Falling (in Love) and Not Breaking

How Love Found Me Part 3 (Final):

Falling (in Love) and Not Breaking

“Why do we fall in love?” Is it even the proper way to say it when you feel like you are starting to catch feelings for someone? I mean, you “catch” feelings before you totally “fall in love”. It’s like risking to run and catch a butterfly you just saw and fancied, when you obviously know you’d be falling hard and hurt yourself afterwards.

You catch feelings after knowing them for some time, or even not knowing them personally at all. You just simply “liked” them at first (in different aspects, of course) and days will pass by after encountering or unexpectedly drawing connections with them for a couple of times, you find yourself fancying them more than you thought you would.

“Fall?” Is it valid? Is it the right word to describe it? Maybe it is, perhaps for some people I know.

Everything that falls, breaks. We “fall”, and “break apart”. We “fall”, risking it all, knowing we will get hurt at some point, facing the consequences of risking our feelings for someone after the great fall.

It only takes a lot of deep connection, comprehension and commitment to “fall” and “not break”. It is a rare case, and my own experience is probably the rarest I have ever risked my whole life.

I have known this man for approximately over three years now. I am not personally close to him and all I knew at first was his first name when I was on 11th Grade (back in 2018) after I encountered him and his group of friends on the lobby of the 3rd (or 4th floor) of our campus building. They were talking and laugh loud about something and they were wearing college uniforms so I quickly assumed that they are college students (obviously). One friend of him called, shouting his name “Kit!” making him look back in response and approached the same group and laughed again. I was only a few meters away from them and a little farther away from the room I am about to enter, but my whole system stopped, that I even forgot why am I even there and what I have gone there for. I became blank and felt embarrassed after seeing him again and finally knowing his damn name I never got when he helped me enroll for Senior High School. I stepped back for a moment and finally retreated to pass by them. That’s it. Just his first name.

It was January 10, 2020 when I finally got to know his surname after the College Department’s Volleyball Competition, three months before I get to graduate from Senior High School. I searched up the only first name I knew about him and added the same surname I saw at the back of his jersey.

I am now looking back at it and I can’t help but to laugh at how stupid I might have been for doing it.

I was surprised to see he had the same second name as my older brother. I fearlessly sent a friend request on Facebook on that same morning. It was not a big deal for me at all. I just want to be friends with him and sincerely thank him soon for helping me out in enrolling when I was about to enter the institution I am happily in right now. We are studying on the same school and I am about to enter the same college department he is currently in. I know he won’t mind but I was not really expecting him to respond so fast. He eventually accepted my friend request that same day and we finally became friends on social media. I knew it was him. The same nerdy-looking guy I met over three years ago. I was so happy to be finally getting his name. Until then I realized I am having a big crush on this dude.

After being social media friends, pandemic and lockdown hit a few months after it so there were obviously no face-to-face classes for everyone on the following school year. This January 2021, I have been seeing a lot of his shared post on Facebook, so as a loyal reactor, I keep on reacting everything that’s passing by my feeds. I didn’t knew I was too obvious at that time. He even followed me first on IG and I thought I was dreaming, I was so high that I almost lost my voice. I can’t speak straight and my knees were trembling just like how it felt like when I sent him the confession I made on-the-spot as the calendar fell on February 4, 2021.

We ended up chatting after that day. I really thought he didn’t knew me but to my surprise, I was a familiar person on his eyes. I mean, he said he would always see me shouting my Cluster name every competition since I was a Cluster officer and that really hit me. He knew me as that same clueless girl he helped to get enrolled on the SHS department back in 2018 and I look like a fool sending a confession out of the blue. What the hell am I doing?

I started telling my friends about him after sharing conversations for days. They have warned me not to get my hopes up and some even told me not to continue talking to him. They knew I was a perfectionist and after talking personal stuffs with him, I can’t help myself but to literally get my hopes and standards up because of him. He seems to be a responsible person, a man of few words, a very well-oriented and level-headed person but very quirky, fun and loyal with his friends and classmates… a total opposite of me. My friends reminded me I might get hurt since he never talked about the confession I sent him, nor talking about his response or what he thinks of me. I knew I will be friend-zoned after a few days, but damn it, I was wrong.

We kept talking and weeks after, we started video calling and slowly became too close that we even share some of our family problems with each other. I even get to unexpectedly breakdown talking about my biggest trauma in life. That was a total turn-off… I think? It felt surreal, to be honest. I was just looking at this man from afar a year ago, and now, we’re actually having so many personal conversations.

I thank God for giving me the talent in writing down and expressing how I feel about someone when I can’t find the right words to say. We ended up becoming good friends and finally got the chance to meet face-to-face last February 28, 2021, a week after our 2nd Semester Prelim exams.

First meeting, first smiles, first hug from him, first face-to-face “Hi's”, first laughter together. I was in awe and I nearly dropped a tear after he went out from their car and hugged me first thing. And how in the world I got the courage to hold his hand first for the first time? Clearly I made the first move and I have never hesitated nor doubted what I feel for him. I knew I was being just plain fearless. I have nothing to lose at all and I am literally risking my own feelings for a man this far when I was left lonely the whole 2020. I thought I’d never get the chance to be in love again but he was a total game changer – a plain hope and light for my lonely heart.

A month after that first meeting, we became official. How fast could it get when two hearts, in the midst of a long-distance relationship and pandemic, starts bravely like this? He is the biggest plot twist of my 2021. I started my 20s with him and still eagerly planning to finish nursing school together and get to our 30s successfully.

Now we’re past our 4th month and we’re legally dating after meeting each other’s closest family members. Some things never really change after that span of time. We still treat each other the way we do it after we started. The feelings are just growing and never fading and we are determined to overcome every challenges we face.

We had a couple of minor misunderstandings but fixing it was never been difficult for us. We hear each other’s side and we try to meet in the middle of the argument so there would be no pointless talks about it.

We fight, we fix, and we learn.

LDR is hard, and so living with this kind of relationship, both parties must have a strong mind to accept the fact that not every day would be a nice day as a couple.

It is already past the middle of 2021 and I guess for me, falling in love first, will never always mean breaking apart after the great fall. Some things are just meant to fall into places and not fall apart. I fell hard on someone I never thought would be ready to catch me and dive deeper in life and love with me. It might seem like a dream but yes, we made it.

We’re a living proof that not everything that falls, breaks.

This is basically everything I’ve been thinking about for over a few nights after finishing my summer class so I started writing it down as I haven’t posted an article for a couple days now. My sincere apologies if there may be some typographical errors.

Disclaimer, this is from my own perspective and experience, if you may have read something that offended you or was not favorable on your perspective, I advise you to leave the article away and not write something rude on the comment section. Thank you~