Emotional rollercoaster, it happens

Yesterday, for two whole hours; I embraced my friend as she cried her eyes out; weeping openly like I’ve never seen her weep before; speaking sentences when she could catch her breathe and choking often as she fought to stop more tears from coming.

Her tears, her pain wasn’t about the loss of a loved one. It wasn’t about her research being criticized heavily by professors and classmates. It was about being in love. My friend was in love with a man who turned her down when she asked him out 3 months before.

Before that, they were the best of friends. They took walks, had long talks and dinners. They attended church mass in the mornings on Sundays and sometimes went to the movies together. She being 31 and he being 26, the age difference didn’t bother the both of them because they enjoyed each others company. All our common friends could see how close they were, how much they enjoyed each others company and how much respect and care they had for each other.

As time went by, my friend began to develop feelings for her best friend. After so much encouragement from other friends, she decided to confess her feelings to him. His response was that he only saw her like a big sister. She was hurt and still unconvinced that he didn’t share the same feelings for her. She swore that all this time they spent together, there were many hints and things he would do and say that convinced her that he felt the same way about her.

She decided after her confession that it would be best to stay away from him so she could become “normal” again. For the 3 months after that, she stopped attending the morning church mass on Sundays; she changed her privacy setting on social networking sites so that he wouldn’t be able to access much information about her, such as her photo albums. For 3 months she didn’t hear from him. Then just recently he sent her a message on her cell phone saying it had been a while since he saw her and that they should catch up sometime. This was the message that triggered the feelings for him that she thought she had begun to get over.

As I listened to her pour her heart out, I began to wonder why it was so hard for women to overcome emotional challenges like falling in love. I didn’t know what to say to my friend to make her feel better. Actually I didn’t know what to say at all. I was stumped and felt totally useless. All I could say to her was, “it’s going to be alright”. Our emotional feelings can sometimes get the better of us. I hope my friend can overcome this emotional roller coaster soon.