If I Had Not Met You

Here are some of the film photographs he took as we near the last days of our college senior year.

If I had not met you, I wouldn’t smile like this, despite all things and everything that is not always wonderful. My everydays are extra special, I’m always excited to go to school, like the little kid I was back then when my socks are high on my knees. I’ve always liked school because I have this nerd in me who always wants to learn and be amazed on the existing things I do not know. You were one of those things I do not know before. Now that I know you, I am in awe of how great you are, as a person and as a truth, and how much of “us” works.

If I had not met you, I do not know what it would feel like to feel the way I feel today, I could not even express how I feel. All I know is I am constantly moved by your actions to do something that is beyond me, to better myself in all sense possible because you make me feel I can, and I am destined to do it, like I’m the only one who must do it. In short, I feel super. I’ve always been a conceited person because I’m a spoiled daughter who was raised to be a winner. But I’m not always my best self, there are times that I doubt. Of course I pray, but God wouldn’t descend from heaven just to remind me, nor would my guardian angel blow his/her cover and show his/herself to me just to remind me I’m not a loser, I’m not always with my whole family, so I got you, always. You ground me, root me to my own soil, and nurture me.

If I had not met you, I wouldn’t be assured in the existence of the universe (in a non-scientific way), serendipity, destiny, and all those shits I thought were shits. I wouldn’t believe there is such a thing as love as great as a mother’s or a father’s with a different sense of homeliness, as corny-sounding as a first love. I wouldn’t believe, home can be a person other than the family you have, from a stranger to a lover, to a home, always. I don’t know how I would have survived my college life without you supporting me in every way and all the way. Those photographs you took surprised me, including those in the past, every single one of them for I didn’t see myself in such beautiful ways. I’ve always knew you have different ways of looking at things, because you are such a visual person, you have a lot of alternative lenses. But it’s only now I understood what it really meant, you saw me this way, in a way I never saw myself. In my rawness, you have loved me. I think I’ll never understand why me, at first I’m convinced, “why not me?” but I grew up, you know people mature and finally realize they are not exactly the ideal in their perfectness. But you embraced all of my tantrums, my moodiness, my piercing words, my lateness, my selective immaturity and most of all, my selfishness. It must have something to do with you being Christian but I wouldn’t give too much credit to the religion, you’re a great person in general, must be genetic.

If I had not met you, I wouldn’t have a bestfriend today who I drag along with me to all my misadventures, mischief, and daydreams. That one person I always talk to at the end of the day to talk about things (even though we’re together the whole day), the one I want to be with to new places and restaurants, that one person I’m certain to see and who I want to see tomorrow again and the eternal days that follow. Life is so much better with a companion who gets you, especially your humor, right? I couldn’t be more thankful to find someone as patient as you. You let me be because you understand, you let me grow, you nurture me to grow. You make me feel super, because you are super too! That makes us both super, in our own terms.