Boulevard

I really can’t deny that nature has a very great power over our emotion. For somehow the wide sea and the glorious sunset can ease all the pressures and stress installed in my system after a very tiresome day working. The awesome sight of the Boulevard refreshes my system. The place was just few meters away from my place.
Going in picturesque places like the Boulevard is not only a relaxing hobby but also a big help for my job as a writer. I’ve been a creative writer for 4 years. Most of my subject circulates on the cycle of life and love, a mixture of realism and romanticism. It’s easier to work outside than in a four- sided room. The outside world allows me to view life in general; it’s like a picture that shows how our life and society moves.
The Boulevard had carved some things in my life. Although it reveals beauteous things that make me feel nice, but for some reasons staying in that place brings back something from my past that I decided to burry forever. The place makes me recall it and it brought a mixed feelings of sadness and joy. The powerful waves of the sea slaps it to my face like a cold water that brings me coldness I’ve been fighting for a very long time. Yet the thought that I have found a very beautiful thing in that place dries all the raindrops that had been showering my soul.
It was in the midst of summer, four years ago when I met him. We were both students from one university. He was very good in numbers that’s why he took up chemical engineering while I love writing that I took up Journalism. I don’t know how he had entered my close world… I refused to socialize and make a lot of friends. I have reasons why I was so aloof and defensive.
Past had not been so pleasing to me. It made me isolated and insecure so badly. I have inculcated in my mind from the start that I should work harder for myself because I don’t want another worst life to live. At least I have the will of making changes in my life and building a good family that my parents failed to do for me.
I firmly do not want to follow the chaotic path my family took. I worked hard for my studies; my world was school and home. The Boulevard had been my comforting zone during my adolescent life when everything seemed to be appalling while writing had let me screamed cried all the hatred and pain inside me.
One quiet 5:30 at the Boulevard, while I was waiting for the sunset a happy family took my attention. I wished it was my family…pain had stricken me, it was unbearable and I did not notice that I was already crying. After a year of keeping all those tears for a family that was broken, suddenly it all burst out. I haven’t noticed that someone was watching me. I automatically weep out when I heard someone spoke at my back and offer a handkerchief. It was him and that was our first meeting.
I easily got up to my feet ashamed that someone has been observing me. I carefully studied him. Maybe he was thinking I’m a fool crying under the tree. And his stare drove me into a sudden reaction. I was never used to strangers, I stepped backward and run to the gate. When I got home I haven’t forgotten the man and his stare, there was something in his stare that I wished not to see him again. A warning burst out from my cold mind and told myself to sank down the strange thing that aroused in my other side. Momentarily I hated him for intervening my world but his expressive eyes somehow drained it all away and it scared me a little.
The next day, I wasn’t able to get inside the school because I dropped my ID somewhere. That afternoon I decided to take a walk to the Boulevard, taking chances that I’d find my ID again. Someone was in the place where I use to spend most of my afternoons. It was him again. I wanted to run but I don’t want him to think I am stupid so I just talked to him.
“ Hi, you ran away last day I just want know your name but you ran away”
There was a sudden rush in my face, realizing how foolish I was with what I did.
“My name is Mark may I ask what’s yours?” I was blushing and sucked inside. I was so shy that I turned my back on him. I was few feet away from him when he called back.
“Hey I just want know you Meredith.” Hearing that he knows my name made me stopped and looked back. He ran after me. I gave him a quizzical look.
“Well your probably wondering why I know your name, Meredith right?” I just gave him a nod. He told me he got my ID that I accidentally dropped. I thank him, but he did not give it back until all his questions were answered. He got my name and address since there was no way of denying it because he got my Id. That day ended thinking we will not meet again yet fate had played on me.
He once went to my place and it was followed many times. No matter how I have been hard on him, he never stopped going into my place. He talked to me even if I don’t answer and walk with me in silence. I eventually lost hope of getting rid of him. He was irksomely persistent.
One day I was on a grocery store and paying my goods when I found out that I lost my wallet, then someone from my back spoke up and told the cashier he’ll take my bill. It was a familiar voice and I was right it was him again. That time I was not irritated with his presence but thankful of what he did. We became friends and do some activities together. We go out together, laugh together and watch the sunset in the Boulevard together. He was my first close friend. He had completely entered into my life. Until one day after attending a mass together, he started to be more than just a friend. The cold chain started to ripped me again… It pulled me away from him. Day by day he stayed with me and the chain continued ripping my heart that sometimes I can’t breath anymore. It seemed that the more he tried to made me realize he wanted more that just friendship, all my ghosts and nightmares are coming back and pulling me away from him. I was like hearing a lame voice from the deepest part of my mind shouting one thing. It floats like millions of stars in the sky, like an endless darkness, like a horizon that divides my heart, and like a knife that cuts my soul… It was bringing awful things from my past that I thought I have forgotten already… I came from a broken family. My parents broke up when I was ten. I already know how to be hurt that time. I already know the concept of good family who stays together. I never wanted to be left out I was young to face all those hurtful things, to face the reality of loosing my family. My father had another woman. I can still recall all the traumatic scenes in our house. There was no quiet moment; My mother would always shout to my father and my father would always slap my mother. I always saw mama crying. Sometimes I have to cover my ears with my pillows so I will not hear all their fights. I always cry and no one was there to explain never had a home what was happening. I was alone, asking things that I don’t clearly understand. They did not break easily, mama tried to hold on but one day she was just gone. My father said she left because she never cared. I have experienced everything that a young child is not supposed to experienced. It hurt me very much. I celebrated my birthday alone; I attended meetings in school for my own. When I reached high school my mother came back. She wanted me to stay with her but my father disagreed so I decided to live in my own with the financial support they sent me. It was not hard for me to live alone since I grew up alone.
I have lived a shattered life; hope, dream, home and it scarred me deeply. It planted inside me the fear of being close to somebody, of loving somebody just to be hurt, just to experience the way my parents experienced.
I don’t want to be hurt anymore. There is something inside of me that prevails whenever people try to unclothe my emotions. It’s like a cold chain that holds me tightly from falling down to lonesome sonata and feelings that my family had planted inside me. It has crept into my mind, my soul and in every inch of my heart. It’s the feeling that everyone’s wanted to avoid, the feeling of getting hurt.
Perhaps they were right, all my feelings had been embedded because of the fear that my family had injected on me.
Maybe Eric Erickson’s theory was right; “ Any conflict not solved will just rise and rise no matter how you escape it. “ It’s like a ghost that hunts me every night and I never wanted it to be chasing and slowly killing me by pain.
Mark courted me and I tried to shove him away, he was persistent he did not stopped easily. I was afraid because the cold chain is loosing up. And I should not let it happen. So two days after the formal receiving of our diploma I ended up everything. That evening the pain was blatant in Mark’s eyes and somehow the goodbye I uttered had also killed me that night. The expression of pain in Mark’s eyes was almost the same pain I felt when I lost a home, when I decided to let love go and be caged in a cold world for a very long time. I never mind that common feeling that felt during my last goodbye to Mark. I was still convincing my self that I must stay as I was, no Mark, no pain. Few days after that night I heard that mark went to Manila. It told me one clear thing that I will never see him again, and something hit my heart, it’s more painful than before, it was very painful all this time. I’ve been protecting myself from getting hurt, from being shattered, not knowing that caging myself and letting fear of being hurt ruled my heart would hurt me more. I was so coward, coward to take chances, but nobody can’t blame me. It was not easy to eradicate anything instilled in your mind and heart.
I have made a painful mistake and how I wish I could retrieve it but maybe I needed it to wake up from all the sad things I have been living with.I should learn to let go and free the most wonderful thing I have been keeping, I should again love and beloved.
Perhaps mark would be my sweet reminder of how nice to live with love. Now I know but it’s too late.
The sunset was beautiful. It brings warmth to my soul that had been cold for a long time. And it feels good. I got up from the soft grass where I sit and decided to fold my old life that was full of attritions and fear. I walk lightly to the gate a feeling of being free, and then a voice from my back shook my whole senses, a familiar voice that I have never forgotten.
‘I was right to look for you here; you are so beautiful Meredith. Did you know that there were no nights that I don’t think of you? Your memory had been always in my heart telling I should fight for you, even if it means that I have to fight the inner you.”
That moment I freed the things that I should have said before. The Boulevard was covered with the red rays of the sun. It was the sunset again, another meaningful sunset.