December 6, 2020. After I've posted my final article of the 4 part series about the Miracle of Hanoi, I had a chat with my ex-girlfriend and remembered today our anniversary back then. We're good friends now, although our break-up didn't end nicely. Another twist is, she is a transgender. Yes! I fell in love with a transgender. To define what this word means, a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their gender.
In Filipino Mythology, Lakapati was the goddess of fertility, the most understanding, and kind of all deities. A hermaphrodite, combined both male and female genitals which symbolizes balance. She was married to Mapulon, the god of health, and manipulates the weather to grow herbs and give it to the sick. Their marriage was symbolic as it referred to a mutual bond between 2 parties regardless of their gender, which was a common and acceptable practice at that time. They had a daughter, Anagolay, the goddess of lost things.
Only a few Filipinos knew about our Mythologies and Legends and I just discovered this by accident a few days ago. When it comes to the LGBT+ community, the Philippines is no longer exception since the country is known for being LGBT friendly. With my experience, back as a kid, I used to hate them, and as I grew older I truly understand why did they chose this from their entire life but made a big contribution even if they were disliked by other people and as a curse to society. To the BPO industry, they're everywhere and I got infected by a few of their words every single day.
5 years ago, I had my first job, the financial freedom where I purchased the things I wanted, go anywhere I want, and learned to save if something would go wrong along the way. If I would recall, on the silent night of September, I'm now a full-time employee of ePerformax. I took my lunch break, then my cousin was on the other side of the road. I saw her lanyard and taking her training with the academy. She's also taking her lunch break, had a short conversation until we both saw this slim, tall beautiful woman. I cannot remember the exact words my cousin told about her, but it was about what if she'll be my girlfriend. 2 months later, our paths crossed once more, the tall Morena (translates to tanned brunette women from the Philippines) I've encountered with my cousin is now part of our team.
Her name was Carlota, and how did I meet her? I was sitting next to her on our station near the program director's cubicle. She was approachable at first, then we had a chat while we're working. To appreciate her beauty, I surprised her by giving a Kit-Kat underneath her scarf. Only to find out that she was a transgender. We became close, I would help her out most of the time, we would take our cigarette break for 15 minutes, same as goes for our lunch break. She was my date on the night of December 5, 2015, which was our Christmas Party. We spend the following night just the two of us, then confessed to each other and became a couple. She was my second girlfriend.
Now that my whole life is in a full circle, my co-workers knew about it and we were a power couple around the workplace. In the outside world, my family didn't know about this until they soon find out. It was an on and off relationship for the last 3 years, break-up after break-up, but my mind and soul tells me that I still love her. Until, I decided to break up with her, leave the company for good, move forward, and never look back.
If Mapulon courted Lakapati for hundreds of years, then got married and had a daughter. On the side of my story, I got her sweet yes for weeks but she wasn't meant for me as her future wife and create the family I wanted. After I left the company, I became a freelancer working for Remotasks as a LiDAR Reviewer and photographer for Pinoyfootball.com covering the Philam Life 7s Football League, then went to learn coding again at Zuitt (formerly Tuitt) Coding Bootcamp for 3 months so I can move on and carve a different path of my own, but it didn't work, and eventually went back to the BPO industry working for a different company - Teleperformance. The reason why we break up is this. Fast forward to the current situation, back in May, someone sent me a private message during my lunch break.
I replied a day after, "I'm sorry... but who are you?" Then she replied 2 days after.
The moment I read her message, the memories came back. Were we still in the middle of the pandemic, then this happened? I was about to lose my focus and seek help from my friends. I didn't have a choice, but to reply to her after my shift.
I was in tears after I did that since all of the memories came back to me. Hate, Anger, and Vengeance clouded my mind which would lead me to the dark side. I felt the weight of my shoulders was lessen because of the advice given by one of my friends.
The things that I learned from our relationship is, get to know more about your significant other because I was rushing and immature at that time, accept the fact of who we are, be faithful, don't rush, and fight for our right as a couple instead of hiding her from my family. One way to finish this post, I shared this on my timeline this year of February.
To my friends of setting up their female friends to me as an acquaintance, here's one piece of advice from my idol Phil Collins.
