CHAPTER TWENTY

DEAR DIARY

Have you ever wondered what’s WORSE than wanting something you can’t have?

I believe it is NOT KNOWING what you want. Wishing on all the STARS in the sky for the answers to your numerous questions, for something to believe in…someone to hold. Having absolutely no CONTROL over yourself, being caught up in a place you WISH you were miles away from. Being stuck somewhere between the PAST and the FUTURE, and being nowhere near where you should be - in the present. Being stuck in yesterdays and tomorrows, so far from home, far from everything you know and LOVE. The uncertainty about the FUTURE could just tear you to bits.

Sometimes you meet certain people that can TOUCH your SOUL in certain ways most people can't. But you have to let them go because you realize that it just isn't the BEST TIME in your life for them to come. It seems like you meet the PERFECT people just when you can't handle them... And it’s hard letting go of something that you did(n't) know you were HOPING for... but not every RELATIONSHIP – be it friendship or romantic - is meant to last FOREVER.  And sometimes the best thing you can do is take a step back and give yourself a chance to breathe.

Today is Miss Perky’s birthday and just as I did same time last year, I have a surprise planned for her. However, to make her birthday surprise from me more surprising, I pretended as though I had forgotten it’s her b’day. At around 21:00 GMT, I received a heartbreaking text message from her. In her message, she was so pissed about the fact that she’s not heard from me on her b’day and that she “can’t continue being friends with me anymore!” Ever since I got that message from her, I feel as though my whole world has grinded to a halt! I mean, who in her right mind will ditch a friend over such an issue? Could it be that all this time, the only reason she’s with me and hangs around is because of what she GETS from me? The content of her text message was so painful that I literary cancelled all my appointments with my students and others and kept to myself all-day….

Hmmm, it is really FUNNY how LIFE changes. You get all lined up just the way you like it, and then something far beyond your CONTROL comes along and bumps you off center. How nice it would be if you could get anything just the way you want it and say, “okay, now stay.” But nothing STAYS the same. You grow up, make friends, lose friends, go to college/university, lose track of people, meet new friends/people, and sometimes you ask yourself why.

But all I know and can tell you is that every single EXPERIENCE you go through has changed you in some way. Every new person who comes into your life changes you. Every moral dilemma or emotional experience you come up against changes you. It’s your job to decide how exactly it changes you. That’s how character is developed!

To my dearest MISS PERKY, you’ve taught me and showed me many things. You’ve taught me that I can LOVE, that people can (pretend to) CARE about me. You showed me the feeling of being in someone’s arms when they MEAN the world to you. The feelings of COMPASSION. So many wonderful things. I thank you for that. You’ve also showed me that people BREAK PROMISES, that people don’t always hold TRUE to their word. You’ve taught me that you can LOVE someone more than anything in the world, yet HATE them just as much. That just because someone says something, that doesn’t mean it’s TRUE. You’ve showed me how bad it HURTS to have the girl you LOVE and mistakenly thought cared about you, push you away and treat you as if you are WORTHLESS. You’ve showed me wonderful things just as well as HORRIBLE things. I do thank you for both. You’ve now prepared me for the harsh world I am entering or already find myself in. You’ve thought me the hard way that people who say they CARE about you don’t always.

"Love is blind," we hear this all the time. People will use this phrase to describe a situation in which someone who is ENAMORED is not seeing the FAULTS of another. Oftentimes people become so OBSESSED with having a SPECIAL person in their life that they close their eyes to the things they should be looking at; and later they end up getting hurt. People who BLIND themselves make a willful decision to blind themselves, just to enjoy a superficial and fleeting pleasure, or emotion. LOVE IS NOT BLIND; I have come to believe it is rather people who blind themselves to the things they should be looking at.

When it comes to true love, we should look at a person's character, commitment, manners, respect, virtue, integrity among many other things. We should also look at their good and bad habits, their history, how they treat the opposite sex, how they treat their parents or siblings etc. We should never be blind to these things. True love deals with the WHOLE TRUTH about a person because true love desires to love the whole person; and if a person is not looking for the same thing we are looking for--true love--we should not give them a GIFT they are not worthy of receiving; you can be sure they will trample on it. Real love sees everything because real love seeks truth. Let's be guided by truth, never by SELF-DECEPTION.

Furthermore, I have come to believe that when one speaks of love, one must not immediately equate it to romantic love between two partners. Love is beyond that. Love is affection. Love is caring for another. Love is the general concern and care for another person. To those in the “FRIEND ZONE” who were seemingly placed there by the ones they truly loved, do not weep, nor stammer, nor criticize love itself in blind anger. Rather, try to UNDERSTAND. The reason he or she may have placed you there in the “friend zone” may be because he or she saw the UN-READINESS for the RELATIONSHIP. He or she might fear you getting hurt. He or she might have done so due to social schisms, despite really wanting to. He or she might have done so because he or she loves you too. And love does not always mean 'yes’ to a date request!

Though it hurts me to the core that MISS PERKY will literary dump me simply because I delayed in her b’day surprise, I am glad I met her and all the things she’s indirectly taught me about women.

And most importantly, lately, I find myself gradually being drawn to MISS CUTIE, I call her that because she’s literary the cutest person I’ve ever met. As to whether it’s going to be another painful story of unrequited love with her also, only time will tell!

WATCH OUT FOR MORE!

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A trip down memory lane-part 1

DEAR DIARY

Lately, I can’t help but find myself wondering; WHAT SHOULD REALLY COUNT when you are in LOVE? Is it the TIME you find yourself SMILLING thinking of that person, giggling about the MOMENTS you've had with him/her? Or the time you found yourself CRYING because someone makes you so HAPPY, it melts your HEART?

Life with MISS DEE (*not her real name* see CHAPTER SEVENTEEN) has been like a roller-coaster RIDE. I remember a TIME that she was all I could THINK about all day every day. But the TRUTH about the inconvenient TRUTH is that it is HARD when you meet the RIGHT LOVE at the WRONG TIME. And what is more PAINFUL is when you have to give up the RIGHT LOVE because you have to face the RIGHT TIME holding the WRONG LOVE!

Diary, permit me to take you on a little TRIP down MEMORY LANE, I met MISS DEE a year prior to the time MISS PERKY (*not her real name*) crossed paths with me…She had everything I thought I needed in my ideal girlfriend at the time. For quite some time, she was just a CLOSE FRIEND till the pent up FEELINGS in me for her became so uncontrollable that I had to make it known to her that I wanted to DATE her. Unfortunately for me, my TIMING was wrong because she had started seeing her ‘dream guy’. I had to contend with her friendship and forget about ever getting to DATE her. Things were very DIFFICULT for me because let’s FACE it, to be offered FRIENDSHIP when romantic LOVE is in your heart is like being given a loaf of BREAD when you are dying of THIRST…!

Fast forward a year later when I had TRIED all I could to WIN her HEART but realized to my utter dismay that it’s a forlorn cause, MISS PERKY showed up and that is where another story of unrequited love began! My attention had shifted from MISS DEE to MISS PERKY who was also head over heels in love with another guy. Just when I had grown TIRE of futilely pursuing MISS PERKY, Miss Dee popped up out of nowhere and we started dating!

Indeed, it was a story of meeting the RIGHT LOVE at the WRONG TIME for both of us…This is because she had just broken up with her supposed ‘dream guy’ and I was also tired of chasing MISS PERKY without any LUCK! I must admit, life with MISS DEE was kinda fun but so unreal! Yet like the true HOPELESS ROMANTIC I am, I wanted a PERFECT ENDING. I guess I must have some undiagnosed brain injury because I stupidly thought that this relationship based on convenience I chanced into with MISS DEE early this year might turn out to be REAL with TIME! But now I’ve learned the HARD WAY that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end.

 In life, as in art, some ENDINGS are BITTERSWEET. Especially, when it comes to LOVE Sometimes FATE throws two LOVERS together only to RIP them APART. Sometimes, the hero finally makes the RIGHT choice but the TIMING is all WRONG, and as the saying goes, TIMING is everything! It was fun chasing an ILLUSION, it gave me reason to be HAPPY, even if it wasn't REAL, but any ‘chase’ surely has to END. I'm just disappointed because when it did end... I was left with nothing but a MEMORY of something that never EXISTED!

It is hard to love someone who can never be truly yours. Time would give you chances to talk, chances to be together, chances to share. See how it hurts? You only have chances. Just chances!

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Dear Diary,

Did you ever FALL for someone you know you shouldn't? Tried hard to FIGHT your feelings, but you just couldn't? You FALL deeper with each passing day, but you try to HIDE it in every possible way. S/he's only a FRIEND, and nothing else--That's the LIE you keeping telling yourself. You keep on saying s/he's just a bud, but deep inside, you're FALLING IN LOVE. You get so GIDDY when you MEET his/her EYES, but you keep reminding yourself it isn't RIGHT. Perhaps it’s not RIGHT because the TIME is wrong or perhaps s/he’s your STUDENT or perhaps she’s your CLIENT or PATIENT or somebody social structures or society or culture does not PERMIT you to BE WITH. But despite all what is wrong, a simple GLANCE turns into a long STARE, yet you PRETEND that you don't CARE about her in “that way”. You remind yourself that it's "NOT RIGHT" for you two to be TOGETHER, so you try to HIDE it so no one can see. But how long can/will you PRETEND and keep LYING that she's just a FRIEND? Your budding FRIENDSHIP can't be RISKED over this, so being her GUY is an impossible WISH and you want to LET GO even before it “STARTS” but it HURTS to LET GO.

Sometimes it seems the harder you try to HOLD ON to something or someone the more it wants to get away. You feel like some kind of CRIMINAL for having FELT, for having WANTED. For having WANTED to be WANTED. It CONFUSES you, because you think that your FEELINGS are/were WRONG and it makes you feel so SMALL because it's so hard to keep it INSIDE when you let it out and it doesn't come back. You're left so ALONE bottled up in a FEELING so DEEP that you can't explain. Damn, there's nothing like that, is there? I've been there and perhaps you have too. You're probably nodding your head…

Indeed, it’s FUNNY how we’re all SEEKING that SPECIAL person who is RIGHT for us. But if you’ve been through enough RELATIONSHIPS, you begin to SUSPECT that there’s no RIGHT person, just different FLAVORS of WRONG! Why is this? Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out PARTNERS who are WRONG in some COMPLEMENTARY way. But it takes a lot of LIVING to GROW fully into your own WRONGNESS. And it isn’t until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problems—the ones that make you TRULY who you are—that we’re ready to find a LIFELONG mate. Only then do you finally know what you’re looking for. You’re actually looking for the WRONG person. But not just any wrong person: the RIGHT wrong person—someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, “This is the problem I want to have.” I will find that special person who is WRONG for me in just the RIGHT way. Let our scars fall in love!”