Five years. It took more than five years for me to realize that she only loves me because she needs me.
I have been loving a person who completely showed that love was just a game.
If you think that the word martyr is only for the ladies, you’re totally wrong. There are people or men who, like me, chose to love the person who constantly breaks our hearts. From being whole, to slowly breaking into pieces, and eventually falling apart.
Maybe for the first few years, she showed me she loved me because she just plainly loved me. But that kind of love wasn’t the kind to last.
I have been cheated on a few times, by this only person, who by that time, I treated as an important part of my life. I was wrong, totally wrong.
I already knew that one would not always get the kind of love you deserve, but still, I was blind. I was turned blind because of the love I have given her.

Loving is easy, being loved back is not. It’s the other person’s prerogative to love you and be loyal or give you the opposite. You have no control over her mind, actions, and heart. As you can see, I completely don’t, and no one does.
The last time the cheating happened, I was devastated.  My world was again shattered, it wasn’t entirely fixed and yet, it went broken again. She had an affair with another guy. The way it worked for her as I see it? New office, new guy. Every new office for her is the same old story for me.
I kept on asking myself. What’s wrong with me? What wrong have I done? What did I do to deserve this? But I always knew the answer. There’s nothing wrong with me. I have not done anything wrong. I don’t deserve this.
By then, I knew it wasn’t the kind of love I deserve. It wasn’t the kind of love I wanted for myself. Five years before I finally opened my eyes and realize everything. This will be the last sunset of ours, and I will not chase our sunrise anymore.

After what I have encountered and experienced, I wanted to do something for myself, and myself alone.
I started fixing myself, my own way.
I started traveling more, and somehow got addicted to it.
I started making new friends. I made myself more sociable. I started doing the things I love and was planning to do. I started recognizing and appreciating the people who were always there for me, even when I was feeling broken and lonely.
This new drug is the kind that you’ll love, and will not harm nor hurt you. It will make you feel good about yourself. It will make you discover new things about you that you didn’t know about. It’ll help you discover new places and open your eyes to new things. It diversifies your view and enhances your vision of life.
You’ll get to see that there are better views without her. You’ll uncover new things that were once not there. You’ll get to appreciate more of people, life, places, and the little things in between.
Traveling will help you cure your loneliness. You are alone but not feeling lonely. You are sick but you are feeling healthy. You were better but you will be feeling great.

This sunset without her would be the best time of your life as it has been for me.
You’d soon find yourself chasing the sunrise and every single of it means a new beginning. Sometime soon, every sunrise you see will be a better version of yourself.
You will find peace along and will learn to forgive the person who hurt you. You will learn to accept that most things will not be by your own way and everything happens for a reason.
She left because she doesn’t deserve your love and someone else deserves the kind of treatment you give. She left because God knows she’s not the best for you.
She left because someone along the way will be better.

Forgiveness and adaptation to change are what traveling will teach you. I learned to forgive and learned to love again without the fear of getting hurt.
Suddenly, I found myself chasing sunrise again. This time, with the person I met during my traveling. Every single day, I look forward to seeing sunrise and sunsets with her.
A sunrise of the new beginning, a sunset of looking forward to chasing tomorrow’s sunrise. The kind of sunshine you will love, that I truly love.
It’s common for us to find ourselves through traveling. It enables us to be a better version of our old self. It magnifies our field of view to everything. From the smallest ones to the biggest in the society.
We only have one life and one heart but we can love a million lives and a million people.
Of those million people, a few will see through you and will be a part of your circle. But one of those million will truly give you the life you want, the love you deserve, and they too, deserve the love and the life you intend to give.
Traveling signifies many things.
But the most important is you have to love yourself first and everything will come after whether it be the good, the bad, or the better.
Five years is long, but it only takes a snap to love yourself.
Traveling helps you change the old you into a person you never thought you could become.
It taught me to be stronger, for all the challenges of life.
It taught me to be more compassionate, for nature and people.
It taught me to become more responsible, in all aspects you can imagine.
I am now a better version of myself.
Thru traveling, I and my now girlfriend crossed each other’s paths and there, we found new happiness.