We Aren’t Perfect, But I Still Love You

This is not a unique love story.

In fact, this is one of the common plots you read here and there. As much as I would like to make this stand out among the others, this is pretty much the same.

I like to tell it anyway. This will be my best attempt to make someone feel how a person made me feel in the most amazing way possible; to be loved unconditionally.

We started out as workmates, then blooms the friendship over morning coffee and office shenanigans. She’s the kind of person that is hard not to notice. Her personality is as vibrant as the sun that annoys you when you can’t stand the heat anymore, the kind that you miss during rainy season.

That is what she made me feel when after a few months of working together, she gave me her resignation letter. Complications. Responsibilities. Life decisions. She went back to Uncle Sam.

There’s really nothing to talk about when she left. Again, complications. She left with a gloomy feeling in me I couldn’t understand and I don’t have the courage to face.

As friends, we made sure to be in contact. We talk and send messages to each other almost twenty four seven. We gave each other updates. Updates that I started to get excited about every time my phone beeps. In the morning, she managed to be in my brain; first in the list of the things I have to work to and worry about for that day.

I hate the idea of long distance relationships. I didn’t see myself getting into one because I know it’s not my thing. I’m the type who craves human touch. These, I swallowed after months of good mornings, good nights and everything in between. I woke up one day, in love with a person living on the other side of the world.

Don’t ask me to explain. It just happened. Our love is a choice I have to make and I chose her over everything that is already planned in my life. It is the best choice I made amidst the judgements, the fights I have to face, the hurdle that comes with the euphoric feeling of choosing and loving her.

She made it seem easy. She eased my fears and worries. After a busy week, I see her face in my phone screen and all the stress that pilled up in that entire five days of work are gone. How she managed to make me feel loved and important is a question she can only answer.

She makes me laugh with the silliest of joke. She makes me smile and my heart flutter with a one line text message. She drives me crazy, and annoys the hell out of me. She makes me want to throw things at her when she’s being a pain in the ass. Above all, she believes in me especially on those times that I already lost my faith in myself.

All the extremities of every emotions present in this universe, I feel with her. Our love is like a roller coaster ride, good thing we’re adrenaline junkies.

Sometimes, people ask me if I miss her. Without a second thought I will answer with a yes. I don’t mind doing things alone. I find joy in eating at restaurant, observing people as they come and go. I buy a single movie ticket and find pleasure in watching it with no one interrupting me with their comments and whatnots. Spending an afternoon in a coffee shop with a pen and a paper is peaceful and calming for me.

But, there are lonely times. Dinners I wish I have her to tell how annoying my last customer call was. Movies I hope I have her hand to hold even if it’s smothered with cheese from our shared popcorn. Lazy Sunday afternoon and I look up from the book I’m reading and I see her with our iced caramel macchiato in her hands as she walks towards me.

They say long distance relationship is not for the weak one. I say the otherwise. My heart was once a feeble thing made stronger by the force we call love. I am still surprised of the things that I do everyday when it comes to loving her. And I treasure the fact that while I am madly in love, I am loving myself better than before. I am also in the process of finding something more about me. Not just as a partner, but as a growing up woman as well.

Self discovery, I guess, is one of the greatest advantages of this relationship. The best reward that both of us will have after the sacrifice of living separately, is that we grow together even if we’re literally miles apart. Knowing that love that we have aged and matured gracefully like we did.

I’d like to say seven hundred thirty one days instead of two years. Days are what we count when it’s about time to see each other again. Days are what we count when we think of the time that we only have with each other. So I will use days to celebrate today instead of years. Seven hundred thirty one days of love, facetime dates, of nonsense fights, of getting fat, of annoying each other, of seeing the world together, of watching series, of anticipating the day that we’ll see each other again. And I won’t mind spending another seven hundred thirty one days multiplied to infinity with her.

I won’t make any promises but this I’ll say with an intention to keep. I will love her every single day. I will love her more in those days that she is the hardest to love.

This is my way of thanking her for all that she is. She is not the easiest person to love, and so am I. But I believe in what old lovers say; there is no perfect relationship. You just have to choose the one who’ll stick with you when the going gets tough.