I am 20 years old, and as I write this I am two weeks away from walking up the stage of the Philippine International Convention Center to receive my college diploma. I should be all smiles right now, but there are things that can bring a person down in what should be the happiest of times.

All through my four years of college, I have never really known what I would do after graduation. I was studying a course that was, at best, only remotely interesting to me, my grades were far from stellar and I was on a fast track to being an unemployed college graduate.

But one day, I was caught off-guard by a simple text message sent by someone I faintly knew. She was a cute enough girl who belonged to another block section in my major. She was a writer for our school publication, and she made more sense talking to than most girls these days. She asked me a simple question which I politely answered, leading to a very stimulating conversation.

For weeks after that text, we were constantly talking to each other. Little by little, we also got to know each other better. Eventually, we moved up from mere texting to hanging out on the school grounds after class when we had nothing to do.

I guess neither of us really thought about giving meaning to our friendship. From hanging out once in a while, we started spending every free minute with each other, sometimes even just to exchange a few words in the hallway.

One thing I learned from her early on was that, being a Chinese-Filipina, she considered the term “Intsik” very offensive. I was forced to either refer to her as Chinese or by some other Tagalog term for it.

Before we knew it, we were sharing things with each other that not even our best friends knew about us. And to make a long story short, we became more than friends, though we never really entered into a real relationship. We had fun doing the things that lovers do.

Of course, we both had our issues. Her friends did not want me anywhere near her. Her traditional Chinese mother had a problem with her daughter dating a non-Chinese Filipino, or Hua Na, as they called us. She herself had problems trusting other people, and she did not want to make a commitment.

I had the usual problems guys have, principally moodiness and other little things.

But for the most part, we were happy. We overcame most of our problems and found ourselves enjoying every minute we were spending together.

She pushed me to perform a lot better in school. She even went to the extent of helping me with my final thesis.

I was so amazed by her drive to make something out of herself, too. She wanted to become a lawyer and at the same time a respected journalist. In fact, when the job-hunting season came around last month, she asked me to accompany her to every newspaper office in Metro Manila to look for a decent place to work.

For months we soldiered on despite the obstacles and irritants in our relationship. We thought that our “you and me against the world” attitude would work for us forever. She and I had our entire future planned ahead of us and we could not be more excited for it.

But while most fairy tales end with the lovers living “happily ever after,” we found out the hard way that this cliché very seldom happens in real life. Recently, we had a little fight that turned into a huge one. We had a little misunderstanding, and as fast as we had gotten together, we found ourselves parting ways.

It is hard to describe how something like that feels. It weighs one down a whole lot. And as if the pressure of having to find work right after graduation so that I would not be bumming around our house was not enough, I now have to bear the pain of losing someone. It happens all the time, I know, but I can’t really get used to the feeling. It seems to just get worse and worse as each day goes by.

But even if I was devastated by the ending of what was a beautiful love affair, I really have no choice but to move on. I would be lying if I said that I have gotten over her. That is probably why I hope our paths will cross again someday when we are both mature enough to be in the kind of relationship we had planned for ourselves.

But despite everything, I am truly thankful that I was able to spend some time with her. She taught me discipline and perseverance, which a year of CAT and another of ROTC training never gave me. She found me when I was at a most confusing stage in life and because of her I am now convinced that I am headed in the right direction. At the very least, she gave me direction when I had none at all.

Now, as I count the days to my graduation—our graduation—I know that I learned something most other graduates did not. Which is that love can be painful, but it oftentimes brings the most wonderful gifts. For me, it was a sense of purpose, a sense of hope and a sense of godliness. And it began with a simple question asked by a mere acquaintance through a text message.

They do not tell you this during your first class in college, but most of what you’ll learn and the most important things you’ll learn may not come from a classroom or a laboratory.

Noah Paolo T. Rivera, 20, finished Journalism at the University of Santo Tomas.