My Heart.....

Does anyone remember the song My Heart by Harriet Schock? Well, probably none of you do, but I'm sure if you're gonna hear it you will surely like the song's haunting melody. It's as if the singer's unrequited love is reaching out to someone, and yet she's afraid to take that first step out of her comfort zone.

On a lazy Sunday afternoon while listening to one of my CDs, I happened to hear this song, and flashbacks of yesteryears came to me. How many times have I felt something for a man and yet I couldn't express my feelings. I clearly remember this high school crush I had. I used to go home with a classmate who was then living in the same area as my high school crush. Oh, how we ducked whenever my crush looks back in our direction. But that was 31 years ago, so long ago. I heard he now has a big beer belly and his thick black hair has now receded into something like the Manila Bay during low tide.

Nowadays, teenagers have better ways of expressing their feelings. There are different avenues to do so - emails, blogs, and so many other forums in the internet highway and of course the very reliable celfones. Gone are the days when a lady in love would spend afternoons listening to the radio and singing along with the top love songs of the time, sometimes sheding a tear or two, and a few times writing a poem, or simply dreaming of what ifs and could have beens, lost in her own paradise, until her mom shouts in her ears and asks her to help out in the kitchen. (How can mothers sometimes get to be so KJ....)

A few times I have asked myself the question as to what could have happened had I mustered enough courage to tell someone that I have feelings for him. I'm sure he would have been as embarrassed as I am, and I'm sure I myself would regret doing so the moment I uttered the words "I like you". That was an unforgivable sin to us teenagers of long ago. My mother would have pinched me in "you know where" if she came to know about it.

But then, in silence lies the beauty of unspoken love. It gives us something to look back to and from the what ifs and could have beens that we have been dreaming of, we are free to make our own story, and our own happy ending. I couldn't care if my crush in high school now has a big beer belly and receding hair, anyway, I too have my own unflattering bumps here and there. What matters is, in the deepest recesses of my mind lie my happy memories of being just an ordinary girl having a crush on an ordinary guy. Part of a poem that I wrote then says - with a thousand of tomorrows comes a myriad of nows, where shall it all end? Who will care but I, and will he do too?

My heart overprotected its first born

Sorely neglected its last torn pages

Of the book it had learned by heart

My heart runs at the first sign of danger

Opening up to the strangest stranger
Till time can tear us apart

Along with my heart

And scars like well travelled roads

Always lead home

If the going gets rough

And the scars are deep enough

My heart like a road map to your door

Winding homeward for one more moment

The promise of one more start

My heart is crying I love you

But these words that I'd love to tell you

Got lost along my way

along with my heart.....