Believes In Formal Goodbyes

According to psychologist Carl Rogers, he has found it most useful to always try to understand the other person. Our initial reaction to most statements is judgment, rather than an understanding of it. When someone expresses some feeling, attitude or belief, our tendency is an immediate “that’s stupid,” “that’s abnormal,” “that’s wrong,” “that’s impossible,” “that’s not nice.” We rarely permit ourselves to understand what the meaning of the statement is to the other person.

-The paragraph above is an excerpt from Dale Carnegie's book called How to Win Friends and Influence People. 

I've decided to include it in my post because my belief to listen to what another person has to say -regardless if that person has hurt my ego- is what pushed me to rein back my pride and decide to see a person who has just rejected me and broken my heart. More than anything, I wanted to understand how he was feeling so I can give him what he wanted completely and peacefully. 

During our last few days to talk, he was showing me attitude. For someone who has broken my heart, he was exhibiting weird behavior -cancelling out last minute plans to meet me, being late by almost 2 hours, and being cold and unsmiling. It was almost as if I was the one who broke his heart. I decided to give him his space and his peace the day of our scheduled last meeting, to just let him be and figured that if he wouldn't talk then there's nothing I can do but just gather the things I've left in his place as originally planned. 

But on the cab on our way home, I relented. 

"Sit with me", I urged him, patting the seat next to me, inching close to the door and making space for him at the back of the cab. He pretended not to hear me and sat in front with the driver. I sighed and watched as the cab passed by a number of places. But I can't pretend to be preoccupied with the schools, gas stations and local beer houses that we zipped by as the time we had left with each other is quickly getting shorter. 

I started staring at the back of his thick skull and started talking to him silently in my head. "Psst." I said in my mind. "C'mon! Why so serious?" I teased him in a friendly way inside my head. The back of his head remained stiff and unmoving. 

Suddenly, I can't control it any more. I decided to close the gap between my pride and my heart, reached out and tentatively held his hand which was resting at his chair's head rest. "Psst. Ako 'to." I continued with my silent talk to him in my head. Even if he was just sitting in front, he seemed so distant to me.  I've always held his hand in the past to feel close to him even without speaking. 

I silently told him that it's okay, that me holding his hand just meant that I have forgiven him for letting me go, and that there's nothing to fear. "Ako lang to", I assured him again in my head. Until the last moment,  I just wanted to hold his hand and make him feel that I am on his side and that I'm not out to get him for his decision. It was at this moment that his hand slipped away from my grasp. I retrieved my freed hand to wipe away my silent tears. 

After a while he placed his hand back on the head rest and tapped it twice with his head still turned away from me. I took it as a signal that he wants to be held. I moved forward in my seat, placed both hands on his big hand and held as if my life depended on it for the rest of the ride home.