My Blog

     I’m standing on the rubber mat again. My opponent glares at me from across the floor. He is not intimidated by this scraggly guy with thinning hair who had come into the match late. The crowd screams. They yell encouragement at him. It is his crowd. My friends are back at the hospital, working, while I am here, in pursuit of a dream. How I wished that they were here with me. I take one last look at my sensei, who was shocked to see me compete, and he raises his fist in encouragement. Drawing one deep breath, I clear my mind, bow to my opponent, and step forward to fight.

     We are fighting for the gold medal. I hadn’t realized it at the time. I wasn’t keeping track of things. This is how I was lately. My soul, weary and stale from the daily, endless grind of mindless tasks at the hospital, seemed only to exist and not to live. But here, I felt it stir, quicken, and sharpen. It was focused on one thing only: give my all.

     I attack. My opponent is much younger and faster, and he counters with a strike of his own. Then, things blurred. Nothing seemed to exist, except for me, my opponent, and the reality of fists and feet. I just remembered giving blows and receiving strikes. Wham! I got one on my jaw, and another one on the head. It would hurt later, but, at that moment, it registered merely as a failure to block, and as one point for my opponent.

     Two minutes pass. Two minutes of fury and yells and blood. bloodied his mouth, but he gains three more points over me. I knew I had nothing more in me. I was panting and coughing. I was kicking air. I was blocking with my nose instead of my arms. I remember a line from the movie "Kung Pao", when Wimpy Lo said: "Face to foot style, how do you like it?". It really seemed hilarious, but, that moment, it was anything but, especially when it was turning out Wimpy Lo was me.

     But it didn’t matter. Winning didn’t even matter. At that moment, battered and hurt, I was transformed. All I wanted to do at that moment was to give my all, and I did. I kept coming back for more. Yes, I was clobbered, time and again, but I didn’t fall. I lost, but I lost still fighting, and I made him bleed for his gold. Hurting my opponent didn’t even matter later. I was doing what I had wanted to do for the longest time, living a childhood dream.

     I realized that one, when he fights, always fights alone. There may be a crowd of supporters behind you. There may be shouts of encouragement for you. But, there, in that square rubber mat, where the philosophy of martial arts give way to the realities of fists and hurts, you fight for yourself. Even more so, you fight yourself. The opponent is not the other guy, it is that quaking, shivering, tiny existence inside of you saying "You Can’t Do It!!!". It may be that he is the most powerful enemy of all, the one who can defeat you even before the fight has started.

     That day, I was fighting alone. My opponent may have won the gold, but I have won a victory over myself.

     It was like a punch to the midsection, thrown by the one whom you trust the most, and delivered full strength. It left me on the ground, so much in pain that it even hurts to cry in pain. Once, as a kid, I fell from a tree and had the wind knocked out of me. I writhed and rolled in the dust, trying to just breathe, unable to even call for help. My friends and siblings didn’t know what to do (they did know how to laugh at my face). I felt like a kid again, only in the worst possible way.

     She told me she wanted to break up at the worst time possible, at the time when I needed her the most. This near-perfect relationship coming to an end? It was the last thing that I thought would happen.

     It hurt like a tooth extraction without any anesthetic, and with the dentist stepping on your foot, the one with an infected ingrown toenail. Oh, and did I mention the dentist was  400 pounds and was wearing clogs?

      To her credit, she did try to soften the blow somewhat. Bless her heart, she gave me the truth in the gentlest way that she could. No rancor, no malice, no intent to hurt. Just the bitterest truth, but given by gentle hands.

     It was still bitter, nevertheless. Pweh! It really hurt because (and my father warned me about this) I really gave my all for her. And when she was gone, I had nothing left. Or so I thought, had it not been for the wisdom of a caring family and of friends.

     So, how do I even start to heal? I’ve learned a lot about this.

     I guess it’s really important to cry and rage. Grief suppressed would only fester, as would anger or hate.  These I had in full measure, to overflowing. It had to go out. I rarely cry, thinking it to be a sign of weakness. I really held back (ok, so I did manage NOT to cry for 4 hours) for as long as I could, but who was I kidding? It hurt! So, I cried like a baby. Had I seen myself, I’d double up in laughter, what with my face all crumpled up like a sheet of scratch paper. Unfortunately, the only person to have the pleasure of seeing me like that was the guard on night duty, roving the grounds behind Maria Reyna Hospital. There I was, leaking like a broken fountain, watering the grass with my tears, going "Why!?? Why?!!" with all the drama I could muster, not noticing Manong Tsip with his flashlight focused on my face. Ugh! Best actor in an amards-comedy role. I didn’t need any encouragement to vacate the premises.

     But this grief, this rage, this sense of being wronged, it was slowly poisoning me. Which led me to another thing that I learned was important.

     I had to let go and forgive. I had to forgive her for hurting me and leaving me. It took me a month. It had to take for my pain to become really a literal pain in my sternum. It burned like acid and made me bitter. It took away any pleasure that could have made my soul thrive, and made me shrivel away. Forgiving her, the one who hurt me to the deepest of depths, the only one who could do so, was important: it allowed me to see beyond myself and to cease focusing on my hurts. It killed the pain. It didn’t happen in an instant, but it was a start. I started to live again.

     Then, I started to pray. Maybe this break-up had to happen because I wasn’t as close to God as I used to be, and this is His way of drawing me nearer. Or maybe perhaps  I’d never know in this lifetime. What I do know now is that knowing there’s Someone always in control of my life gave me a measure of peace unattainable by any other way. Oh, I did rage and cry and wept and blamed Him at times for this mess, but, eventually, I accepted that He knows best and is always in control.

     Then, I began to see that I wasn’t the only one hurting. She was hurting, too, especially since the class gave her the blame. She precious few friends to support her, too little to hug her, almost no one to comfort her. She, too, turned to God for strength, but it was really more difficult for her than it was for me. Realizing this helped me see that the roles we have isn’t as clear cut as having a victim and victimizer. I saw that she didn’t intend to hurt me. She had to go because she was no longer happy, and going on with this relationship would have been unfair to me. Seeing that helped me feel again, and made my heart, hardened out of necessity, able to care again.

     It sure hurt like hell, and I wouldn’t want to go through this again. How I wish that a large part of my pain could be put in a box and left at another man’s doorstep. I still have times when I feel like punching somebody’s face in, or collapse and cry, or just plain sleep and sleep and wake up late. But, why be afraid to live? I want to suck life to the very marrow, to live, because, who knows whether I’d still be here tomorrow? I’d rather feel and be alive, than feel nothing and be dead. So, what I did was make the decision to be happy again, to focus on what I still have (like, for example, hair), to live. And to write this.

     Because I want to be healed.