One of my most popular posts is Wandering Around the Philippines with a Broken Heart. While I sometimes feel remorseful for sharing my emotions to a worldwide audience, I still commend myself for being brave enough to recount what happened. Back then, I took it that I was ready to move on. Now that I’ve healed through time, I’m ready to share a story once again—this time on my healing and letting go. Read more…
Even if I am honestly not a devout Catholic, I always say that I am indebted to the Sto. Nino de Cebu. His miraculous cause did not give me the happy ending I had intended—that is for us to come back together—but He kept me strong by my faith in Him. I don’t think I’d be able to write this piece sans hope and faith, because let’s say in 2010, I was most vulnerable. I was irrationally in love, only to be left by someone whom I thought was the one.
I have no idea whether it was by fate or by design that the air tickets I previously booked way earlier had a stop in Cebu, and so every time I would stop there, I would brave the intense Cebu heat and take the jeepney to the Basilica Minore del Santo Nino. It was my routine that I didn’t mind doing, perhaps as a form of sacrifice to the one I cared so much about but hurt me in the end.
Kneeling and tears rushing down my cheeks, I painfully asked Sto. Nino de Cebu to rekindle lost love. In retrospect, I was apparently willing to do anything to make the wrong person come back. Months passed however; the pain didn’t stop. Everything in my life was in disarray, and I was clinging onto a pinch of hope that dissipated little by little.
My road to moving on was long and winding, and unfortunately, along the way were even more hardships that burdened me to wit’s end. Miraculously though, time, hope, and faith healed the deep-cut wounds in my heart. Yes, it was young love that I really had no regrets about. I may have been madly in love and bruised very badly, but I kept moving on. I have to; there’s more life to live for a young guy like me.
I took healing day by day, fervently praying that my broken heart be mended for it to be whole again, for me to be ready to fall in love again. With every city and province I’ve visited, I took the time to heal and tell myself life is beautiful and worth living. Back then, travel was my way to move on and regard yesterday as a bittersweet learning experience.
After a year in my life and after all the miles I’ve traveled, there I was again right where I was standing the year prior—at the Basilica Minore del Santo Nino. It was October 24th, and there was a glow in me that I’m fairly certain was a glow of inspiration. I was smiling, and I was thankful to Sto. Nino for carrying and strengthening me when I was at my lowest.
And there I was, ready to give my all to someone again, ready to take a leap of faith again, ready to fall in love fully again.
