over the rebound thing and had a great thing going. Until work started to take us away from each other. He travelled a lot, I travelled a lot. He made peace with his ex without telling me, and they became each other's confidants, which was already going on for 2 years before I found out. And eventually I fell in love with someone else. Fast forward 5 years later, he makes his peace with me, and he told me he was still very in love with me. And he was also already very married. And fast forward 2 more years later, his wife (who's practically a stranger, an acquaintance at best, adds me in her friendster).

Let's go back to M, who, another 7 years later, once again reappeared in my life, professing his undying love (and that he has been looking for me, again). I almost caved, except that he sounded very drunk, as he did that one other time. Good thing for me (or so I thought), I was about to leave at the time. I went to the States for work, only to get back a year later, bruised and beaten. And I only have this to say about B - I don't normally have any regrets in my life, but they say there's always an exception to the rule, and he is that exception.

M, btw, was still very much waiting for me after that US assignment, and a few more months later, I finally saw him, after 8 years, only to get the closure I never got with him. When we saw each other, I barely knew the man I declared as my greatest love (it did take me nearly 3 years to get over him). I finally said my goodbyes to the man I credit my smoking habit for, as well as the reason why I left home right after graduation. Ironically, he was not there to say goodbye. Whereas years back, he was doing the hurting, he wanted to do the healing this time. But it's true what they say - you eventually forget, even if the road is long and narrow. And I had forgotten.

I should also mention the string of relationships with different variants of unavailable men, emotionally or otherwise. Still no luck in finding normal.

Which brings me back to R and my constant search for normalcy in our relationship and my realization that I couldn't even define normal because I never had that. And maybe that's sad. Or maybe it just means what's normal is the un-normal. And that maybe being with a good man, who makes you laugh when the world seems to have fallen down on you, who makes you feel safe when the things you believe in suddenly seem like big fat lies, no matter how far away he is, is as good as it gets.

Labels: love, R, relationships