Tuesday Hero

No relationship is perfect. If it is, then it is "not one of life," as my boyfriend would say. During those never ending overly corny note exchanges between me and him, there was a point where he once described our relationship as real because it has ups and downs. This guy with a nice set of abs even told me that he's glad that our relationship isn't all just about being mushy and lovey dove like how I wanted it to be. What a jerk, or so I thought, wanting us to be in trouble most of the time.

But he is right. The only relationship with no problems is the one regarding puppy love, or crushes with mutual understanding with each other. Sometimes I wish I could go back in that time when relationships are like that ---no headaches, no heartaches, no problem, but sadly also no reason for growth. It's like eating junk food: it is spoiling your taste buds with bursting amazing flavors that keep you salivating for more, but you get no nutrients in return.

However, I would like to minimize the down times as much as possible, honestly. It's not good for the heart nor for my eyes, nor my calorie budget allocated for extra pints of Ben & Jerry's or Talenti.

If I were to describe our relationship, I would say it's like riding in a roller coaster. Heck, it's worse than having Premenstrual Syndrome with nasty mood swings taking over all over the place. You are not you anymore; you are now possessed by a crazy menopausal old lady who owns 12 cats, unable to manage intense humanly feelings and attention given by another equally crazy and grumpy widowed old man living across the street. You feel the differences in your personalities and how each one accepts and shows love, misunderstandings are lurking from the ground waiting to be unearthed, and classic relationship problems are smirking directly at you waiting for you to take wrong steps to finally fall in the black deep pit.

Sometimes, it is actually tiring and makes me feel like giving up when I have reached certain threshold in what I call "The Bullshit-parameter," a topic that I will be discussing next time.

Now, given all the troubles and headaches, why exactly do I consider this relationship special? The answer is really simple: within the end phase of an argument, after all have been said and done, one of us still manage to crack a joke while the another laugh at it. 

There is this mystical thing that somehow momentarily cools our heads off. It is not really a long span of time, but it's enough to for me to contemplate whether I would actually let the relationship go downhill just because of some stupid misunderstanding that can be fixed through compromising. Those couple of seconds are enough for me to actually step back and consider his point of view in order to see the whole picture. Sometimes, I get too caught up in myself and doing all these complaining and self-insisted monologues during an argument that I forgot to actually hear where he is coming from. I am not sure whether he is using those light-hearted breaks to do the same as well, however.

When I received his last message last night, that's when it occurred to me how he could still say the words "I love you" and remind me about his feelings, despite me and him arguing for more than a whole day, and giving him awful headaches throughout the day. I just cannot help but to fall for him even more whenever he does that and respect him for being an awesome boyfriend.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that he was right at doing those things that got us into a deep shit-hole of arguments, but I applaud him at the fact that, at the end of the day, he still remembers that he loves me despite all of those cat-and-dog fighting that we did. This gesture is special enough for me, because it means that he values our relationship and tries to keep it intact especially in times of having shaky grounds.

Also, whenever I'm upset and having issues, he makes sure to call me and talk to me about things no matter what time it is and no matter how long it would take. We were arguing since in the wee hours of the night till half of the following day. He is that guy who would sit down and talk to you face to face until you guys have heard both sides and until you guys have reached to a solution. Until then, he would be patiently argue with you and knock some sense in your head, the same way you knock some sense in his head as well.

 He got my respect on this one because when I met him, I know that he's used to applying "time-out" strategies and come back after cooling off. I, on the other hand, is not like that. If I walk out in the middle of the heat of an argument, I will sort out my own thing, but when I come back to you, I wont be arguing anymore. Once I slide the issue off however, it will keep piling at the back of my head then pull everything up when I encounter a precursor that triggers me to remember it. I can only slide the issue so many times. After that, I'm fiercer and definitely not up for any compromises but only ultimatums. I'd rather fix everything now then completely forgive and forget, than to momentarily forget without forgiveness. Remember, a dormant disease fights you back more horribly.

Honestly, being in a relationship is a very complicated thing. You hate the person so much then love them after that. It's like you want them to throw them at the cliff, only to come rushing at the bottom to catch them afterwards.