Finding Out

In some small ways I never really got over Emmanuel.

Most of all it was guilt over how we ended up, breaking it off bitterly. I lost a best friend, despite the relationship deteriorating.

Today, I added him back on MSN – he hadn’t blocked me, but probably did remove me from his list – and saw the words, “I luv you mi negrita!”.

And a deep chill washed over me, nothing to do with the cool Melbourne breezes.

At least now I’ve established that he’s got a new partner and almost definitely moved on, filing events of the past two years away for personal perusal and the occasional public display of “My ex did this for me” moments.

Funny how no matter how angry I get at Emmanuel, at the end of the day if you ask me if I’m willing to speak to him again, the answer is always yes without hesitation. But life moves on for him, while I was given a new life entirely.

Guess I’d better treasure it… :)

P.S.: In case you’re wondering, I’ve removed (but not blocked) him from every communication method I utilize… What is the point of watching an ex’s status bounce from inactive to active, and let yourself feel little pangs of disappoint each time he doesn’t initiate conversation – which in this case, is probably going to be so for a very, very long time… ?

You and I

Well, it is the last night before I leave, and you are outside with your friend – the one friend who’s in her thirties, and can’t stop talking in the style of a kid, perpetually trying to “act cute”, as we call it. Oh, I’ve never told you I really disliked her, even more so after that trip to Hong Kong? Well, now I’m “telling” you.

I’d passed on sleeping over at a friend’s place because I thought, why aggravate the hurt I’ve done to you? I’ll spend the last night home with you, sharing ice cream.

But nooooo, she’s over, she’s been here for coming to two hours and you’re not making any effort to ask her to leave. I’m not sure if I should be thankful for this quiet time… though “quiet” is relative – you and her were squealing and giggling like secondary school girls over the sporty Wii games earlier, and I nearly wanted to just get out of the house. But no, that would reflect badly on you. So I stay.

I stay, clothes half packed – really just need to repack the luggage after having to rummage through it earlier – and update WoW, of all things.

You’d think, it’s my last night here, you’d finally make the effort to spend some time with me before I pass out on the bed, wake up earlier than you tomorrow, and you never see me again (well, at least not for a year).

To each to her own I guess. This might be your way of coping.

Me? I can’t wait to get out and make my mistakes.

Dear Ex

Dear Ex,

Over the past two weeks as I packed and prepared for Australia, I gathered up all the letters I’d written to you, to Yuri and to Eva. Brought back memories, but they are memories after all.

Last night, I “poked” you on Facebook.

This morning, I received a poke back, and a message on my wall stating “burn the bridge”. When I clicked on your profile, to write a response on your wall, I found out that I was no longer allowed to view your profile because I wasn’t a friend.

If you happen to be reading this, please read the next line very carefully.

Fuck you, fuck off.

Thanks for the memories, they were great. I still think about you, still wonder about how you are, remember how you didn’t want to burn the bridge. And here you are burning them the first chance you have. Well sod it, you want me as your friend, fine. You have proven by your actions that you don’t deserve anything but a knee in the groin from me anyway.

I wish I could say I don’t care anymore, but that would be a lie. I could tell you to go fuck yourself, go waste your life and end up with someone from your country and culture, I could tell you to go do a million things that you would do anyway because you don’t plan ahead, but at the end of the day I will still hope that you’ve got your act together and made a better life for youself, got a nice girl who’d do whatever you want her to, unlike me.

I’m angry. I’m infuriated. You didn’t want to burn the bridge, I didn’t either. I thought I should give you space, and you come back and burn it before I could say anything else. You contradict yourself. Our relationship started like a fairytale and I should’ve known before a year was over that it’d end anyway – then I could end it on a far better note. Unlike what you did.

I loved you, and I love you as a friend. but for now, fuck off. I really don’t need this shit from you. Thinking back now on all the rollercoasters you put me on, it just confirms the thought that I’m better off without you.

Foolishness

Mistakes. Everyone makes them.

Some realize and try to change. Some realize and try but still fail to change. Some never realize at all.

I wish I could hold you too. I’ve been saving up and doing what I can to save that SGD4,000 to fly to you, or at least for you to fly to me, on top of the SGD3,000 I still owe my mother from the phone bills from last year. I’m halfway there! Over the next few months I’d be even further along my saving plan…

I don’t think I can bear 2 years without you to have another chance at being with you. Over time I’d probably calm down and be able to live alone again… but not if I can hope that we’d be together again.

2 years till we’re 21.

I’ve always been proud of what we’ve managed to do. To stay together. Even if there are periods of frustration and sadness and anger. To be able to cope with long distance for so long at our age… to cope with not being able to touch each other, not even a hug. I remember when you first started the mic-nuzzling and the non-physical kiss… I refused to do it because I thought it was so embarrassing, but later it became a little replacement for the physical nuzzling and kissing we weren’t able to do.

2 more years.

Yea, maybe you’ve been doing it for too long. 6 years. Since you were 13 with some other girl. I thought this relationship was different, for both you and I. In the end… turns out not.

I’m not as strong as you are. I don’t have as much self-control. I break down after 3 or 4 days and call you because I miss you so much. If I didn’t we’d never talk. And that’s the only thing we really had – words. Words to hope, words to love, words to amuse, words to anger. If there’s one thing you could take from me and leave me disoriented and crumbled for weeks… it’s talking to you.

Because your voice comforts me the way your hugs might have physically. Because your voice is the first thing I heard in the mornings and the last in the nights. Sometimes your snores, but mostly your voice. Maybe you’re right, maybe I’m addicted to you.

I prefer to see it as not wanting to be any more apart from you, and the more you retreat without telling me why, the more I’d ask questions.

And you don’t like questions. And we end up arguing. And I end up crying to sleep.

I remember the times when you’d call me at 5 or 6 in the morning to help wake me up for school. And we’d talk all the way till I got to the bus-stop. Of course it helped incur a huge part of the phone bills… but I don’t mind. I still don’t mind having this bill debt on my finance because if we didn’t talk so much we couldn’t be as close as we did.

I really hope you’d come back. To call me or something before I get numb. To say you love me and want to be with me again.

I don’t know.

It feels foolish to hope.

And hope is a terrible thing.

It’s that familiar sensation of falling…

I know he doesn’t read what I write anymore, so I’m relatively safe for hanging out my emotions to dry.

It’s that feeling.

You know, when everything seems to be still, lifeless, and nothing seems to matter, to be honest. I haven’t spoken to him the way we used to for days now.

He’s always working, sleeping, watching a movie, eating, playing a game, or having friends over…

Me?

I fade into the background. I let myself disappear, I make myself vanish because I don’t want to encumber his life, and the things he enjoys doing. He probably doesn’t enjoy talking to me anymore, so I remove myself from his thoughts. So he doesn’t feel like he has to.

And then I sit here, glancing at his MSN status too often, looking at the words “wo ai ni” on his status name. I find myself questioning it.

If you love me, then why do you not try to talk to me? Why do you not try to cheer me up? Why do you just… let me be?

See the thing here is… he can’t help me. Only I can. But I want, I need to hear those words you used to say, that it’d be all right, that I’m safe with you(r voice, actually), that I’m beautiful and you love me. And we’d have a soccer team of kids who love pizza and coke and I’d be exasperated at it.

But I know you cannot say it anymore. In that period, you were madly in love. Now, you’re in love of the companionship kind. No longer the mad, passionate one where we’d spend days plotting my escape. Nor the kind of love where you’d amuse me with how you think our family will be.

You’re in the state where… you’d be happy to talk about your games, about your work, tell me how you’re going to spend your money on gifts, chocolates, tech- stuff…

But that’s not I want to hear. And when I told you once, that I wished you could tell me the things I wanted to hear, even just a word, you told me curtly that the initial phase of infatuation is over. Infatuation, yes, you used that word…

You have other priorities in life, you tell me. Your family, your work, your friends. I’m there only if I’m online, I realize. If I’m not… I’m nothing.

I didn’t know our relationship was this fragile… I thought it was strong. Stronger than me.