Beware The Ides of March

In the Roman calendar, the ides of March falls on the 15th. A day of religious observations, the ides of March achieved notoriety as the date of Julius Caesar’s assassination.

For me, March 15 also marks the day when we met for coffee in Makati after I finished work. That’s when he broached the idea. He initiated it, and I concurred. But because we wanted to make the announcement at the same time on our social media, we had to wait several days after he came back from a scheduled out-of-town trip (he was worried there won’t be a strong 3/4G signal in Marinduque).

Sunday, March 19 would have been our 81st monthsary. Late that evening, he was back in Manila. After a brief coordination over SMS, we synchronized our postings on our Facebook accounts. And on 12:17am of Monday, March 20, the same statement appeared on our respective news feeds:

* * * * *

He told me that back in November 2016, he was already thinking about it. Unfortunately I was on my eighth month of being jobless, and he felt it was too harsh and unkind to leave me at that time (especially with Christmas coming up). Instead, he chose to bear it for the moment.

I accepted an offer to do part-time work for an ad agency in Makati at the start of February 2017. He considered telling me then; however, he realized Valentine’s Day was coming up. So he delayed it again.

March came along, and with it, a new and permanent job for me. I thought, at last! My almost one year hiatus from work has ended. He thought, at last! I can tell him. But then my birthday was coming up, and right after that, his birthday. He decided to tell me after my birthday and prior to his.

I am grateful that he chose to delay talking to me about it, even though he had every right to raise this issue even way back in November last year. More than that, I am grateful for the 6 years and 9 months we were together officially as a couple.

We bonded because it was easy to talk to one another, and we made each other laugh. But I did notice that beginning sometime in November last year, he wasn’t talking much to me, preferring the company of his mobile games. He said he played games to de-stress from work, so I gave him the time and space. But I also noticed that, more and more, he was not listening to me—I’d tell him something, then a few minutes later, he’ll go, “Wait, what was that you said?” I had been meaning to point that out to him. Now I know why.

That’s why when he initiated it—and I could see that he was sure—I didn’t oppose it. It would be selfish of me if I did.

Barely half an hour after we agreed to break up, we were already making jokes about it.

Our lives go on. Life goes on. Live and love, always.

To hon, with much love. 
— Joel