I Got The Boy, She Got The Man

“I’m happy for you, and that’s the reality of it”

I spent months thinking about how perfectly happy you are with your new-found love. Photos of you romantically being together got me doubting whether it was really love that we had before. Mutual friends of ours telling me you’ve changed now that you are with her got me thinking if our years of being together were just a practice for you to be better in handling a relationship. Seeing you that grown up now makes me wonder how much of my presence in your life before has contributed to who you are now.

I saw your picture in formal long sleeves with a nice tux swinging around your shoulders and your hair in a perfectly clean-cut. I can only imagine how you open the front seat door for her as you drive her to a fancy restaurant. Then I remember the time when you’d dress for a basketball or football game we’d watch together: oversized T-shirt, ripped jeans, your favorite pair of converse sneakers, and your unruly hair in all directions. After the hyped game, we’d end the date with an endless walk and talk around the city while we search for budget-saver foods. The fearless and young past, along with my racing heart makes me feel like today’s reality is a different world.

Friends say you’re a lot calmer than before. More focus on her alone. That you’d rather not comment on something that still has no final conclusion. I laugh and thought about how we dealt with our childish fights before, how you resorted to a remedy that will just worsen things, all the heart-breaking revelations, and how harsh we’d throw words at each other. Seems like you managed to give her a cool head while I got the bad-tempered you. Nevertheless, it made me see clearer the real you and if it’s true that you’ve changed and you’ve matured, I hope you’ll keep it up.

I see you living your life now with a stable job. You wait to spend the end of the day with her after a busy day at work and it brings me back to the day when we hugged tight after our graduation rites with the tassels of our caps blocking our faces. We were so happy we made it together, thinking we’re one step closer to our dreams.  Never have we thought about us coming to a doom.

Now, she has the diamond ring, it marks an end to your search for a career and a beginning of a new chapter in your life. Me, on the other side, got the class ring and I’m happy I was with you in the beginning of your journey that leads you to where you are now.

I shouldn’t be questioning if it was love that we had because even if we were just kids at that time, there’s no doubt in my mind that we were there, we were in love.

Each love is unique. What you have now with her is totally different with what you have with me before. I don’t think there is a need to compare us. I can’t replicate how much of a man he makes you feel now. Neither can I be the type of girl you can see your future with. On the other hand, she can’t also replace the feeling of young love that we had since we only got the chance to be that age once. All the innocence and initial discovery of things that we had summed up to a nostalgic love that is preserved in time. Something that neither of us can touch. We are different and we each got something that the other will never have.

My memories with the boy in you will always make me smile, thanks for both the experience and the lessons. She’s lucky to have you as a man and I am happy for the both of you — I mean it.

While I say that ‘I got the boy, she got the man,’ I know someday, the same lines will be said to me by another girl pertaining to the right man destined for the woman I’ve become.