He’s getting married

He is getting married. I am so excited for this road he has chosen to take.

We have rekindled our friendship some two, maybe three years back. I only met him once during those years, when I flew to Manila for a short visit. He indulged in fetching me at the airport, taking me to my cousin’s boarding house where I stayed, and meeting up with our other old friend for lunch in a popular fast-food joint in Libertad. Since then we only talked on Facebook, or through text, very seldom in phone calls. The last time I heard his voice was when he called me up weeks after Supertyphoon “Yolanda” hit the country. He was worried about my whereabouts. His mom was too.

To be honest, the idea of him getting hitched never struck my mind. During our heyday, we got into a rather strange, unlabeled setup that’s a cross between friends with benefits and the conventional boyfriend-girlfriend couple. I could say we loved each other, but love has its own eccentricities not everybody can understand, much more define. Maybe we were in that state. We did talk about a future together, but walking down the aisle was a topic parked in the back of our heads. I don’t really know why, but on my end, I never imagined meeting him at the altar one day. I don’t know his thoughts about this, though.

We were in that state for almost two years, until our feelings for each other went sour. Then we parted noisily, with anger and hatred doing most of the dirty work. One night we sat down and talked about what had happened; I said I could no longer continue and that I don’t want to see him for a very long time. Looking back now, five years was not much of a long time, but rather just enough for my wounds (which I charged against him) to heal. And I am happy to have maxed out those five years.

He has this attitude of not talking to me whenever he is in a relationship. And yes, the last I heard of him was in March, I think after our respective birthdays. He is already in a relationship with a new girl, and by the looks of their photos on Facebook, they seem to be the sweetest, albeit cheesiest, lovebirds ever. He also seemed to have tamed down; the sarcasm in his eyes were no longer there, nor was his aura of angst that resonated in his half-done smiles. I can’t really tell if he has indeed changed; my observations come mostly from the photos I’ve seen.

His mother said he proposed to his girlfriend just a few weeks ago. Well, I was surprised, but in a good way. I never saw him to be a person with a sense of commitment, much more the type who would go down on his knees and ask a girl for her hand in marriage. I guess now he is not only serious with the girl he is in a relationship with; more than anything else, maybe he is all ready to finally settle down.

I am smiling as I write this. A decade ago, when we first started out as a pseudo-couple, I once told him that one day we’d be just the kind of super-friends living their separate lives yet are so happy and excited for each other when one hits a life milestone. And yes, if ever he reads this, I’m doing that right now. I’m so happy and excited. Maybe all this time, I have just been waiting for him to reach this. And I can’t wait until he finally ties the knot.

I do not regret that decade we have been through—from friends to a romantic pseudo-couple to bickering pseudo-exes to silent warriors to friends again. Fate definitely took its course, and I’m glad we let it through in our own separate ways.

He is getting married. And that for me is the best news ever.

Fae Cheska Marie Esperas, 29, is currently relearning the ropes of being single. She works as a monitoring and evaluation assistant for a recovery project of Community and Family Services International and is currently based in Zamboanga City.

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