Jerusha Meets Jervis

Because we held hands...


Dear Father,

I wish to ask you again. How did you court my mother back then?

Whenever I ask her, she would just go on ranting and tell me that she doesn’t exactly know how the two of you ended up together. I guess she’s still angry at you after all these years. So that’s why I am asking the same question to you, hoping to get an answer.

But I guess you won’t be able to answer it either.

Why do I want to know, you ask?

Well, the truth is, Father, someone finally decided to court your little girl.

Sounds impossible right? It’s been months and I still think that all of this could just be a dream. But it feels nice, Father. For once, someone finally noticed me.

It’s been around 4 months (around a week before Christmas) when I first met him through a common friend. It turns out that he studied in the same university, under the same building, and joined the same school organization (This is a conspiracy. I could feel it.). We, together with my friend and her boyfriend, went to the mall to attend a convention and buy some anime stuff there.

Physically, he was about 2-5 inches taller than me, a bit dark skinned, and has a bigger-than-average body built. (A far cry from my college crush whom I fell for a couple of years back.) He was a really funny and energetic guy, and he kept striking up a conversation with me all night. It felt strange, for me to feel suddenly at ease with a guy whom I just met. And that I enjoyed the whole evening because I was with him.

I really didn’t want to jump into conclusions, like I did before. So I tried not to think too much about him and focused on the activities Christmas had in store for me. It worked, for that moment, but when the New Year arrived, I found myself thinking about him again.

Why am I like this to someone I had just met? I kept asking myself. Nobody answered, of course. But I bet that God was grinning down on me during those days.

Days passed and I went on with life. With my permission, our friend gave him my Yahoo Messenger ID so we could chat online. We began to talk of anime and of Aura Perpetua, which he had started to read after clicking the link on my YM status message.

And the next thing I know, he’s inviting me for a date on Valentines’ Day.

I tried to keep my composure as I typed back my acceptance to his invitation. In my mind, I was dancing in delight. Finally! Finally! Finally! Someone is asking me out for a date! I thought. It was something I’ve always dreamed of doing during Valentines’ Day, and now, because of him, it was coming true.

It was fun while it lasted, Father. I enjoyed three firsts that day. My first ever Valentines’ Day date and my first time to try Ice Skating. We were both novices to Ice Skating and had fun trying to keep our balance and our sanity…

And it was also the first time somebody sang a song dedicated to me.

I really enjoyed that day, Father. It also gave us a chance to know more of each other and find out that we have a lot of things in common. Conversations were endless. And when it was time to go home, he volunteered to accompany me, even if it would mean that he would have to ride an equal distance back.

And since then, we have been keeping our conversation lines open between us.

Well, Father. I guess by now you have guessed that I’m beginning to like this guy.

Truth is…

Yeah. I really like him.

But I haven’t told him that yet. Even if he already told me that he loves me about a hundred times now.

Because I wanted to be really sure, of him, and of my feelings for him.

I don’t want to make the same mistake I did before.

And I don’t want to end up making the same mistake that you and my mother did.

So I guess… those are my reasons why I’m making him wait.

But I hope… I dearly wish… that he would wait.

Because…

It would be all worth it.



I really wish I could see your reaction to this letter right now. If you were like the father in the movies, this would be the point where you would go ballistic and prevent me from seeing him and all that drama.

Actually, I wish that you could meet him as well.

Someday, Father. I know. God will make a way. You will get to meet this person who promised to make my life happy.


Sincerely yours,
Your daughter who has already grown up.

Please Hear What I Am Not Saying

Shh... Listen to what I have to say first.

Please Hear What I'm Not Saying

Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear
for I wear a mask, a thousand masks,
masks that I'm afraid to take off,
and none of them is me.

Pretending is an art that's second nature with me,
but don't be fooled,
for God's sake don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I'm secure,
that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well
as without,
that confidence is my name and coolness my game
that the water's calm and I'm in command
and that I need no one,
but don't believe me.
My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask,
ever-varying and ever-concealing.
Beneath lies no complacence.
Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness.
But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed.
That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,
a nonchalant sophisticated facade,
to help me pretend,
to shield me from the glance that knows.

But such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only hope,
and I know it.
That is, if it's followed by acceptance,
if it's followed by love.
It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself,
from my own self-built prison walls,
from the barriers I so painstakingly erect.
It's the only thing that will assure me
of what I can't assure myself,
that I'm really worth something.
But I don't tell you this. I don't dare to, I'm afraid to.
I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance,
will not be followed by love.
I'm afraid you'll think less of me,
that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.
I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing
and that you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate pretending game,
with a facade of assurance without
and a trembling child within.
So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks,
and my life becomes a front.
I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that's really nothing,
and nothing of what's everything,
of what's crying within me.
So when I'm going through my routine
do not be fooled by what I'm saying.
Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying,
what I'd like to be able to say,
what for survival I need to say,
but what I can't say.

I don't like hiding.
I don't like playing superficial phony games.
I want to stop playing them.
I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me
but you've got to help me.
You've got to hold out your hand
even when that's the last thing I seem to want.
Only you can wipe away from my eyes
the blank stare of the breathing dead.
Only you can call me into aliveness.
Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging,
each time you try to understand because you really care,
my heart begins to grow wings--
very small wings,
very feeble wings,
but wings!

With your power to touch me into feeling
you can breathe life into me.
I want you to know that.
I want you to know how important you are to me,
how you can be a creator--an honest-to-God creator--
of the person that is me
if you choose to.
You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble,
you alone can remove my mask,
you alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic,
from my lonely prison,
if you choose to.
Please choose to.

Do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you.
A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
The nearer you approach to me
the blinder I may strike back.
It's irrational, but despite what the books say about man
often I am irrational.
fight against the very thing I cry out for.
But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls
and in this lies my hope.
Please try to beat down those walls
with firm hands but with gentle hands
for a child is very sensitive.

Who am I, you may wonder?
I am someone you know very well.
For I am every man you meet
and I am every woman you meet.

Written Charles C. Finn on September 1966

** credits to Ms. Euri from Tainted Soul and to Poetry by Charles Finn where this poem was taken from.

Dedicated to the people, friends, and family who had always been there to try to pull me out of the darkness I succumb into. And to that one person who promised to always hold my hand...

These are that things that I am not saying. Thank you for always being there to listen.