Ghost Month

I have always known who am I in a relationship.

I am selfless and nurturing. I go the extra mile to please. I take care of my partner more than I would look after myself. When he has problems, I try to take the burden off his shoulders - at least by lending an ear when he needs someone to listen. I avoid conflicts by finding my own resolution to issues in the relationship. I immerse him to my life: he meets my family, eat my meals, let him swim in my mind. I give up my dreams, if it means having to put up and make his aspirations real. I surrender my freedom. A union with another for me is an opportunity to put my life in order and so I make the relationship special by being devoted to my partner. 

I wish to believe that I am not a difficult boyfriend. That I am never a cause of sleeplessness of the other. That the reason for trying to have a steady relationship is for me and the partner mount a common front against life's riddles. That we are on a journey - together and to reach our destination, we have to always be one.

Someone who gets to read this entry would find these ideals naive, if not hopelessly romantic. And in truth, the dreams run hollow for it is the same reason why many couples break up. It is the perfect recipe for boredom. Stagnation. And much as my aspiration tells me to pick someone with the same blueprint for a relationship, I somehow end up at the losing end. When expectations aren't met, I find attention from another. If calls for rebellion find no advocates within, I thrust myself into the other that my presence strangles the relationship.  

I have been given up because of this desperation.

These past few weeks, I've been thinking of my exes and why our relationships failed. The first was because of fear. Fear that I've been doing something behind the partner's back, and every small misstep were a cause of petty fights. The bickering happened every day. The second was because the relationship became too one-sided. In my partner's quest to reach his dreams, I have been reduced to being an instrument, so he could get more from life at my own expense. I became his benefactor. The third was because the relationship was too easy. We seldom had fights. I hardly demanded his time and in his words, he can't love me the way I loved him. 

And so we parted ways.

If there is something in common with these three unions, I've never been seen as a threat. I never raised my voice, make the partner jealous of someone else (even when I slept with other guys) and I never said that I'm busy, for my time was always theirs. Save for the third (for he was the one who introduced the nightly pillow talks and classy dinner dates), it tends to be me parting more to enrich the relationship experience. 

The earlier ones were there to affirm I did things because of love. 

There will always be another side to the story, but their defense is already irrelevant as they would not be able to read this entry. But for the sake of remembering; of soul searching; of letting myself get spooked at how easily swayed I am when terribly attached with another, may this serve as a chilling reminder that I already had three failures. If the fourth comes a little later, I would look back at my history and assure myself, "somewhere in my underworld, the Preta in me still hungers."



*Preta - Hungry Ghost, These beings are "ghosts" only in the sense of not being fully alive; not fully capable of living and appreciating what the moment has to offer.