"Life has ups and downs. When things keep going down, do a flip and turn it around."

Every time I am going through an emotional rollercoaster, I write, at the risk of putting myself out there, the risk of unveiling myself for all the world to see, at the risk of getting hurt even more. Although, I give myself time to buffer all the turmoil in my head, and my heart - enough time to let go off all the intense emotions, but still plenty of time for them to linger on and do some damages.

I've started to pull out my "In case of Emergency" playlist again - really didn't think I would have to do this so soon. I've been listening to music, looking through old text messages, chat conversations and emails, and broke down in between for a moment or two.

I have always thought that I am quite good at being emotionally detached to things, places and people; or thought that I've beaten myself enough to learn the lesson by now. The fact is, I am independent because I have to. I protect myself because I have to. Growing up having to live through the loneliest moments and hardest situations by myself. while having to put on the strong front for others, I have become how I am now. I learned by harsh reality that I had no one to rely on. Every time I let my guard down and try to give the softer side a chance to come out, nothing good came out of it. However, I admit that I do get attached and become more emotional than I want to. So the moment I feel like my life has fallen into a pattern and starts to become too stable, I switch it up, change things around, go to new places, cut tied strings and move on. All of that so I get into a habit of "getting bored easily", and keep myself under control.

Yet, once in a while, I've done it again.

I'd gone in it, as I usually go into theses things with guys, looking at them as nothing more than bystanders, as temporary witnesses to my life, and for about a few months it worked. Until I started to actually feel. And once I realized this, I felt like running as I always do when these things come about. I felt like running for the hills, for somewhere far away, for my freedom. Yet, with the fear of heartbreak still settling in my stomach, and the feeling of being emotionally scarred nostalgically rising in my throat...I went for it.

I wasn't in love. Let me make that clear.

I'm unsure why I even I let him in, maybe it was to be brave, to finally take a chance with something (or someone), thinking the conventional "you never know unless you try" way. Or maybe I thought I deserved to be happy for once. Or maybe I wasn't even thinking at all, just feeling it. I took a chance, and yet here I am, listening to depressing music and writing depressing entries. How many of these things I had, and will write year after year, I wonder.

Let me make it clear again, I was not "in love" even if it seems like it. I simply liked the guy, and the way I felt when I was with him. 


I've been through worse, I know, but this one really hurts. I think what hurts the most, is not that it's over, or that he still hasn't shown a single sign that he wants me back (or probably he never will). It hurts because I took a risk, gave myself too much credits, took on too much of a challenge, and got beat. Beat down pretty bad. And I know I will get over this one, as I have in the past, but for now I'm thinking of  those who say "Take risks! if you win, you will be happy; if you lose, you will be wise". Well I've lost, and I'm not feeling very wise, just hurt and a little bit hopeless. Because as much as I read quotes that cheer me on claiming "At least you tried!" I'd rather have not tried at all, I'd rather have stood on the sidelines safely and not have gotten hurt.

But it's too late for that now.

Actually, I take that back. Those months were the happiest months I have been for a very long time, and I would not want to change a thing. But now, I just feel drained and exhausted, and wonder if I would ever be able to do something like this again. I am pretty much back to my old self but still, I feel like a part of myself has gone. It was too much for me. I realize that I started losing control, and I couldn't be the calm and collected person I have always been. And I'm just simply scared that I would be one of those girls. I just can't be one of those girls, ever. Because it's not me, and if I can't be the one he liked me for, I should no longer be with him.

The biggest part of me wants him out of my mind, out of my heart, out of my bones, and I even get angry at myself for thinking of him, remembering him.

Missing him.

I'm not sure there is a point to this entry. I am not writing to ask him to come back to me, nor am I writing to tell him that I am finally moving on. I am simply writing because I still like him. I still like him and I hate myself for it everyday. And that I miss him. 

Been missing him since the moment I said it was over between us.


 Did I give up on us too early? 

Perhaps, after all, my feelings weren't strong enough. Or I wasn't strong enough to keep going, to keep us going.

[az]

"In the end, you just want to be with the one who makes you laugh"

[az]

July 7th, 1:34am

The Game We Played

You told me you thought we would have been done with each other long time ago. I told you I have never intended to drag this on.

You have all types of reputation. I did the background check, and came in prepared. You thought I was a softy at the beginning, I turned out to be more of a challenge than what you signed up for. We both play this game longer that we expect.

My friend told me: "You're digging your own grave." You told me: "Pshh. I'm digging my own grave." I guess we somehow ended up in the ditch together?

Honestly, I think we probably just came into each other's life at the point where we had been hurt, moved on, and were determined never to be hurt again. We withdraw our hearts from the table, and gamble with something else. I'm not sure what it is, but I feel like it costs us even more than our hearts. I'm playing the cool and heartless girl who seems to know how to play her game. You're playing the sweet and gentle player who knows exactly how to treat a girl, like me. Everything we did was planned. Every text messages we sent had its purpose. And we kept the ball alternate between our courts.

Honesty and frankness. Those are the reasons why we like each other. I told you about other guys I was involved with. You didn't mind the competition. I knew about the other girls you kept handy, and you never denied about them. We set the golden rules - "Don't ask, don't tell". We were precisely what other people called: friends with benefits.

Somewhere along the way, however, you were distracted. Your attention was no longer on me. I got bothered, and I was … afraid that I had been sucked into this game more than I wanted. So I backed out. I cut you out of my life effortlessly because I believed I was strong, and I always managed to rationalize myself out of situations like these.

Easy come, easy go, ... and easy back. After months of no communication and no words exchanged, you suddenly came back into my life. You said you missed me, and despite how hard you tried, you couldn't forget me, and you wanted me back. I turned you away, but somewhere in my heart, I fell like I found something I'd been missing all along.

2a.m. I was alone in my room, feeling lonelier and more rejected than ever. Suddenly, I knew I wanted you back in my life. I texted you, and within no time, you were next to me. I was back in your arms, and your kisses, once more, belonged to me only. I knew then that it was going to take me time to let go of those emotions.

After everything that has happened, I felt like this time, we appreciated each other more. I still had my guard up, but more than often, I slipped. And you, too, were letting your guard down. For the last two weeks, we enjoyed each other company to the fullest. We were acting too much like a couple it scared both of us. But at the same time, time was ticking away. I couldn't get enough of your kisses, and I wished you didn't have to leave early in the mornings. I hung on to the smell of you, lingering on me and between my sheets. You, likewise, would not take me home before sunrise. 

The day I left, you refused to spend the night with me, afraid that you would "do something stupid or say something stupid." You did not want to let that armor of confidence down and showed me that vulnerable side of yours. But you did, anyway. I definitely felt something different in your goodbye kisses, whether you wanted to show your emotions or not. And, miles and miles away, my heart skipped a beat when I read your letter, telling me that you had lost this dating game - you fell for me.

My mind and body rejected the idea, though. I felt sick in my stomach. My head told me this was another one of your playboy's trick. I was confused.

If you, the ultimate playboy, told me you were in love (and even using Samantha as the role model), what would I do now? I was counting on you, jerk. You told me all this because you know I was leaving you? Asshole. 

I am so used to going to sleep and waking up with someone next to me, and you were one of the people who contributed to that habit. I hate that you watched my favorite show and knew it so well, now every time I watch it, I think of you. I hate that you spoiled me to the point that now I can't enjoy any luxury without you in my mind. And I hate that you are so good at kissing and other things that I yearn for those more than anything.

The game we played is over. You lost the game, but I'm not entirely sure if I won.

Now what next? Half time? Should we play another one? Or should we just quit and admit that we both had lost?

[az]

The Kind of Guy

The kind of guy who will watch me work

getting charcoal all over my hands which eventually

make it to my cheeks and he’ll laugh at me but

wet his thumb with his tongue

and gently take them off my

elbows and my

face

The kind of guy who wouldn’t mind taking his shirt and pants

off for me in the privacy of my studio

to sketch, but of course

I probably wouldn’t subject him to that

kind of thing in the first

place

The kind of guy who’d hold my hand and not my ass when

we walked around town and other places

and talked then he’d tickle me and I’d give

chase

The kind of guy who cries whenever he feels

sad or broken up inside or happy

he’d let me dry his tears because I wanted to

and let me comfort him any time he needed

grace

The kind of guy who doesn’t mind that I’m not like

magazine people cause I’m healthy that’s all that matters

and he says watching the waistline is a waste of time

I’ll be a lady eventually and after all its puberty and just a passing

phase

The kind of guy who’ll lie in the curve of my midnight sleep

and hold me close and when the morning light comes he’ll

still kiss me despite our morning breaths but also

if need be he’ll leave me alone and give me my own

space

The kind of guy who loves every single part of me

for being every single part of me on their own with nothing special

because ‘I’m everything special already’ he

says.

Open-ended boy

[On the night when memories rushed back]

I sometimes feel like I'm such a walking cliché. Being a commitment phobic doesn't make me seem edgy, more different or more complex. It's a fact, one that I have had doubts about. However, I've just been called out on by my best friend tonight. He told me that he's getting concerned about how I seem to be falling into an easy habit of making out with everything that moves when I'm a bit stressed and need some place to re-channel that negative emotion . As a girl who just reaches her 20 and in college, that's probably normal. But after hearing he said that, I have realized that it has become a lifestyle, one that is kind of hard to break.

I believe in amazing love songs, cry at the sappiest ending in films, write about relationships as a creative outlet. I sometimes want to be a writer when I'm older. These are signs that point to the road of 'romance'. So why then, do I not let myself believe and fall all the way in?

I have fallen before, let my guard down, with a slightly emotionally unavailable guy I met at school. I have fallen before, for someone who was bad for me. And I have tried to fall for someone who was nice, who was constant, but I ended up running anyway. I have recently fallen again, for a guy who lives halfway across the world, one who I may not see again for a few years.

We've known each other since we were in 10th grade, and we keep re connecting different parts of 'us' (if I can even call it that), whenever we can. Our conversation flows. As time goes on and we try less and less, it becomes a shock to finally meet again, and to learn how much we have both changed, both physically and emotionally, and how comforting it is to realize that we're the same kids we've always been.

So from then we begin a two day commitment. Dinner,  lunch, movie, phone calls, texts, etc. We kissed for the first time, and he kisses just like I hoped and wanted him to, and somewhere along the line, the commitment phobic began to give pieces of herself she never really did.

Then everything just fell apart again. My commitment phobic came back, and I turned away. Or it was his this time? I wonder. We both turned away from each other. I had a harder time getting over this than I thought I would be. It brought the cynical side of me out, and I became even less emotional, less attached, and more reckless that I have ever been. I've become the "guy" lady who flirt and make out with "everything that moves" and that can strike up a decent conversation or put up some good dance moves.

Then he came into my life suddenly with a wake up call,

I don't like commitment, I get scared of giving someone parts of me that they could break. I don't like admitting to feelings, even though I have a lot of them. So while I'm smiling at the fact that this could be left open ended, I am telling myself that there's no way we'll maintain this skype-facebook flirtation for long. I am an optimist for life but a terrible cynic for love.

I know that he'll be at the back of my mind for a while, so while I do my 'single girl' thing, maybe there'll be a fraction of me that would feel like I'm cheating on someone who is halfway across the world.

I might just allow myself to fall someday, if not with him, then someone else. But him, my 'open ended boy', has taught me, in the span of two days, that maybe falling (if not cautiously) may not be such a terrible thing to endure.

It's almost a year, boy.

[az]

L = {x | x = friendship doesn't exist}

In mathematics, we learn that x stands for the unknown, a+b=x, but what's really unknown is what plus what equals friendship with an x. 

Is this an unsolvable equation? 

Or is it possible to transform a once passionate love into something that fits nice and easily onto the friendship shelf?

I couldn’t help but wonder... can you be friends with an x?

Or how much emotional scar will it take for you to be able to do so?

[az]