My version of ‘That Thing Called Tadhana’

“There are all kinds of love in this world, but never the same love twice. ” – F. Scott Fitzgerald as quoted by Anthony

Together with my Team, we watched tonight an indie film which I’m sure everyone knows ‘That Thing Called Tadhana’ and it inspired me to do something that I have not done in a long long time – BLOG! So here is my version of ‘My Thing Called Tadhana’. Years ago, back in my mid-20s, I had this penchant for meeting guys when I travel whether its on the plane, bus or boat. There was this one particular incident that I suddenly remembered, after watching the movie. One time, I was going on a trip to Manila, the guy who was supposed to pick me up from the airport got held up at work and will be 4 hours late. Now, what was I supposed to do in the airport for 4 hours? So in the pre-departure area, I looked around to check if I knew anybody there, and sure enough, my eyes settled on someone who looked vaguely familiar and was eyeing me back. After a few minutes, the guy approached me with his pick up line ‘Do I know you from somewhere? You look familiar!’. After talking for a few minutes, we finally figured out that we go to the same gym. So we got to chatting, and he asked what I was doing in Manila. I told him I was meeting someone but he will be late. Upon knowing that I did not have anything to do for the next few hours, he invited me to have dinner with him and his brother who was the Chaplain in one of the hospitals in Manila. Mind you, I did not know this guy nor his family, nobody knew that I was with him and I was not even sure he was telling the truth, but being young, free and foolish, I did not thought about those things and just said ‘sure’. True enough, he brought me to his brother’s place and we had dinner together. After dinner, we decided to stroll around the park and saw Star City just across the street. Just for the heck of it, we decided to go inside Star City and take a look around and surprisingly we had a few hours of fun. He was witty, nice and fun to be with. We parted ways when my ‘sundo’ arrived and picked me up at the hospital. The whole encounter was surreal and straight out of the pages of a book. Looking back at that chance encounter many years ago, tonight I wondered: Was that guy, my soulmate? Was he my ‘tadhana’? Did I let love slipped through my fingers? Truth be told, I cannot remember how he looked like and his name now. All I can remember is that giddy feeling so long ago when I still believed in romantic love and happily-ever-afters.

Remembering that feeling, I suddenly realized that I felt great. I was ok. I was fine. It seems like tonight, a shooting star passed by and cleared the air for me, and all the bitterness, pain and betrayal that I felt for the past three years seems to have vanished. I had indeed moved on with my life. The movie made me realized that there is still love after all the pain. There is still hope. It made me believed in love again. It made me believed that fate plays a role in our life and that somehow, somewhere there is someone out there meant for me. We might not meet in this lifetime, but we will definitely meet one of these days.

Tadhana is indeed a strange thing. It is just around the corner and we will never know when it will come to our lives. Maybe Mr. Gym Guy is the one or maybe not. Maybe one of these days, just maybe, Mr. Meant for Me will pass by, and an arrow will pierce through our hearts and say ‘we are made for each other’. And if that time comes, and the encounter will be an unfortunate one, then I will do what Mace and Anthony did: go to Sagada and scream my heart out. And I will be ready to love again! P.S. If you are that guy that I met so long ago, drop me a line here. I would like to meet you again and thank you for reminding me that love is wonderful!