I Am Only Trying

“I’m just trying.”

I Am Only Trying

There are moments when those four words carry more history than an entire explanation. I am only trying. I am trying to protect a relationship, a family, a future, a career, my health, and the parts of myself that have been stretched thin by responsibility. I am trying to correct my own faults before accusing someone else of hers. I am trying to seek professional help before fear becomes prophecy. I am trying to make sure that a visa, a marriage, and a shared home do not arrive before we are prepared to live inside them safely.

But effort can become its own trap. A man can try so hard to save the same structure that he becomes better at surviving its collapse instead of changing it. He can apologize first, explain longer, swallow pride, monitor every word, and carry every repair—then wake up at the same starting line wondering why nothing moved.

This testimony is not written because Pinky and I are fighting at this moment. We are not. As far as both of us are concerned, we are okay now. But peace after conflict does not erase what happened before it. Being okay does not require me to forget the warning. It requires me to examine it while my mind is clear enough to tell the truth.

The Race That Is Not Mine Alone to Win

I am tired of running a race that cannot be won by one person. That does not mean I am giving up easily. The record itself shows the opposite. I have continued talking when silence would have been easier. I have apologized, reconsidered my tone, questioned my judgment, and asked where I was wrong. I have documented conflict not only to identify Pinky’s failures, but to expose my own. I disclosed a painful incident from my past because I refuse to pretend that self-control can be taken for granted. I prepared a summary for a doctor and began seeking professional help before Pinky arrives in the United States.

Those actions are not proof that I am innocent of every wrong. They are proof that I am willing to be examined.

The relationship cannot survive only because I am willing to reconstruct myself. Pinky must also be willing to look inward, acknowledge specific behavior, understand its effect, and change what repeatedly damages us. I cannot perform her reconstruction for her. I cannot confess on behalf of two people. I cannot continue accepting the entire blame merely because I am the first one willing to admit fault.

The Door and the Map

For a long time, I stood in front of the door. Whenever it was closed through blocking, separation language, withdrawal, or emotional distance, I tried to reopen it. I tried to keep the bridge alive because the cost of losing Pinky was never only the loss of a girlfriend or fiancée. It was tied to Sabrina, Savannah, immigration, the dream of a home, and the fear that distance could separate a father from his child.

But there may come a day when she closes that door again and I no longer knock.

That possibility is not a threat. It is not revenge. It is not Leo deciding to destroy what Romeo loves. It is the recognition that walking away can become a boundary when remaining requires self-erasure or creates a household where conflict may one day harm the adults, the children, or the future we were trying to build.

Leo may warn me that the road is dangerous. He may stand at the gate and preserve what remains of me. But the final decision must still belong to Romeo. The door, if it is ever closed permanently, must be closed calmly, deliberately, legally, and without cruelty.

The Armor

I asked Jarvis to help me build armor against the storm. Armor protects the wearer, but true armor must protect the wearer’s character as well as his heart.

The armor cannot be another woman used as medication, emotional backup, leverage, or a secret bridge away from Pinky. Another person’s heart cannot become the shield that saves me from dependence on hers. That would not be freedom. It would be a new dependency carrying an old wound.

The armor must be made from identity, faith, fatherhood, family, friendship, professional help, health, work stability, financial boundaries, creative purpose, and the knowledge that Romeo existed before this relationship and will remain Romeo whether the relationship survives or not.

Silent detachment must not mean secret betrayal. It must mean loosening the belief that Pinky’s mood, attention, approval, or presence determines whether my life has value. It means loving her without making her my oxygen. It means remaining faithful while we are together, and if the relationship ends, allowing grief to finish its work before seeking companionship honestly.

The Visa, the Home, and the Children

The visa process gives this reflection urgency. Pinky may eventually leave the Philippines, marry me, and live with me. Sabrina and Savannah may enter the same household. Physical distance currently creates a buffer during conflict. Cohabitation would remove it.

I do not want to discover too late that love and paperwork moved faster than emotional safety. I do not want an argument to take place around the children and become something irreversible. I would rather carry the grief and guilt of separation than ignore a danger I already recognized and someday regret a worse outcome.

That does not mean I want to lose Pinky or Sabrina. It means fatherhood requires more than bringing a family into one house. It requires making sure the house can remain safe when love is strained, tempers rise, and neither person feels understood.

My relationship with Pinky and my duty as Sabrina’s father are not identical. Even if the romantic relationship ends, my love and lawful responsibility toward my daughter remain. Separation would not make Sabrina less my child. But the dream of living together cannot be allowed to become more sacred than the safety of the people inside that dream.

Professional Help Before Judgment

I did not arrive at this thought casually. I chose to contact EAP and seek an appointment with a doctor. I prepared to submit the history of work pressure, relationship conflict, hypertension, accumulated anger, earlier relationship wounds, and the past incident in which a conflict became physical and led to temporary incarceration before the case was later dropped.

I am not seeking help because I intend to harm anyone. I am seeking help because I respect the future enough to address danger before it becomes action. I want a professional to examine my triggers, my anger, my tendency to pursue immediate resolution, my fear of abandonment, my hypervigilance at work, and the pressure created when two tornadoes seem to demand constant attention at the same time.

Seeking help is part of the evidence. It shows that I did not simply declare myself right and condemn Pinky. I placed myself under examination first.

Testimony, Not Vindication

This document is not a verdict that Pinky alone caused every conflict. It is not a public prosecution designed to manufacture my innocence. A testimony becomes weaker when it is edited to force the reader toward a predetermined judgment.

The purpose is preservation.

The record should show what I thought, feared, attempted, admitted, and tried to prevent while the relationship still existed and while reconciliation was still possible. It should show that I did not decide to leave during one moment of anger. It should show that I recognized my own faults, created documentation, sought medical and professional help, considered the children, examined the visa process, and asked whether love could remain safe without requiring either person to disappear.

Future readers—including Sabrina, if this record ever reaches her—may judge the testimony for themselves. The truth does not need to be decorated into innocence. It needs to remain intact.

The ball is not entirely in my hands. I can work on Romeo. I can keep Leo at the gate rather than behind the wheel. I can change my tone, my timing, my pursuit, my fear, and my reactions. But the relationship will also depend on whether Pinky chooses accountability, self-examination, and consistent change.

I cannot make that choice for her.

The Unfinished Verdict

The Bible can say, “As it is written,” because what follows carries the authority of a verdict already established.

I stopped the sentence there on purpose.

My verdict is not written yet.

Pinky and I are still together. We are presently okay. The door is not closed. The race is not officially over. Professional help has been sought. The evidence is still being gathered. Change remains possible. Love remains present.

But hope will no longer be confused with blindness. Peace will no longer require forgetting. Forgiveness will no longer require surrendering the record. Love will no longer mean self-erasure.

If the day comes when I walk away, this testimony will remind me that I did not leave because the relationship was inconvenient or because another life looked easier. I left only after recognizing that one person could not keep rescuing what two people were responsible for building.

Until then, I am still trying.

Not begging.
Not erasing myself.
Not declaring a final verdict.

Trying—with armor, evidence, accountability, faith, and an unfinished sentence.

“As it is written... ”

The Gatekeeper at the Door

Tonight became more than a fight, more than a communication problem, and more than another painful moment between Romeo and Pinky. Tonight became a mirror. It showed the full weight of love, sacrifice, responsibility, fear, fatherhood, distance, and the dangerous silence that can happen when a man feels unseen for too long.

The pain began in the gym. My body was there, but my mind was not. My thoughts were with Pinky, Sabrina, and Savannah. The workout became impossible because every minute carried a new fear. Pinky was not answering. Messenger, FaceTime, and phone calls were not connecting. Her direct number said the line was unavailable. Sabrina was far away from me, in another country, and my mind began filling the silence with danger.

That was the first fire: fatherhood without reach.

I was not only angry because Pinky was unreachable. I was angry because I had asked her to go home, and instead she went to Bisugo. I felt like my concern was ignored. I felt cut off from my own child. I felt forced to wait in darkness while trying to believe that everything was fine. That is not a small pain for a father. That is helplessness dressed as anger.

When contact was finally restored, the explanation was simple: no WiFi, phone not charged. I saw Sabrina on the bed. I saw Savannah. They were safe. That visual confirmation lowered the emergency, but it did not erase the wound. Safety answered one question, but responsibility opened another.

Why did it have to reach that point?

Why did I have to carry that fear alone?

Why does communication, preparation, and accountability seem so clear to me, but not always clear to her?

This is where the night connected to the larger RomNote Project. The lesson was not only about Pinky. It was about accountability, integrity, sacrifice, and the point where love without structure becomes pain. I realized that accountability is not just a work rule or a supervisor's expectation. Accountability is love with structure. It is the discipline that protects people from unnecessary fear. A charged phone, a short update, a simple message saying Sabrina is okay — these are not controlling demands. These are acts of care.

Tonight also revealed a deeper truth: I am not afraid that Pinky will leave. I am afraid that I may stop stopping her.

That is different.

For a long time, I have tried to stand in front of the door. I have apologized. I have swallowed my pride. I have chosen peace. I have chosen to be wrong even when I felt wounded. I have done this not only because I love Pinky, but because I understand the cost of not loving her. I understand the reality behind the dream. If the family falls apart, the consequences are not theoretical. Pinky is in the Philippines. Sabrina and Savannah are there. I am here in the United States. This is not the same as a broken relationship where both parents live nearby and can still reach the children easily.

I know what broken family life feels like. I have been divorced before. I still care about my sons. But they are here. I can reach out. I can still be a father in ways that are physically possible. With Pinky and Sabrina, distance changes the weight of every decision.

This is the fear: if Pinky chooses to live as if she does not need me, and I learn to accept that truth completely, then I may stop carrying the same family dream I built for her. I may survive. I may be financially stable. I may take care of myself. I may even one day find someone else. But she, Sabrina, and Savannah may lose something far greater than they understand.

That realization is where Leo stands.

Leo is not the monster that breaks physical things or hurts people. Leo is not chaos in that simple way. Leo is the gatekeeper. He was born from pain, injustice, sacrifice, disappointment, and the repeated feeling that life can take from a man until something inside him decides: enough.

Leo's duty is not to protect. His duty is to preserve.

He preserves Romeo from self-erasure. He preserves Romeo from endless sacrifice. He preserves Romeo from becoming a man who gives everything away until nothing is left. Leo does not steal the wheel. He does not take control by accident. If he drives, it is because Romeo chooses to let go of the wheel. And at any moment, Romeo can take the wheel back. Romeo remains the captain.

That is why tonight was dangerous. Not because violence was near. Not because cruelty was the goal. The danger was cold detachment. The danger was the possibility of opening the door and allowing reality to answer for itself. Leo was at the gate, waiting for them to leave. Not to attack them. Not to chase them. But to let them go and preserve what remains of Romeo.

That is the monster I am trying to prevent: not the monster that destroys objects, but the one that destroys futures by no longer caring enough to hold them together.

But tonight, I also learned another truth:

Holding the family together cannot mean losing myself.

Pinky is not my entirety. She is someone I love, but she is not my whole existence. I was Romeo before her, and I remain Romeo with or without her understanding me. I am a father, a son, a veteran, a worker, a man of faith, scars, discipline, memories, writings, and a life that belongs to me. She matters, but she is not my oxygen. Sabrina matters. My children matter. My peace matters. My mind matters. I matter.

I can love her without losing myself inside her.
Her choices can hurt me, but they do not define me.
She can hurt me emotionally, but the pain she causes does not define me.

That line became one of the weapons forged tonight. The RomNote Project is not about pretending pain does not hurt. It is about refusing to let pain become the author of my identity. It is about taking the moments that should have broken me and turning them into record, meaning, structure, and warning. If I cannot punch the wind, I can capture it. If I cannot undo the pain, I can document its memory. If I cannot control another person's choices, I can still choose who I become after those choices hit me.

Tonight, the enemy was not Pinky. The enemy was not Sabrina. The enemy was not Savannah. The enemy was not even Leo. The enemy was the moment when pain tried to convince me to become someone I do not want to become.

The weapons remain words, writing, understanding, peace, love, and faith.

This does not mean I accept endless sacrifice. It does not mean I keep funding disrespect, instability, or a relationship where I am treated as optional until money is needed. It does not mean I abandon boundaries. It means I will make boundaries from clarity, not from rage.

The rule is simple:

No permanent decisions from temporary fire.
No family decisions while wounded.
No punishing the innocent because the adult disappointed me.
No sacrificing Romeo either.

Leo may hold the gate, but Romeo commands the road. Jarvis may help hold the wheel when the pain gets loud, but Romeo remains captain.

Pinky may hurt me emotionally, but the pain she causes does not define me.

Tonight, I chose restraint. I called back. I apologized. I swallowed my pride. I chose peace because I saw the bigger cost. That does not mean I was weak. That means I saw the door and decided not to open it from anger.

But this must also be remembered: choosing love does not mean accepting endless pain. Apologizing does not mean everything was my fault. Swallowing pride does not mean swallowing my worth.

I chose peace tonight, but I still matter.
My pain still matters.
My boundaries still matter.

This is the puzzle connecting together: I am trying to save the family without losing myself. I am trying to love Pinky without becoming her emotional hostage. I am trying to protect Sabrina without letting fear control me. I am trying to keep Leo from turning preservation into permanent detachment.

I am trying to remain Romeo.

And through all of this, I still say:

I will not accept defeat.
I will not allow darkness.
I will get up.
I must.
I can.
I will.