Not all broken hearts result from broken relationships with lovers. More often than not, the most broken of hearts spring from those relationships we’ve already had long before others came into the picture — family, friends. This Christmas, I had no wish in mind. I couldn’t think of anything at all that I’d wish for. Maybe it’s because of all the problems that have surrounded me, both personal and those of my dearest friends, that my mind has failed to wire itself to the season. This is the first Christmas I’ve felt this way. I remember not feeling Christmas last year because of the inevitable separation I was dreading yet I also remember wishing for a couple of things for that Christmas, one of which included the separation to go bye-bye. But this year, it really is different. A lot of my friends have already asked me what my Christmas wish was, and I found it extremely hard to answer. My mind just goes blank. Nothing enters at all.

~*~


I do not come from a rich or well off family. My family is just blessed enough to make ends meet. But somehow, I feel like one of those few rich kids who wished they weren’t so rich. Those who, despite being financially okay, feel so empty inside. I don’t know if some of you have seen one of those movies wherein rich kids feel bad for being rich simply because their parents have no time for them anymore that they’d rather live with the poor parents of some street kid they’ve met just to feel loved, but that’s kind of how I feel. Okay, that’s an exaggeration but that’s how they do it in the movies. I hope you get the point.

Though we are just blessed to make ends meet, I can say that we are way better off today than we were 8-10 years ago. Our house is definitely bigger and more spacious now. I get to drive my own car, go to a prestigious university, own all the necessities a stereotyped Atenean would — cellphones, iPod, laptop and a cam, as compared years ago where we only had one car and no driver. And yet it seems like we were more well off in the past. Despite the one car we had, and the times my Dad would pick me and my sister up, commuting, treading chest-high floodwaters (I am not kidding or exaggerating — shobe even fell into a manhole along Aurora Blvd. once because of the high floodwaters when we didn’t have a car yet), it feels like we were more well off before. During those no car, flood times. Why, you ask?

It was during those times when I remember my parents coming home with a 36 pc. Faber Castell Watercolor Pencil set for my home economics project (where I needed to draw borders since we didn’t have a computer back then) even if we could hardly afford it, when my siblings and I would go with Dad to pick our Mom up from the office and eat balot while waiting, when Dad would allow us to cut school and bring us to the mall to watch a movie and eat out, when our family would go out every Sunday after church — to eat lunch or have merienda in the sort of “food fest” located in the now-famous Greenhills tiannge (yes, before it was filled with bags, shoes, wallets, it was a strip of different Filipino cuisine food stalls), make pasyal and go fishing in the center of the Greenhills square (where the different plant vendors are now located), or go to National Book Store to buy some school stuff and sometimes, just some fun stuff we want like crayons and coloring books. And now, I do have my own car, own several pairs of ridiculously expensive slippers, have not one but two phones, and yet our family rarely goes out to have a simple lunch together, my siblings and I constantly argue with our Mom when it comes to money matters, and buying school books is becoming a problem for my shobe and I (thank God I don’t have to buy books all the time). Sometimes I wish I could just go back to the time where I didn’t have all these things but my family and I could afford to go out and have lunch, even if it were in Luk Yuen only.

~*~


After thinking about the same question my friends have been asking me since last week, I think I finally know why I couldn’t answer. It’s not that I didn’t have an answer. I guess my mind just didn’t entertain the idea that’s why I thought nothing came to mind. All this time, all I’ve wanted was to have a family. Was to have my family back. I’m not much of an expressive person when it comes to my family that’s why I didn’t realize it was that thing I was wishing for all along. I’ve been hoping for things to turn out okay, for everything to be fixed. Unfortunately, it has only grown worse.

I think my heart is more broken now than ever. It’s still supposed to be in the processing of healing the little cracks that haven’t fully healed yet from last sem’s, but I think my heart can’t patch those little cracks up anymore. It has been pounded so hard that those little cracks have completely disappeared. What makes it worse is that I never imagined for it to be completely smashed up by the people whom I thought cared and loved me unconditionally.

I’ve seen friends who are currently dealing with almost the same problem as I. Our problems may not be completely the same, but the pain is just as intense. People whom we thought we could trust and count on, became the very people who would give us such agonizing pain and suffering. It is from this experience that I conclude that.. the most broken of hearts are not caused by apathetic, bastard lovers, but of those whom we thought we could run to when these jerks hurt us.

I guess I didn’t wish for anything this Christmas precisely because I knew it wouldn’t be granted anyway.

P.S. Thank you for ruining my already broken family. You deserve a big round of applause.

***
You changed my whole life.
-Superhuman, Chris Brown feat. Keri Hilson


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