A sign

All I ask for is a sign. Whether or not it is a sign that I should hold on and continue to wait, or a sign that I should let everything go, all I need is a sign.

Give me a reason to do it, and I swear I will.

self-mutilation

We really do do it to ourselves

We all have that one thing that we fear above all else. We’ve thought about it. We’ve imagined it happening, and we’ve pictured ourselves dealing with it in the best way we can, each of us heroes in our own way. But all this is only for if it happens, in case it happens, because when it really does happen, when the one thing we always feared really does seem to be coming true, all the preparation in the world will not be enough to get us through it.

Sometimes it could have been avoided. When all the red flags were whipping madly in our faces, we could have tried pulling them out to save ourselves from the impending blow. But because as humans we are willing to endure all the pain — all that exquisite pain — for what little happiness we can get, we chose to leave the flags there, and in the end, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

The calm before the storm

Sometimes you have to wonder what it's all worth.

Sometimes you have to think of how much others have already suffered for the sake of freedom.

Sometimes you have to think of how much more they will have to suffer for the sake of freedom.

Sometimes you have to think of this Uncertainty that has been the sole constant for so long.

And then you have to wonder if it's worth it.

That's your side

Sometimes it feels as though we’re in our own separate worlds that are so very different, and so very far apart, that we become almost complete strangers to each other. And, as usual, I can never get into your world.

Giving up

Is it really such a shameful thing to do? Is it wrong to say, “I can’t do this anymore; I’ve had enough,” and just let it all go? But what if we had no other choice? Do we soldier on and try to make the best of a bad situation, knowing that we’re just setting ourselves up for failure and disappointment, or do we raise our heads high, admit defeat, and start all over again?

I used to be absolutely determined to be on my own, build my own life, and depend on nobody but myself. But maybe because of the recent turn of events, I’m beginning to be extremely tempted to just give up my whole life here, pack everything (well, just the clothes, bags and shoes) up, and go home. 

But then, no matter how strong the temptation is to go home, it pales to the galling thought of starting life from scratch again, and the overwhelming number of obligations that I have yet to fulfill here: the money I have yet to make and bring home, the people I have to care for, the life I could still have a chance to live. Am I willing to give up my freedom and my independence to go back to a life under constant scrutiny and criticism just because I’m facing a few hurdles that are taking a little longer than usual to overcome?

In the end, we all do what we have to. Whether it’s quitting the job that’s consuming every last breath in our body, moving to get away from the memories of that hideous relationship, or letting that certain person go because we know nothing can come out of hanging on to them, we do what’s given to us to do. Because we know that in time, we will heal, and we know that at least we tried, and at least we could stop ourselves just in time to say, “Enough is enough.”

Sacrifice

The one thing everybody dreams of doing but never really dares to do. How much are we willing to sacrifice for the ones we love? It’s all very well for us to say, “I love you with my life,” but when it comes time to choose between love and life, where is the line to distinguish between the two? If one can’t exist without the other, then how do we compromise so that we get both? And if we can’t compromise, and have to give one up, which one would it be? According to Some, “You may be giving up your dreams if you go with him, but at least you’ll have him.” Admittedly, it made sense. But then once we’ve decided which one to give up and which one to keep, then it becomes a gamble, and regardless of what we choose, it’s a gamble for our own lives. There can be no room for regrets, or ‘buyer’s remorse’, or even a shadow of a doubt that we made the wrong decision.

As have mentioned before, one of the greatest ongoing battles ever fought in the history of mankind is the one between the logical side and the emotional side of the brain. No matter how hard or how bravely they fight, the emotional side somehow ends up winning most of the time, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but things may just be better if the logical side had won in the first place. And once again, no marks for guessing which side I’m on.

The White Flag

sur·ren·der P Pronunciation Key (s?-ren?d?r)
v. sur·ren·dered, sur·ren·der·ing, sur·ren·ders
v. tr.
To relinquish possession or control of to another because of demand or compulsion.
To give up in favor of another.
To give up or give back (something that has been granted)
To give up or abandon
To give over or resign (oneself) to something, as to an emotion

In the end, no matter how hard we try, we must stop fighting the losing battle and give in to what we know will happen.

I want that

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is go against our principles. Whether it was a feeling that was suddenly triggered by something or someone, or a feeling that had been dormant all our lives and was just waiting to slowly arise, we eventually realize that we’re ready to live for the things that we’d always spoken and felt so very strongly against. And we realize how difficult it is to stop putting up the strong front that had always shielded us so comfortably; how difficult it is to get off our high horses and finally admit that we’ve been wrong, and that we want to do what we’d always sworn we’d never do. To admit that we want to have what we’d always vowed we’d never have. And that’s when we can’t wait for the time to come when we can really do and have all that.

Because of you

I actually thought I could have the kind of life every woman wants, and the kind of life I always dreaded.

I will never again harbor thoughts of giving up my entire self just to please other people.

I learned to live with insecurities that I never even knew were there before.

I am now the bitter cynic who will always think that love only exists in the movies, and that very inaccurately.

I will always be haunted by the fear that I will never be good enough for anyone.

I will never again believe in forever.

Waiting

It seems as though that’s all I’ve been doing these days.

Waiting for the tide to turn, watching in increasing desperation and agony as it wavers in my favor and then away from it, in one vicious cycle.

Waiting for a sign from God to tell me everything will eventually work out.

In a nutshell, waiting for a bloody miracle.

It’s enough to make anyone shake the teeth out of me and bellow, “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!”

Doormat

Sometimes you just can’t please everybody. You try to accommodate more than one person at a time, but it’s never good enough. There will always be shortcomings and disappointments, and only anger and bitterness in the end.


Sometimes we just have to wonder why we still even bother to try. Are we in severe denial, or is there really that miniscule smidgen of a chance that in the end things will work out the way we’d always hoped they would? What is it that makes us think this is all worth it?

Am being a bloody doormat .

+ 1 - 1 = 0

her·mit P Pronunciation Key (hûr’mĭt)
n. A person who has withdrawn from society and lives a solitary existence; a recluse

lep·er P Pronunciation Key (lĕp’ər)
n. A person who is avoided by others; a pariah.

cul-de-sac P Pronunciation Key (kŭl’dĭ-săk’, kŏŏl’-)
n. A dead-end street.

Have turned into one. A hermit/leper who’s in an emotional cul-de-sac. And am mighty tired of it.

Doom

It’s a feeling you can never shake, no matter how hard you try not to think about it.

I live in a glass house. There’s always that feeling of doom that a tiny grain of sand will hit the wall, and the whole house will shatter.

So it isn't just me

One of the greatest injustices of life is that just when you think everything is finally settled down and going well, something happens to make it fall apart all over again. It’s a vicious cycle that just never ends.

Yesterday I saw the one thing I needed to tell me that my instincts were right. And now my whole world is crashing down around my ears again. If what I feel is true, then I don’t want to waste another second of my life in this fiasco.

One of the greatest ongoing battles ever fought in mankind is the one between the logical side and the emotional side of the brain. No matter how hard or how bravely they fight, the emotional side always wins, and the logical side always loses. No marks for guessing which side I’m on.

A single woman will not say she has to support herself because her so-called ex-boyfriend can’t support her. She would say she has to support herself because she doesn’t even have a boyfriend to support her in the first place, wouldn’t she?

It doesn’t matter what you say
It’s a feeling that will never go away

Turn a blind eye and a deaf ear

Apparently it’s the key to happiness.

In a funny way, have come to dread every single night between midnight and 1:30AM. The routine has become more frequent, and there is no way of stopping it, although am dimly aware that unless am dead sure of own convictions, there isn’t any real reason to stop it. Yet the fearful dread of it appears at around this time every night like clockwork, and am hating self for it.

A wild goose chase

“I’m looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each-other love.“ – Carrie Bradshaw, Sex & the City

Unfortunately, not all of us can have that kind of luxury.

I know I don’t.

Let it be

Why did I think things had ever changed?

Why did I think things could ever change?

Nothing has changed.

Nothing will ever change.

Now I have less reason than ever to believe anything that anyone tells me.

You don’t tell someone “I miss you” to their face and then turn around and tell someone else the same thing.

The same old feeling

Sometimes I can't quite believe I'm here. I can't fathom how everything turned out this way, and why I couldn't make it all turn around. Sometimes the memories are so blurred I get frustrated trying to gather them, and sometimes they're so vivid that the pain of harboring them becomes too much to bear. When I wake up and wonder why I'm freezing myself to death by sleeping with the air-conditioning, I look around and feel irrationally angry that I'm here.

I wonder when This feeling will go away.

I wonder when That feeling will come back.

I wonder if It has already gone and I'm still in denial.

I wonder if It had ever left to begin with, and I'm just not looking in the right place for It.

Still - me subconcious preserverance

I've thought and thought about it. I've questioned and second-guessed myself whenever I was asked that question. I've dredged up every single memory I have, both good and bad, and sifted through them over and over again until it hurts to think anymore. I've searched my memory and my soul, mentally relived every single day, and weighed out all the options and circumstances of it. And each time, the answer is the same: "Nothing has changed. Everything is still the same."

Je suis comme amoureux de lui maintenant comme j'étais tous ces mois avant.

Stretched taut - the things that are becoming increasingly difficult to do

Trying not to worry too much.

Trying not to push too hard and end up pushing everything beyond the boundaries.

Trying to smile and say, "OK, see you around," without fighting the urge to say more.

Trying to shrug and say, "Oh, never mind," without fighting the need to bawl my eyes out.

Trying to think that everything really will be all right if and when the time comes to hold my head high and admit defeat.

Running away

I remember being so eager to leave back then, desperate to escape the life I was leading here, desperate to escape the miserable relationship that had completely taken over my life, aching for a new beginning in a new place. Maybe it's the memories of all the mistakes I made since I left. Maybe it's the current circumstances of my life that have made it all the more unbearable. Whatever it is, I'm back in that phase where I would lay down my life, sell my soul, to be able to have that chance to go back there and start all over again, and have the chance to do things differently so that I wouldn't be in the situation I'm in right now.

Sitting at old town with a friend few hours ago -- and in a much more confessional mood -- we were talking about the people in our lives who aggravate us so much that at times we want to strangle them, but who mean so much to us that at some point we overlook their faults and accept them the way they are because we want them that badly in our lives. We've all had the friends who weren't really good friends, and the other halves who weren't really good other halves, but whom we put up with just the same because the little things they did for us at some point were enough to make us want to continue having them in our lives. We know that we're little more than a mere convenience to them, but we bear with it just the same because we can't imagine being without them. And so we make excuses for them and for their behavior, because we love them enough to know that some things are not worth losing them over.

But when push comes to shove, how many more excuses can we make for them? When we know that at some point we have to face up to how little we matter to them, what do we do then? Do we turn a blind eye and continue defending them? Or do we give in to the fact that we really can't put up with much more, give up on them, and walk away? Which one, then, would be the sign of courage? If it were the latter, then I'm a bloody coward.

Code red

I've done it again. Once again I've set myself up for the equivalent of a plane crash, and now I'm left to pick up the pieces on my own. And once again, I have absolutely nobody to blame but myself, because I chose to stay in the plane, and I chose to face the pain and the humiliation in the hopes that in the end everything would turn out all right. It might not be so bad though, because it was a long time coming.

They were right. They were all right. They all knew this was headed for disaster, and they all tried to warn me. But I ignored their advice, choosing instead to stick to what I wanted to believe in, to what I had believed in right from the very beginning, yet all the while knowing in the back of my mind that they were right. But now that the truth of it has been forced in my face, I just need to lift my chin and go through it with what little dignity I have left.

If only it didn't hurt so damn much.

Rock bottom

I recently developed the silly notion that no matter what happens now, the best is yet to come, in an attempt not to take for granted what I already have. But sometimes I wonder if I would have been happier if things were any other way. If they were better does that mean I would have been happier, or just content because I wouldn't have had to struggle so much? And if they were even worse than they are now, does that mean I would be happier when they got better in the end, or completely strung-out from the fight and realizing too late that it was never worth it in the first place?

Rewind - as if it never happened

It's as if everything thus far had been a dream, an aberration, a complete lie. It's as if an inordinate chunk of time had been taken out and so thoughtlessly cast aside, and everything has been flung back to square one, without any consideration that it all could possibly have been real.

It's as if I'm getting to know myself all over again.

What part of our history's reinvented and under rug swept?
What part of your memory is selective and tends to forget?
What with this distance, it seems so obvious

We'll fast forward to a few years later
And no one knows except the both of us
I've more than honored your request for silence
And you've washed your hands clean of this

- Alanis Morissette, Hands Clean -

eyes wide open

I've heard what I needed to hear. As horrifying as it was, it was the wake-up call that I needed. It's time to stop being so naïve and face the reality I pushed aside for so long. And now that it's all becoming terrifyingly clearer by the second, I know what I need to do.

Ground below zero - and you thought it was bad before

Just when you think your troubles are somewhat diminished, something happens to completely throw you for a loop, and you're flung right back down to where you started. Or possibly even lower this time.

Escape

Sometimes we make a decision that we think is the right/best one. After all, we want what's best for ourselves and for the one(s) we love, don't we? But then what happens when you realize that might not have been the wisest decision to make? Do you grit your teeth and bear with it, hoping that in the end things just might work out, unlikely as it may seem? Or do you resign yourself to that unlikelihood and find a decent, less painful way of getting out of it? 

In short, what if you need the doghouse, only there's no doghouse?

I have no illusions about my life and the circumstances of it. I am well aware of what I've been doing and the consequences of everything. I know that everything that's gone wrong -- and everything that has suddenly begun to get worse -- was entirely my own fault because I didn't play by the rules and I didn't know what others wanted, and I was too afraid to ask because every time I opened my mouth I made things worse. And I know well enough not to blame anyone else because there isn't anyone else to blame. And yet... sometimes -- just sometimes -- I wish there were a way I could make it all a little easier to bear.

weighing it out - what would finally tip the scale?

There are times when I wonder what this is all worth. There are times when I wonder if it's worth it. But, just like all the other times, I know that whatever it's worth, and whatever it costs, I would gladly pay the price for it a hundred times over.

No regrets

Someone once asked, "Does it bother you that you told him you were in love with him but he didn't say it back?" Admittedly it was mortifying at first that the words had been thrown out there and had just hung there without coming back. But then one of the most curious things about loving someone is that we do it unconditionally; we don't love someone on the condition that they have to love us back, and we don't say it on the condition that they have to say it back. Maybe things like that are just supposed to happen in their own time, or maybe even not at all. But we learn to accept it at any rate, and whether or not the other person says it back, we can look back and tell ourselves, "At least I told him I loved him."

If it ain't broke, don't break it

Five years ago, I was in a relationship with someone who had dictatorial skills even Adolf Hitler himself would have envied. He domineered my entire life: how I should dress, who I could hang out with (which naturally consisted of the XX chromosome only), where I could go, and even what I should do. I never saw the inside of a bar or club for two whole years (until I met some new XY chromosome friends and all hell broke loose), and I barely hung out with anyone except him. And throughout the two years -- when it had become painfully clear after several months into the relationship that I had somehow been yanked out of my body and stuffed most unceremoniously into one he had conjured in his mind -- I occasionally had to ask, in the most acerbic tone I could manage, "How did you ever fall in love with me in the first place?"

And his reply, however impertinent it was to the original question, would be, "I thought I could change you, to become a better person, to be the perfect girlfriend. It's for your own good."

Skating over the obvious fact that there is no 'perfect' anything or anyone, trying to change a person is like trying to rid the world of cockroaches. We scour the surfaces and crevices, pointing out all the areas in which we want them to change, fix, or eliminate altogether, and it becomes a process that never ends, because there will always be something that just isn't quite the way we want it. This is not to say we ignore the flaws altogether, but surely we have faith in their maturity, in their common sense, and in their own sense of self that they would be able to think for themselves whether or not they should change? Because not to have that faith and confidence in them is tantamount to telling them flat out that they're just not good enough.

Has it become impossible for people to accept one another for the way they are? Must there always be something that made us fall in love with them in the first place? Granted, we can say we like the way they make us laugh, the way they can pull us out of that emotional hole no matter how deep it is, the way they look at us until we have to turn away, but then there's so much more to it than that, so much more that we can't verbalize or put into words at all. So when there's no laundry list to fall back on, is it really not as simple as, "It's just you being you"?

keeping on toes

The fear of inadequacy plagues us throughout our lives. We're always afraid that we wouldn't be good enough at our job, our relationship, our friendships, and pretty much everything else right down to lawn bowling. We spend our days wondering if we got that press release right, if our boss is silently scrutinizing us and thinking they might be better off without us, or if we're really what the other person wants, or if we measure up to their expectations of us. Even if things were going all right, somewhere in the back of our minds the question will always lurk: Is it all enough? Am I enough?

When we feel inadequate, we try harder than we can afford to to show that given the chance, we can be good enough. Unfortunately this applies most to a relationship, because whether or not we like to admit it, no matter how bad a time we're having at work, no matter how difficult everything else is, and no matter how self-sufficient we'd like to think we are, we just need to know that there's someone we can come home to at the end of the day and who (hopefully) loves us just the way we are. Even then, twenty years down the road, we could still harbor the fear that what we say or do will never be good enough, and we might still be spending a good deal of our time looking at them as the person who second-guessed us so much before that we have to wonder if they're still second-guessing us now.

We would lay down our lives to show the boss that we're really not as inept as we may seem, to make the other person realize that we can really can get this relationship thing right, to comfort ourselves that we really can be good enough at life itself. This then begs the question: are we sticking to the job, the relationship, or whatever endeavor we have at hand because we know we really want it, or because it has reached a level at which we just want to prove our point?

epitome of an oxymoron - a.k.a. story of my life right now

Piece vs peace - either one can make or break you

Sometimes just when we think that opening up and saying whatever's on our minds and in our hearts could possibly make things better, it turns right back around and shoots us in the face. So we should know when we need to say our piece, or hold our peace. Because that determines how much deeper a grave we are digging for ourselves and how much we stand to lose from it, and it saves us a lot of unnecessary -- "but healthy," as someone claims -- mortification, humiliation, and heartache. And yet we never learn; we just keep stupidly and naively clinging to the belief that it's best to say what needs to be said for everything to be all right.

No marks for guessing which one I tend to do.

Head vs heart - the never ending battle

We hear the clichés over and over again. "Listen to your heart." "Follow your instinct." "Trust your gut." "Go with your feelings." The phrases uttered so mindlessly, so mechanically, that we know we'll never follow them no matter how many times we hear them.

How do we stop the war that rages on in our bodies? When will we know that it's time to stop fighting? Even when we know it's time to stop, will we stop at all? Why do we keep fighting? Is it because we're holding on to that unswerving faith that everything will be all right in the end? Or because we simply refuse to stop fighting because we're secretly afraid that stopping means a lack of faith and therefore things won't go our way? And yet, when in the end either the head or the heart wins, we're so battlesore that when we take a look back at what we've fought for, we wonder if it was all worth it to begin with.

How do we know when to listen to our heart and when to listen to our head? The head tells us like it really is, but the heart tells us what we want it to be. And in the end, when the battle dies down and we make as best a decision as we can, we're never really happy with the outcome, because it was a battle that was won by default, when one side simply chose to give up. We will always end up wondering what it could have been like if the other side had won.

And the war will go on..

refusing to settle

It's human nature to refuse to settle for second-best, to harbor that determination to get what we've set our sights on and try our best not to just give up and pass it off as a lost cause. But if all we end up doing is banging our heads against the same wall and reopening old wounds, why do we do it? We've had plenty of opportunities to get ourselves out of this predicament, but instead we choose to stay in it and just.. wait. And even when we're presented with other options that may or may not be better than what we essentially want, we stubbornly turn away from them and continue to wait. Is it a case of I Want What I Can't Have, or is it really that worth it? Or is it faith -- faith that if we work hard enough for it, and believe for once that the tide really could turn and that this could be a turning point in our lives, it will eventually come to us and everything will be all right?

I'm learning again..

How it feels to be afraid.

How it feels to be teetering on the edge, too terrified to move and too tired of standing still in the same spot.

How it feels to have the stakes raised against me.

How it feels to be completely helpless.

How it feels to rather be left in this gray area than to be sent hurtling back to the black area.

How it feels to know that this time around, I really could stand to lose everything.

That in the end, I would still risk everything to know how it all could have been.

The price to pay - we can't afford it but we would go to any lengths to settle the bill

- Picture courtesy of PostSecret *

Possibly the most famous quote from one of my favorite writers, Neil Gaiman:

"Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life... You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love."

- The Sandman, #65 -

The worst feeling in the world

When you don't know whether to laugh or cry.

When you don't know whether to give them the hug they want or push them away.

When you don't know whether to comfort them or turn your back on them.

When you don't know whether to be cruel or kind.

When you don't know whether to love them or hate them.

And then that little voice in your head eventually whispers, "You know..." It's so ironic that all you can do is laugh, until it makes you cry.

Why gamble?

Why do people gamble? In a world where money is so fluid, how do we know how safe it is to risk (almost) everything we have just for all that brouhaha? We scan the room for a table that could make us potential millionaires, and we put our money into it in the hopes that we gain something. When we see something coming back, that's when the stakes get higher, and we put more into the game, hoping that we'll get more back. And even when we begin to realize that we may end up losing everything, we keep going, determined to redeem ourselves and at least be able to keep a tiny bit of the money that we gambled.

The exact same thing can be said for relationships. We scan the world (or the streets) for that person who could be a potential Somebody in our lives, and we put our time and effort into it in the hopes of turning it into a decent relationship. When we see the slightest bit of progress, our hopes get higher, and we put more time and effort into it. And when this person happens to be someone we really, really like, we choose to ignore all the bad signs that it might not work out the way we want it to, and we soldier on, desperate to salvage what we thought could have been a relationship and trying our hardest to hold on to that last shred of effort that we put in (not to mention our dignity).

So when is it time to stop gambling? When we sense that we're about to lose everything? Or do we cross all fingers and toes, keep playing, hope that we'll get some of it back, and then stop only when we have no other choice? Or do we just play it safe and not gamble at all? Not gambling leads us to either breathe a sigh of relief that we didn't lose as much as everyone else did, or wish with all our hearts that we had dared to try our luck and end up among the few fortunate ones. So maybe the important question isn't why or how much we gamble. Maybe it's when to pull our highest bet -- our hearts -- off the table.

The pleasure principle of the exquisite pain - we really do do it to ourselves

Alcoholics use sex to help them overcome their addiction; I use one form of pain to deal with another. Yes, the pain. The oh-so-exquisite pain.

Clearly, I have a problem.

Lately I've begun to think about all the mistakes I made during the 'young and stupid' days. About 85% of all actions in the past four-odd years have been met with the same reaction: What have I done? What the fuck was I thinking? And yet the mistakes continue to happen. As the saying goes, "Once bitten, twice shy"; so in my case, it should probably be "Thirty-two times bitten, sixty-four times shy". Not that have made thirty-two mistakes in the past few years, but the number is probably close anyway. Why is it that we can never learn?

Maybe we do learn a little, but the next time around we make the same mistake, and hope against hope that things will be different, and history won't repeat itself. But then if we're making the same mistake, won't the outcome be the same as well? And no matter how much we snipe and gripe about getting our hearts broken and bang our heads against the same wall, we always end up going back for more. So do we really not learn, or are we just addicted to the drama and the pain of it all? The oh-so-exquisite pain?

God knows I've made enough mistakes to fill an entire national library. And God knows I've sworn never to repeat them, and that I'd rather hurt myself before hurting anyone else. And yet here I am now, making what is close to the same mistake that I made barely a year ago, and at the same time hoping to get out of this unscathed -- or at least alive -- without doing what I did to myself just eight months ago. It's either wishful thinking, or just plain sadism.

What hurts the most - knowing how it really is, how it might never be, or how could it have been

Sometimes we think that things are slowly but seemingly taking a turn for the better, and before we know it, we start to let our guard down and try to ease into the change. But then it's only when we cave -- or in my case, implode completely -- that the reality of it hits us (or is conveyed by the people around us), and the impact is so profound that we're left kicking ourselves in mortified humiliation.

Three lessons learnt

Trust. We're always afraid that something won't work, that this time will just be like all the other times, that we're only setting ourselves up for failure and bitter disappointment yet again. And yet we know deep down in our hearts that this time was not like all the other times, so we have to have that trust and faith -- in ourselves, in anyone else involved, in our own judgment and in the fact that if we really do want everything to work out, it will in the end. So we wait, but is that a sign of unbreakable trust and unswerving faith, or just denial that everything has crumbled about our ears and it's time to let go? And if one party gives up along the way, and the other follows suit, is it because they had no other choice, or because the trust and faith were somehow broken?

Taking risks. In the movie: "How do I know she won't keep punishing me for the rest of my life?" Steve asked, to which Miranda countered, "How do I know he won't cheat on me again?" And their shrink replied very simply, "You don't." We don't know what and how much we stand to lose by doing something until we actually do it, but that is the risk we all have to take if we want it. Similar to bungee jumping where the fear that the safety harness will break is ever-present, we are given the chance to reconsider our choices, and if we know we want to try it, we take a deep breath and jump, knowing full well the causes and consequences of our actions. If we fail, we know we can still hold our heads up and say, "At least I tried," because no matter how much it hurts to fall, it would hurt more to stand in the sidelines and wonder what could have been.

Forgiveness. People make mistakes, people may not know what to do sometimes, but that is just human nature. But we look past all that and accept them just the way they are, because not to do so would mean that we can't forgive them for being themselves instead of what we want them to be. It can't always be all about us -- what we think, what we feel, what we want. Sometimes we have to put ourselves aside and understand that this is how they are and know that we can love them for it. And it's only when we forgive -- ourselves and/or them -- that we can move on, with or without them.

the immovable meeting the irresistable

We all want to hear the truth. But when we finally do, even though we know it was for the best, we start wishing with all our hearts that we hadn't, because that's when we know it's too late.

What happens when two people want completely (or at least significantly) different things? One person is burnt out and trying to break free, and the other seems dead set on hanging on for dear life. How do they work it out so that both parties are at least reasonably satisfied? Does the defector grit their teeth and stick with it in the hopes for a change of heart, or does the tagalong hold up their head and walk away? If the fire has died down and the butterflies have flown away, is there any hope at all that the fire will reignite and the butterflies will come home? Or is it all too late?

Too late. The most terrible phrase ever uttered. Too late to be sorry, too late to be loving, too late to be kind. Too late to try and fix the things that went so horribly wrong, too late to say everything we wanted to but were too afraid to say. Why do we always learn from our mistakes just a little bit too late? It seems that only when we're on the verge of losing that we suddenly repent and fight tooth and nail to regain our position and make up for all the mistakes we made -- only it's just a little bit too late. But then when we're on the other side of the field, watching someone else fight a losing battle, do we keep our feet planted firmly on our side, knowing it's where we stand that matters, or do we relent, reenter the foray, try to help them and hope to get out of it alive once more?

I've been learning to live without you now
But I miss you sometimes
The more I know, the less I understand
And all the things I thought I figured out, I have to learn again
I've been trying to get down to the heart of the matter But my will gets weak, and my thoughts seem to scatter But I think it's about forgiveness Even if you don't love me anymore

- India.Arie/Don Henley, The Heart Of The Matter -

The domino effect- when it all becomes too much

Reflection can be a bitch. Sometimes we don't mean to do it, but then something triggers a memory and everything comes flooding back to us, and like it or not, we find ourselves thinking, and thinking, and thinking-- about the past, about the present, about everything that we did to make things the way they are now, and everything we missed out or overlooked that could have made things different. And then some of the memories become so consuming that they literally make our stomachs heave and we have to stop to catch our breaths, before the pain becomes too great.

I did this to myself. I knew better. Just like all those other times when I thought it would be different, it turned right back around and bit me in the ass. And I have no one to blame but myself, because I knew better. I should have known better.

"... cried enough, but I can't stop crying. I want to keep everything the way it is, but I'm tired of everything being the way it is. The next four months will fly by, but they're not moving fast enough. I have this feeling, and I love this feeling, but I hate this feeling, because I can't do anything about it. I don't want to see anyone. I don't want to talk to anyone. But I want to talk..."

"... if this were a crime punishable by death, I would gladly face the execution over and over again..."

"... the door that leads to my escape, I've finally found the courage to open and go through it. And now that I'm standing on the other side of it, you will never be able to..."

"... is my biggest secret, and I would give..."

"... you could end up doing something you've always wanted to do in a place you never imagined you'd be doing it. The memories you have now could be nothing compared to the memories you're about..."

"...Why were you in the car in the first place?... The gas light is on... The gas light is now flashing..."

"... enough is enough is enough... If it seems to good to be true, it..."

"... in the eyes, or in the speech, or just in that little secret smile that gives a clue to the..."

"... not physically here, but is something that occurs so often that it has actually become a constant presence in our lives? And how do we explain to them that because it has become such a constant presence, we can actually..."

"... suddenly as they're flung open, they're slammed shut again, going whichever way the wind blows, and going against whichever side the boundaries..."

"... come so dangerously close to breaking, and just like that, to be made to keep..."

"... a time and place for everything..."

And then comes the silence. The monstrous, deafening silence that overrides everything that had ever been said and done.

Defining moments

We all go through phases in our lives where we are almost completely alone. We learn to take care of ourselves, to keep everything to ourselves, and to shut everyone else out. It doesn't necessarily apply only to being single; it could happen in any circumstance of life -- moving to a new country, moving back to a home country, or even starting a new job. We know we have to depend on ourselves more than ever before, and in the end we become so self-possessed that we are in danger of being unable to relate to other people anymore.

But then life takes a turn and suddenly we find ourselves in a situation where it's not just about us anymore; now there's someone else, there are other people involved. We know it's time to remove that armor and learn to let them in, and yet we still subconsciously keeping our guard partially up, terrified that at any given moment we could do or say something that would actually give us reason to duck behind it again. So we take a backseat to everything, knowing we can't really go back because we've gone too far by putting our cards on the table, and yet too ambivalent to move forward. Why do we make it so difficult for ourselves to break out of this prison -- a prison of our own making at that -- and allow ourselves to go through a phase of which we have long been bereft?

Maybe because when we were taken out of this prison, the overwhelming sense of freedom without bounds made it all too much to handle, so we went back to the one place where we knew was safe, even though we had been alone. Freedom may know no bounds, but not life, and certainly not the more complicated aspects of life. So maybe we need to define them, because until we do, we're stuck in this limbo, where the lines could become so blurred that we don't know where they fall, and we don't know what the rules are and how to act, and we end up losing more than we could ever afford to.

Let it pass

It's back. Or maybe it never went away in the first place.

Meredith: I have a feeling.
Derek: I get those.
Meredith: Yeah?
Derek: Yeah.
Meredith: And?
Derek: If you wait long enough it passes.
Meredith: Promise.
Derek: I promise.

- Grey's Anatomy -

So why hasn't it passed?

gale-force wind

The doors can stay open for days at a time, and then, just as suddenly as they're flung open, they're slammed shut again, going whichever way the wind blows, and going against whichever side the boundaries fall.

And once again, I'm standing on the outside, shut out of a world I could barely set foot in in the first place. To have come so dangerously close to breaking, and just like that, to be made to keep it all in.

A reminder

Big decisions are the worst to make. We ponder for ages over whether or not to do something, seek advice from people, only to end up taking our own. Then we make our decision and we know that it was the best one (probably because there wasn't really a choice to begin with), and we work towards it, trying to ignore any doubts we may have, and trying to keep the faith and hang on for dear life to the hope that no matter how (unfortunately) long it takes, everything will be all right in the end. And just when we start second-guessing ourselves and possibly start wondering -- albeit a tad too late -- if we really had made the right decision after all, that tiny little thing happens to make us reassess, regroup and remember why we did it in the first place, and why we thought it was the best thing to do.

Serves me right

So it really wasn't just a figment of the imagination after all.

Enough is enough is enough.

It's like the saying goes, "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is."

As _____ a time a any

Is there really a time and place for everything? For doing what we want to do, going where we want to go, saying what we want to say? And which is the most fragile of all: the words, the action, or the place? Lately it seems as though saying what we want to say relies the most heavily on this adage, because saying it not only directly affects us, but the people we say it to, and the fifty-percent chance of saying it at the wrong time and/or in the wrong place could change everything, and not necessarily for the better.

So if we have decided when the right time and place would be to say something, but something happens along the way and throws everything into a different light, what do we do? Do we hold our tongues and cling to our resolution to follow through with our initial plans, or seize an opportunity, however wrong it may seem, to get it out of our system? Following Plan A might just turn out the way we had intended it to, but we don't know when, or even if, we would be able to carry it out; Plan B might help us get it over with sooner, but it could reflect -- and possibly badly -- upon the events that led to having a Plan B in the first place. And then there's the even more daunting problem of what the outcome of either plan could be, as there's that fifty-percent chance of having it blow up in our faces. So then one might see fit to argue that if we know there's a possibility of slinking into bed in mortification anyway, regardless of which plan we follow, why not just throw caution to the wind and say it?

Is there a Plan C?

Pain and addiction - one doesn't exist without the other

They're self-inflicted and self-developed. We put ourselves in a position where we're vulnerable to everything, even though we know we're likely to get hurt. And when that happens, we can't complain about it or blame anyone but ourselves, because we made that choice, and somehow, it was never about us in the first place.

I don't say it..but you know it's there..

The most common case is when it's right in your face and you see it happening. The less common case is when it's right in your face, and then after a while it disappears, but you know -- or at least you hope -- it's still there. The least common -- and most surprising -- case is when without ever having seen it, it happens anyway, and our awareness of it is most heightened when it seems to have diminished a little.

How do we rationalize it? When someone scoffs at us for even harboring such a notion, how do we tell them that as ridiculous as it may seem, it really is happening? How do we explain to them -- without appearing the slightest bit insane or irrational -- that even though it's not physically here, but is something that occurs so often that it has actually become a constant presence in our lives? And how do we explain to them that because it has become such a constant presence, we can actually miss it when it's not there as often as before?

Perhaps the biggest problem isn't not knowing how, or even when, to say it. Perhaps it's not knowing whether to say it.

heart in a cage

From as early as we can remember, we are taught -- whether directly by someone or indirectly by our own subconscious -- to build a wall, around ourselves, to protect ourselves from getting our hearts and spirits broken. But every now and then, something -- or more precisely, someone -- comes along and starts nicking at it -- whether with a careful fingernail or a pickaxe -- and before we know it, we ourselves are helping them along by taking down the wall we so carefully constructed. And of course, once we've taken down that wall and let our guard down, it doesn't take much to make us wish we'd kept the wall right where it had been. And so the mending and rebuilding starts all over again, in one vicious cycle.

In a world where so many things are uncertain, is it any surprise that some people start to think of everything as touch-and-go? When that certain person waltzes in and out of our lives as they please, we start to fear that each time we see them could be the last. When one relationship ends badly, we start to think that maybe we just don't do well in them and that every subsequent relationship is therefore similarly doomed. Sometimes it's almost as if we're afraid to be happy or hope that things will turn out right this time around, because that just makes the fall higher and much harder. Some call it being real. Others call it being paranoid. But maybe it's just being cautious: that subconscious rebuilding phase so that nothing or no one can ever touch us again.

But the one thing we never learn, the one thing -- besides caution -- that we choose to throw to the wind, is that no matter how well we build that wall, no matter how securely we keep our hearts caged in under lock and key, someone will always get in, and they're there before we even realize it. It's whether or not we choose to leave them there or lock them out that makes all the difference, and it's not always as clear-cut as it seems.

lost in transition

In times of a transition, it's possible to lose our perspective on things, or -- in cases few and far between -- just gain an entirely new perspective altogether. But in retrospect, is a transition an excuse for actually losing our perspective? In the months and weeks leading up to said transition, we harbor and nurture dreams for the future, building up our hopes and expectations, so wouldn't losing perspective -- or for want of a better term, giving up -- on that make all the initial hoping and dreaming a complete waste of time? It could be a way of protecting ourselves from possible disappointments or heartbreaks, but doesn't that also mean a lack of faith?

Faith. It can be so constant and at the same time so volatile. Faith that no matter how difficult things may be now, there's always that light at the end of the tunnel. Faith that at some point the games would have stopped and the time to grow up and get real is drawing near. Faith that maybe for once in our lives, things really may not be 'too good to be true'.

the gas light is now flashing

Sometimes it isn't about what we want, but what needs to happen. And no matter how well-prepared we think we are for it, when it really does happen, we realize that all the preparation and pep-talking we put ourselves through had been of absolutely no use at all. And then we fear that we may wake up two weeks after it happens and realize that we can't reverse it, and we'll have to live with it for the rest of our lives.

So much to say, so much to do, and so little time to say and do it all.

make it stop

One of the things that makes it so difficult to let go is the fear of the unknown -- the fear of not knowing where we'll fall once we let go, how much the fall would hurt, and how we'll recover from it. We're afraid that the plans we've made might fall through once they become real, because no matter how much we brace ourselves for it, sometimes the real thing might not be what we had hoped it would be.

Where once I was dying for time to fly by so that things could change, I would now sell my soul to keep everything the way it is, the way it used to be.

Denial

In the most typical method of birth control, one pill a day is taken for 21 days, and then life is dictated by Aunt Flo some time in the next 7 days; the phase of a woman's life that has always come and gone as it pleased can now be fully controlled from every 28 days to every four months, until it can no longer be put off. The same can be said about going through a transitional phase in life; we know it's coming, but we choose not to think or do anything about it until it's ready to slam into our faces and we have no choice but to deal with it. But it's how we deal with it that makes a difference: we either sedate ourselves emotionally so that we don't end up freaking out and bawling our eyes out, or... well, we end up freaking out and bawling our eyes out.

The emotional sedation (more commonly thought of as 'denial'), however, could end up being a little more difficult to deal with. At least, the side effects of it. Deep down we're so overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done that we block out all thoughts and feelings and concentrate (perhaps a little too hard) on the task at hand, and in the end, when the transition has been made, the reality of it finally dawns on us and we realize that we never knew how to deal with it in the first place.

When we get that feeling that something doesn't seem quite right, and we think and think about it but still can't figure out exactly what the problem is, some might say, "It'll hit me eventually." Obliviousness notwithstanding, is it also possible that somewhere (extremely) deep in our subconscious, we secretly know what the problem is, but our refusal to accept it -- and disinclination towards dealing with it -- has us scraping the barrel for something else to pin the problem to? And if we're denying the problem, are we denying it because we wish we didn't feel this way, or because we wish we didn't have to deal with it?