Love hurts - in tutus
Three months into the marriage, she admitted, “I married the wrong man.” But she kept her fears to herself and chose to ignore that little voice in her head that kept warning her to get out of this hurtful relationship. “I will stay,” she said. “I’m in this union for the long haul; who knows? Maybe if I work harder to keep him interested in me, he’d change and save our marriage.”
She put on a brave face and continued with the charade. In public, they seemed like the perfect couple. He would put his arms around her and was ever mindful of her presence but the moment they were alone, sometimes in the privacy of their car, he would ignore her and act as if he was in the company of a hired escort and therefore do not owe her any of his time or explanation. Why didn’t she see through him? How could she be so naïve and vulnerable? She was blinded by love.
Another was wooed and won over by his chivalrous traits and generosity, “I am all yours,” he said. When she agreed to sleep with him, and after getting pregnant, she discovered that he was married and had a wife, five children, three dogs and a parakeet. She was deceived by love.
These are some of the stories that happened to my peers. We never learn, do we? I thought that the tragic heroines that we studied in school and read in novels would serve as lessons in real life. Apparently not. Reading only gave us a detached feeling that “It can happen to others but not to me, pas moi, not me.”
In ballet, there too exists a fraternity of tragic heroines who were, as they say, “betrayed, tricked or jilted” by love. Their passion and commitment were so intense that they’d rather choose death than live without this scoundrel of a lover. A song I remember also celebrated it with oxymoronic lyrics: “Fools rush in so here I am, very glad to be unhappy.”
There was Giselle, the village girl who was heartbroken after being fooled by man who masqueraded as a commoner when he was in fact an aristocrat. She became the laughing stock of her peer, the whole village in fact.
There was Juliet Capulet who fell in love with Romeo Montague, the right man from the wrong side and they both met a tragic end.
The Japanese geisha, Cio-cio-san, known as Madame Butterfly, who didn’t check into the marital status of this navy officer who turned out to be a jerk and was out for a quick romance but nothing more serious or permanent than that.
There was Swan Lake’s Odette who fell in love with a prince who was hoodwinked by Odille, a look-alike of Odette, consequently the lovers cursed for eternity.
A young girl, Tatyana, fell in love with the cynical man-about-town, Onegin. He spurned her. Tatyana ended up marrying an older man. When Onegin returned into her life, granting that Tatyana still carried a torch for him, she chose to remain faithful to her husband, forever pining for her lost love.
In ballet, each story was filled with ardor with emotionally charged pas de deux that could set one in a state of melancholia. Where else can one interpret the agony of struggling to survive a one-sided love affair?
And so we watched these heroines come to a miserable end: Giselle dragged a sword around the stage, Cio-cio-san plunged a knife into her chest, Juliet ended her life with a dagger and Odette went into a dramatic death sequel. Was death the price to pay for love?
Oh so sad, like art imitating life.
I am willing to clutch my chest, heave deep sighs of sympathy and give my frenzied applause and shouts of “bravissima” to these tragidiennes but when the curtain drops, I would rather be in a real life love story where copious tears are shed out of strength of character, of joy and gratitude.
Yesterday, our favorite pilgrimage chaplain, Father Dave Concepcion, gave us a timely reminder: “Take charge of your life. Don’t allow anyone to take control of it.”
Let us celebrate the other type of heroine, the courageous woman, which all of us can be. She ran the full race and danced just as charmingly and graciously well, even after.
