Sunday, September 05, 2004

Just Cheese Curls

[In College] … Christmas was just a few months away.

Saved my allowance (that meant skimping on snacks, giving up sale days, etc. which was quite a formidable feat for a college girl) just to buy him a very expensive pair of jeans. Why that pair of jeans? I knew he wanted it. It couldn’t have been more plain to my senses. He kept hinting about it in his letters. Sure I loved receiving letters from him. I was so touched that he had time to make homemade envelopes out of recycled magazine pages (I actually taught it to him). I couldn’t help but notice the envelopes all seemed to have A/X on them. Ha! Ha! I should have seen that as an equivocal reflection of his materialistic mind. But na-ah! I was too smitten to think of it that way. I even thought it was nice of him to imply what he wanted for Christmas. Stupid me! I could have bought a washing machine and a load full of detergent for that amount.

Just couldn’t wait for Christmas day, I just had to buy him the jeans a week before. We went to a posh shop at Makati to buy the jeans. He was very happy. Kept thanking me for being so thoughtful and generous. That was a happy day … or so I thought.

Christmas day! I was so excited to see him and there he was. I was so happy to be with him even though he said he could only stay for a few hours. As always, he had an excuse.

Two tin cans … Cheese Curls and Danish Cookies. I spent P4,120 for the jeans and not counting the other small gifts I bought him for Christmas and all I got in exchange were cheese curls and cookies. Even though I didn’t really expect anything grand, I still hoped that he would get me something much more personal than cheese curls and cookies. I would have appreciated something even less expensive if it were personal. What hurt the most was how he wrote my name on the card. It was sloppy and I even had this notion that he wrote it in haste before going to my house. PLUS I knew he didn’t buy those himself. I happened to know that his dad just came home from an overseas trip and they went to duty free several days before Christmas. It hurt to think that my own boyfriend didn’t even think of buying me a gift for Christmas. I guess he thought it was ok to get something out of their pantry and wrap it. Even the wrapper and Christmas tags were cheap! But, the doormat as I was, I didn’t complain. I smiled and said thank you. Pathetic me!

January came and I broke up with him. What a way to start the new year. It wasn’t just the above incident. Lots of things happened that when woven together led to one obvious thing: I loved him but he didn’t love me back. So what was a girl to do? I woke up one morning and told myself I deserved better. I put an end to being a doormat and moved on. It was terribly hard but needless to say I survived.

There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss,contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your
performance the next time. – Og Mandino

Yeah, learned my lesson the hard way. Stirred away from his type.
Found someone who had time to spend with me. Someone who gives me the love I
deserve. Lots of Christmas Holidays came and my heart never
complained.

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