I know that this story might seem too good to be true to you, but believe me, this exactly happened:
Back in the year 2007 — my college days — I was depressed due to the heartbreak of my first serious girlfriend. To cope with the sadness, I tried different things such as drinking and partying at night, keeping myself busy especially at my OJTs, hanging out with friends [or not so friends], getting high-oratory advices from different people who does not even personally experienced depression. All of them leads to temporary joy and a sense of “high”, but just after an hour when I got home the depression looms you in again and again.
The gloomy days persisted for months. I even damn watery-eyed on a Gloc-9 and Francis M song played on a jeep.
I remembered how a very stupid petty silly simple thing have a profound effect in my life.
The story
There was a night in October 2006 when I got frustrated playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (GTA:SA) on Playstation 2. The reason is that I can’t finish a certain difficult mission. I keep playing it for 7 hours without completing it. And on that day, I realized it was already 4:00am, so I decided to stop playing, lay down on my bed and get to sleep.
But at that moment, I can’t get to sleep due to frustration of not completing a single mission.
GTA:SA: Mission Name: “Supply Lines”. 48th out of 104th mission. This is the most difficult mission I ever encountered on playing many video games.
An hour passed and still I can’t sleep.
Then, aha! As I lay down on bed, I suddenly remembered that my classmates will be bound to go on an outing that morning.
Let me go back earlier: The day before, at school, I was personally invited by Chi, a beautiful girl classmate to come with them on an outing. Chi were planning to go to Batangas, together with my few classmates, especially Joe, a close friend who is courting her. But I refused and said to Chi some alibis for not able to come. But the truth is: my mind is to go home and continue playing the damn video game. I was a video game addict, and on that day I chose to play GTA:SA over a happy outing that was especially invited personally by an ideal college girl. Stupid as it may sound, was it?
But as I lay down on my bed and stared at the ceiling, here I was, not finishing a certain mission: fuck it, why not go to that outing?
So I take a bath, pack up my things and leave from our house immediately.
I remembered their meeting place and time. The great McDonald's Morayta, at 7:30am. I decided not to text them so when I showed up it will be more of a surprise. Besides, I looked like a zombie because of not getting sleep.
Then the moment I showed up, my classmates were happy. It’s because in our classroom, I was the one-liner comedian. I was the guy who my classmates were comfortable with. I am hyperactive, except on that whole semester. I became a quiet student because of the effects of our Philosophy class — who got me into deep thinking about the meaning and purpose of life. You know that philosophy stuff, right? It will make you go insane.
So my mood shifted to being hyperactive to quiet and mysterious, or you can called me lethargic, (but when I do a one-liner joke, it will KO’d the room out). In effect, Chi and I never talk to each other for the whole semester, except on a day at Physics Lab when we were groupmates. That got her laughing the whole hour.
Back to the outing: we took the train to go to EDSA-Taft Station. Another meeting place for our classmates who were living on Pasay City, including Chi. She was very very happy that I showed up, even giving me a hug in front of a friend who is courting her. But on that day, I had no idea why she reacted that way. But now I know.
It’s because: That girl, will be my then-girlfriend.
So if I remembered correctly, we were eight (8) people on that outing, and we are heading to Batangas hosted by my classmate Lala. The plan is to stay at Lala's house when not touring.
Day 1 (Friday): We went to the beach. Basketball. Foods and couple of drinks on a balsa (bamboo boat). For the whole 3 day outing, I set aside the quiet-side-of-me for a while, so I just let hell break loose and be extroverted funny which is natural to me.
Day 2 (Saturday): We went to the sugar cane plantation. We hiked. Then on the afternoon, we decided that we will stay for one more day. So we went to the river, and do some laundry. This is my first (and only) time to do laundry at a river.
The crucial part of that day is that my friend Joe, who was courting Chi, went home on that afternoon because he has other commitments on a Sunday morning.
At night, the group decided to play some cards. I am addicted and quite good at playing card games, but decided not to play. Why?
Let’s skip to Day 3.
Day 3 (Sunday): The morning everyone woke up, my girlfriend and I were together in a relationship. Mag-on na. The group were surprised. But not Chi and I.
Yeah I know that escalated quickly. What had just happened?
Secret. (Hehe joke.)
The night of Day 2, I refused to play some cards and went just outside with Chi, at a dark place just under the dark bright stars and the moon. We had a great conversation beside a tree. Province-feel. I’m not a cheesy type of guy, but in retrospect, the aura of that place, despite being very simple, was so romantic. And I got to admit, it was one of the best moments that I ever had.
Ok. To make the long story short, since that day, we had a great relationship. But it only lasted for 10 months.
As I said earlier, due to the heartache, I tried different things to get my mind off with her — but to no avail.
The point that I wanted to say here is that: I got myself a girlfriend, break-up, got depressed — all of because of a single stupid video game mission that I can't finish.
All of that.
Domino effect.
The ultimate question leads us to:
What if I ever happened to finish that certain mission?
I doubted that I barely went to that outing.
I hated thinking “what-ifs” but if I ever finished that mission: there's a big possibility that I shouldn’t experience being in a relationship with Chi, together the heartache that it gave me.
In retrospect, I concluded that everything happens for a reason — and we must learn to accept what happened to us.
We cannot foresee the result of just one stupid action or inaction. That stupid action, in my case, was not finishing the mission. We don't know, if, maybe I finished the damn mission we will end up still together. Or not.
But the point is, everything is moving like a domino. We don't know the workings of all the Forces that have been set in our behalf. In my case it was not finishing the video game's mission, and it may be the very thing which opened the door of endless possibilities, until now.
After 6 months from the break-up, I was still being not fully recovered despite having many activities to cope.
But the thing that I did to exponentially recover was this:
I was in my room and I noticed the PlayStation 2 just showed up together with the [pirated] DVD case of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
I loaded the game where it was left off, and once again played that mission I couldn’t finish before.
And again, I became teary-eyed, because after 16 months, I finished the mission on the initial try.
Another what-ifs. (go figure it out)