Day 24 (Recall) Sinking Ships

I attended another Simbang Gabi (there are 9 of them) and, on the way home, White Flag by Dido started playing. For perhaps the first time since the song came out, I not only heard the words but understood the message they sent as well: 

 “With no hope, nor dreams, nor expectations, I love you and always will.”

When you’re young, someone’s bound to tell you that there’s always someone out there for you, the one who’ll make all the songs on the radio suddenly make sense to you. For me, it was Teddy and, unless the heavenly beings have a great plan for me in 2011 and onward, no one else compares to a memory of a man long gone (competing with a ghost is pretty much like beating a dead horse: useless and kind of idiotic to try).

But so what?

I’ve stressed before that Teddy was a chapter in my life that has ended. He’s gone, it’s over, the end, time to focus on the rest of the story.

But what if everything else that comes in the next chapters just isn’t big enough to avoid his shadow? What if everyone else who comes along just falls short of what I want to have? And I’m not talking about Teddy, the man; I mean Teddy, the idea, the happiness, the fulfillment.

What’s so wrong with loving a memory if it’s stronger than anything or anyone else I could find in the present and future?

Yes, the memory can’t actually do anything for me. It can’t love me back, can’t kiss me, can’t hold me as I sleep, can’t give me anything for that matter.

But, I ask again, so what?

You hear stories about weeping widows who never marry again once their spouse passes away. It’s not for a lack of suitors, no, but simply that they don’t want anyone other than the ones they’ve buried; they’ve already found their personal haven and watched it be lowered to the ground. Everyone beyond that just…doesn’t cut it.

I’m not saying that Teddy and I were ever married or that he loved me back to the extent I did him. But that wasn’t the point. The fact is, he gave me a happiness I will always try to find and exceed (likely futilely).

So, if nothing and no one else can make me feel that way again, isn’t it ok to just love him?

With no hope, or dreams or expectation, I’m in love and always will be with a man who can’t reciprocate any of what I can give.

Maybe, one day, a man will come and change this for me and make Teddy only Day 5 of this blog. Or maybe I’ll just get fed up loving a ghost and move on.

In the meantime, I’ll let my white flag gather its dust in my closet.

Written 12/24/10