State.

A poignant, sweet MIDI version of Matudnila ("You're the One and Only" in Visayan) plays on my laptop from a Kundiman website. A love song comes back to speak to me from a romantic, bygone era, back when men were men, and women were not simply wooed, but adored. It speaks to me. At least, I'd like to think it does. It's not everyday age-old sweet honesty and sincerity between the cooing chords and notes perch on your desktop window.

My intellectual ego has fled.
I can do nothing but be honest.

My life, thus far:

- Again, Life doles me out another deeper lesson in patience. My Playwriting professor has set her foot down: We, her class, are to stage our plays for our Final Production on the First week of the incoming regular semester. It comes of as frustrating, yes, but my frustration soon became a distant noise with all the other things that surfaced. Why was I getting frustrated? Because of the delay? Perhaps yes, but won't it for the good of the play, all the same? "Let the play form itself on its own; you can't rush the process," she says. Don't rush. But what about other family concerns? After all, a big percent of the clan's plans rest on my graduation, and they can't start unless I finish college. Those concerns too, rest heavy on my mind. "But patience," my conscience says. "Patience. success isn't an overnight thing". Sigh. So, Patience it is.

- In another subject, a major final Speech Production has final;y called curtain on the FC Stairs. Think of Pangalay, Pasyon, and Kundiman versus TheSpageti Dance, RnB, and Rap. I sheepishly sang Maalaala Mo Kaya in the run-through, and ended up belting the ballad just so it rises above the rumble of passing IKOT jeeps. It eases me to remember Ma'am was smiling through the song.

- After the aforementioned production, I hurried as fast as I could to catch Vanie's Playwriting Thesis Production. To my earlier dismay, I learned our Speech Production would begin at the same time as her's, and I had promised her I'd be there. So, I was there, in my pineapple Filipiniana and black skirt and everyone else in less anachronistic attire , I was there. Friendship finds no time to change, when friends are concerned.The plays were wonderful, the whole production was wonderful, and the best thing was, Vanie was finally graduating. You can only be so proud.

- That night, as well, I ... made peace with an ex. I'm not too sure right now if "made peace" is the right phrase to use. In the Department, Walls have ears and news have wings, and juicy news make specially pretty birds. We had been old piping-hot news, Two or three years to be exact, and it still stings every now and then whenever I get within ten meters of him. What pained me was the fact how he had been the first lover, in all the grand, romantic ways firsts are, and how he never seemed to really understand how it was.

"Hey."

"Yes?" In his cassanova grin, he said. It pokes fun, yes, but I made a promise on Holy Week.

"You forgot something very important."

"What?"

"You forgot to properly say sorry." A "sorry" on digital black-and-white in a YM window was not closure.

I can still feel the cast-iron chilling the linings of my stomach.

"Aaaw." It reeked of condescencion. "Oh, all right. I'm sorry." And he hugged me in the middle of a theatre lobby on gala night, with talk and the smell of pansit and drinks in the air. For two seconds, my mind went into mourning.

After a long talk and opening-up to my Playwriting Professor that night, I promptly left the hall. If I had a trenchcoat and a fedora on, I would have hugged my trenchcoat closer to myself, and tipped my hat down. I could feel a chill hanging in the air no one else felt, and I walked away, alone and defenseless.

He had hurt me terribly.

Truth be told, it disturbs me how I'm still hurt over a month-and-a-day affair when I know I have all I could ever have dreamed of and more, my precious fifteen-months-and-counting waiting and welcoming like a faithful dog on the front porch of my heart, ever-joyful for my coming-home. It wasn't right for me to be hurting like this. Why was I hurting in the first place? Because I never really got over him?

No. We may talk, do business, and share things, but my ex would never, ever touch me again.

Then again, perhaps it was also because I had offered my ex the choicest, most vulnerable parts of me, and he never really considered the gravity of the whole thing. at least, how important it all was to me.

Just something he might've learned from the whole fiasco would be nice.

Perhaps I am, indeed, a coward. Perhaps I really was never brave enough to face the fact he didn't need me anymore, like a pretty memory that's outlived its use. Perhaps this was indeed my ego hurting. Yes, perhaps so, but at least I've mustered enough to look myself in the face and face the ugliness and horridness I've turned into and scraped up even more to try and come to terms with myself, albeit going through the horror of it all.

It's ugly, isn't it? Painful. but essential.

He said sorry. And until now, his sorries flutter and tear in the wind. His first one on Yahoo Messenger felt that way, and this second one still does. Perhaps it is high time I realized no matter how he says it, he will never apologize or regret with as much weight or gravity as I think it demands of him. He will still be as showbiz as he was when I first met him (and regrettably kissed him) as he is now, and he will most probably continue to be for as long as he chooses to be so. That is not mine to fuss and fret over, and I shouldn't. Good God, I shouldn't. I would be completely unjust to myself, and even doubly so to my beloved. I must not cry over spilt milk gone sour when I have Amrita to cherish.

I have James, for all the insanity and hellishness and wonder he is, and I could never ask for more.

This chapter I must close by myself, because the boy I once loved does not understand enough to do it himself.

I must close it myself, because another one has long since opened itself to me, and I could want nothing more than to lose myself over and over again in it. The story unfolds, and unfolds, and unfolds before me, before us. And we can't wait to see what comes next page.

Consummatum Est.