Looking at all these developments from the perspective of Donna from last year, I’d go, “WTF. What happened???”
And also: “Who is Pio? How could Snake do that? Why is your hair still the same length? You listen to weird music.” and etc.
But most importantly, “Why don’t you trust easily anymore? ”
The present would seem strange and foreign. Just like the way French sounds to me. Just like Pio’s curly hair. Just like Wo Qui Non Coin or Ray Gun or the songs that replaced my life soundtrack.
All strangely attractive, but foreign to last year’s version of me. I was so used to being an eternal student, having braces, wishing that Snake wouldn’t work out because he seems unreliable but cancelling those feelings because his effort to be with me blew me away. Pio is his opposite, except that I can share with him much better. It’s like the shift from Japanese to French in this song. It transitioned “seamlessly” on the surface, but I was in shambles, putting on a brave front, before Pio loved me and after Snake betrayed me. The French part is cuter (the song and its meaning for me), but the first part needed to give way to it. I wonder what I’d be like to Pio had Snake never happened. I wanted to be all #yolo and crazy, to kill my usual timid self. Snake said I never took risks, knowing that he was one. So 1st sem, 4th year. I got a couple of my blockmates to go with me to Intersection, part of my Ateneo bucket list.
When we got there, we ordered food and beer. Some girl threw her shoes at the guy she was fighting with and stormed out. We played beer pong then a guy approaches us and shares stories with us. He said he was surprised that I was not used to the drama, and that I looked like a party type of girl. I came home that night smelling like I bathed in yosi and beer, even though I didn’t smoke at all. Nothing dramatic happened but I felt elated as I went home, knowing that I was making new memories in new places. I liked the feeling that I pushed for it to happen, going out with my blockies to a place we would never normally eat in. It was new, foreign and strange. I haven’t gone there again though. What I gained from it was the shedding of my shyness and my “scared to ask people for what I want” disposition. This was the way I asked Pio to party with me a couple of months after that. No hinting, “beating around the bush” type of strategies anymore.
I didn’t really analyze WHY I had asked Pio the moment before I did. Now that I think back on it, he was very attractive to me in the same strange and foreign way that I found the experiences above as exciting. Pio is reserved and quiet but I knew he had the spontaneous/adventurous spirit like me. Also, I knew he would be fun to be with since we were both random in a unique category that I can’t identify what exactly. I didn’t overtly plan romance to happen but I think that time, I hoped that we would at least be the very best of friends. That night was easily one of the happiest, most spontaneous night I pushed for to happen. It’s not in me to ask a friend I only knew for 2 months to party with me and be an unfiltered version of myself to, with the senseless blabbing and weird habits.
Falling in love with Pio is the strangest, most foreign yet beautiful story I have. Yes, I’m aware I’ve used those adjectives again and again but I don’t care. I want to continue the story all the way through. Just like how I picked German for FLC because it sounded alluring to me, when I think about it, even that decision made a big splash. There were a lot of tiny decisions that led to our story, and both of us had a lot of those factors. It’s scary how if one of those minute decisions were different, it would prevent me from meeting and being with him. We met the night following that morning I said goodbye to Snake, which was June 10, 2013, which is, like he said, a plotline for a guilty-pleasure drama series. No idea how important he was going to be to me later on. Cliche but life can sometimes teach us how grand it is by putting so many coincidences together.
Now I can’t wish bad things never happened to me. I think they happen to unveil grander things, like a curtain unveiling a bigger picture while you were focussing on the darkest part of it. And as I learned to take in the Strange New World I live in now, I learned to appreciate and live a life without saying no to character-developing experiences.
Pio is my life lesson that I wish for, 100%, no “cancel it because of anything”, who I want to learn it with. My path led me to him but I also chose the random events that would bring us together, both destiny and choice. I love him, and this time it’ll be peaceful, not turbulent and full of doubt like my past. Pio is my peace, and my happy place is right there on his chest where I lay my head and we hug.
