Strange Realisations and Caffeine Fixes

Let this moment flutter by. I am entranced by a song. A smile is on my face. I cannot help but feel happy, even if there is absolutely no reason for me to. Maybe it’s the caffeine. I had four cups. One cup for each page of the paper that I had to write. He seems off tonight. Or maybe I’m just extra bouncy because of this caffeine fix. Either way, we’re on different levels tonight.

Levels.

Ha. I laugh. I don’t know why I see him the way I see him now. It’s impossible. There is absolutely no structure to this little song we’re dancing to. It occurs to me that I do not quite know how to place my feelings at the moment. I used to be so certain of how I felt. Everything used to be so clear. I lived for the moment; that was it. Now I have all these emotions inside of me that seem to dictate that I take a closer look at my situation.

Three days hence, and it will be a month since I met him. Has it really only been a month? I guess so. I still barely know him. But I do know that he’s promising.

Let’s face it. I’m going to face it. I, that girl who swore against relationships, now has this ‘thing’ with this guy. It’s official. Yes, indeed it is. It is a ‘thing’. At least that’s what we’re calling it for now. It’s too soon to call it anything else. For two people who both live in the moment, we seem to be taking small steps toward the relationship phase. But maybe that’s why we’re taking small steps. Because we tend to live in the moment.

A relationship is long term. It requires work, commitment, dedication. Things that I’m not sure I am capable of. Maybe he is. He was in a relationship for three years anyway. On and off but what does it matter? It still happened over a span of three years. THREE YEARS.

My relationships barely lasted three months.

So to be fair to him, and to me, even if I do claim to live in the moment, even if I tend to take risks, this is not one cliff I’m jumping off so easily. I’ll take the long road down, the stairs, the steps, or whatever you call it.

It’s not like he’s going anywhere anyway, and even if he does, I’m not so much attached that it would break my heart for me to lose him.

Yes. Yes. And yes.

I don’t know him well enough to trust him yet. Heck. I don’t trust me with anyone. How else can I trust anyone with me? I’ve been independent for so long, after all.

Oh no!

After typing that last sentence about independence, a thought occurred to me. Could it be that it is my independence that is hindering me? That I cannot take a plunge because of this security that comes from my independence? Talk about irony.

No, no, no.

I swore I would not lull myself into securities. That was the very thing I was afraid of in relationships. That endless routine and that complacency that comes from security. I cannot have this now can I?

How different this conclusion is from what I had anticipated it to be when I first started writing. I suppose that is the good thing about chronicling how one feels. Realisations come that would not otherwise if not forced into words.

Living in the security of something, without the thrill that life brings, is not life at all.

Maybe I should dive down. Forget the stairs, the steps, or whatever you call it.

Standing in the Waters of Safety and Living

Lately I have been obsessed with trying to control every aspect of my life. It seemed to easy to follow the example that my aunt and uncle have set here, so tempting to be in charge of things so that life would be manageable. So that life would be easy. But it was never about being easy was it? It was about living. I woke up this morning and realised that even if I keep on saying that I need to live, I have not been doing much of that.

I keep on thinking about what’s going on in my life, what’s happening, what I’m doing and what its consequences are. I pre-empt them, I crush whatever consequences might come before even allowing myself to revel in the glory of what I have done. Picturing a life so perfect in that box of which limits I set seemed so beautiful. But I would be fooling myself if I allow that to go on.

I have to stop. I have to stop thinking and start feeling. Experiencing.

Maybe that is one good thing that people with religious faith have—that unquestioning surrender to a force greater than they are. But it is lacking, with their surrender comes a surrender of their own emotions, of their own experiences. “All for His Glory,” they say. Perhaps I am a selfish person for wanting to live my life for me and not for anyone else.

The world it far too beautiful. Far too grand. I cannot simply surrender it all to an institution that seeks to control my every thought, word and feeling.

As I reflect upon my thoughts early this morning, I ask myself why I bother at all to write it down if I claim I need to stop thinking and start to live. I’ve found no answer within my self, but for the fact that this seems the most natural thing for me to do. I am a writer, I write. Part of living, part of experiencing everything I do, of amplifying the gravity of my emotions, I find in the comfort of words.

And so I write.

Surrender.

Relationships were something that I did not fancy myself in because I believed it would hold me back. Because it would strap me down into an existence of a routine. I realise now that I thought that because of my experience with my past relationship. I allowed it to fall into a state of complete stability, of complete security that it seemed like it could never go wrong. Every single aspect was set in stone, controlled, and every motion fulfilled for the day to be complete. One cannot possibly imagine how hard that was for someone as spontaneous as I.

To be fair to myself, as kind as Kyle was, he never understood how my mind worked. He refused to see a certain side of me, that reckless side. He acknowledged it existed, but cast it into a shadowy corner so that he would never have to see it. All of the things I did which were not to his liking, he brushed off. He held not a mirror that showed a reflection of myself, but a portrait idealising the woman that he wanted me to be. Everything was so clear for him.

Life was never clear for me.

If I surrender to the wind every single part of my life, including this fear of commitment, stability and structure what are the chances that things would not fall into routine? I suppose it will be as easy to race back to the start again to leave it all coldly behind, coming back only when the path is devoid of those which I so fear. But maybe a part of truly surrendering is to allow myself to take that step into the unknown.

But I’m afraid. I’m afraid and I don’t want to leave this place where I feel safe. It now is as if I am standing at the edge of a lake, with my feet in the water, feeling its beauty to some minimal degree, but not experiencing it.

Jump, everything in me says.

But my mind refuses to allow me such an act.

Looking at Life Through the Window of Today

I am long past denying the fact that I am a cruel person.

I break hearts. And that's not me bragging. That's me stating a cold hard fact that has been repeated to me not less than seven times--by guys, girls, and my parents. I've been called callous, heartless, a bitch, and a lot of things relating to that. But I'm not insulted. Nor do I feel any anger by being given such titles. Why would I when I deserve them?

Commitment has always been something of a fantasy for me, but when reality brings it along, it frightens me to death. There were a lot of guys that came into my short teenage life. A lot of them I genuinely liked at first, but when the fun road of getting acquainted and flirtation drew to its end, the vastness of the possibilities facing me simply impelled me to race back to where I came from without a word of explanation.

I've left a few guys cold. I was a coward enough to do that. But cut me a bit of slack and give me some credit--I came back. I came back to the road I left them, finding them wandering back aimlessly, and guided them into the safer road of a stable friendship without the daunting shadow of romance's trees hovering over us.

I am friends with both of my ex boyfriends. And I get along amazingly with guys that I abandoned because of my fear. They all understood. They all accepted me back. And now they're the best friends I could ever have in my life. They all acknowledge that I was not such a perfect person for doing what I did, but the trust I have in them, and they have in me, simply is incomparable to any kind of trust a normal friendship could build.

Bono especially has been one of the pillars of my existence. I thought myself half in love with his wit and boldness at one point, but eventually came to the realisation that I wanted him to be there for me as a friend, not as a boyfriend. And now that he is, now that there's someone loving me for who I am without the pressures of a commitment, I found myself to be in no need for it. There are expectations that come with a relationship. A commitment, a responsibility.

The one time I decided to take that plunge after my disastrous childhood sweetheart episode was with Kyle. And even that did not turn out well, even if our friendship indicated nothing but the ideal relationship between us. The title of being in a relationship changed things drastically. Once again, only three steps into the vast forest of a relationship, I spun on my heels and took off without explanation. I came in there excited, wanting to experience something new. And when I found that all it was a series of going through the same motions of saying "I love you" before sleeping and after waking, of telling him how may day went, the routine disillusioned me. So I left.

That wounded him. But I had to do the right thing for me. He liked what we had. He liked the routine, that security. That stability. But it was not for me. "Live a little," everyone says. I say "Live!" I had to come back and explain things to him, and even if he was one of those who would never understand, he accepted my apologies, and now we live a life of coexistence, of complete trust and the thought that "Maybe, someday," when I'm ready, we might start all over again. But in my heart I honestly doubt that.

What is it about settling down to commitment that scares me away? Why do I have a constant need for change, when the majority of the world live their lives so that they could find a constant pace to settle down? I have had friends so content to stick it out in a crappy relationship, claiming that they loved the person too much to let go, even if they were already neglecting their own lives. It seems the norm, the thing that everyone must do.

Am I selfish?

When my aunt told me this morning of how she suspected that he dropped out of school for a while because he and his girlfriend broke up, I started to think a little more. He sounded like someone who would be attached. I got scared. This was another heart just waiting for me to leave it cold.

But then as I write this now, I look outside the window and realise where I am. I'm not home anymore. I'm in a new place, trying to build a new life. And maybe, just maybe, this life would be different. Maybe in this life, I can live and at the same time know what attachment is.

It's too soon to tell.

But it's also too soon to cast out that idea.

Or is it?

Life in a Fantastical Movie

When you’re an eleven year old girl and that boy sitting across the room meets your gaze and turns away shyly, you know it at once: he likes you. And since you were so obviously looking at him, it is undeniable that you like him too. I learned to flirt at such a young age. I had my first, well, you can call it ‘boyfriend’ if you’d want to, but I prefer to refer to him as a childhood sweetheart, at twelve years old.

His name was Julian. Even his name was so sweet.

It was at that point in my life, while I was an angst ridden teenager, still reeling from the remarriage of my mother to a man (coincidentally also named Julian) that I would soon come to love as my own father in the coming years, that I decided I needed someone to love me. He was perfect. That exact ideal that every young girl wanted to find in the guy she would fall in love with. He was handsome, smart, talented, had a great accent, and most importantly, he always, always said the right things.

Many would call me a film buff, and even I myself admit without a blush of embarrassment that I spend far too much time in the world of film than in reality. It should follow then, that my life was centred in movies. Everything that Julian said seemed absolutely made for a good sappy romantic movie that you would just love to kick once it’s over because of all the clichéd lines in it. But that was how it was.

I remember telling him that I felt that the whole world hated me, and that there was no one in the world who could ever understand me (did I mention I was filled with angst at this age?). Says Julian, “I’m a part of this world, and I don’t hate you.”

Nearly six years and countless ‘romantic’ interests later, I still remember his exact words. Funny how the stupidest things kids do and say could be one of the most memorable things in one’s life.

I’ll never forget Julian. I’ll never forget those things that he told me.

But I grew up.

A point came in my life where I became disillusioned by the realities of what a real relationship was and simply decided that I didn’t want it anymore. I did have one other real relationship after him. Kyle was a good guy. He was sweet, awkward, and basically the most important guy to ever have been in my life. I am actually proud of the fact that our friendship survived after we realised that a relationship just was not the right path for us to take.

However, even as I was with Kyle, a good long time after my childhood sweetheart and I fell out of each other’s lives, I still found myself comparing what it my first experience in a relationship was with what I then had with Kyle. They say that you’re never supposed to compare relationships, but whoever said that must never have been with a guy who lived up to the fantasy of an ideal. I did, and realising that that ideal was just a fantasy did not make me stop loving it any less. It made me more realistic in the sense that I knew it could never be, but I never stopped dreaming of it.

Why Julian and I broke up is not even a real question—we were young, and young people do stupid things. It was inevitable. Why Kyle and I broke up was mostly because of the fact that I loved him better as a friend than I did a boyfriend. He loved me though. I know he did, and he says that he still does. But love was not all that I was looking for. In my fantasy, there was life. There was beauty. There was... excitement. My relationship with Kyle came to the point where everything was always the same, where there was nothing new we each could bring to each other’s table. The security became so stifling, especially for me—a self proclaimed errant bird.

Carpe Diem is an adage that has lost its virtue in its popularity. Everyone knows it and says it. “Seize the day!” “Live every moment as if it were your last.” But do we really? We are so concerned with being careful, so concerned with our future that we forget that every moment that passes by could very well be our last. Kyle never understood this. He was the conscientious type of guy that my parents absolutely adored because he had the right personality, came from a good family, and was very goal oriented. But what about life?

What about slowing down to appreciate the beauty of everything around you, for one single moment simply closing your eyes and feeling the matter—yes—the matter, that surrounds you. It all seems so fantastical. All so much like a dream. But if you try to feel it, you will.

I have.

It’s funny because tonight I was talking to him, and he seemed to know exactly what I wanted to achieve by moving here, even if things did not turn out quite the way I planned. There came something in his life that changed his perspective, that changed his plans. I will not get into it for the sake of respecting his privacy, and mostly because there is no need to. My point is simple: he understands exactly what I mean. And he feels the exact same way.

It’s funny because what we have now seems almost like a movie. With the perfect lines, the plot filled with seemingly hopeless obstacles standing in the way, that excitement and fun, and the pace. It seems improbable. It seems almost too good to be true. And maybe it is. We have known each other for a little more than two weeks, after all.

But from two people who are determined to make every single moment count, what else could one expect?

Sunshine in a Foggy Morning

What does it mean when you’re crossing the boundaries of friendship and an actual relationship?

How does one deal when a guy thinks your friendship would eventually lead to somewhere, while you.. you’re still wondering if it’s all worth it?

Men have an odd way of saying, “You make me happy.” And us women simply fall for it—hook, line, and sinker—especially if they say it in a more sincere way. There’s nothing more fulfilling than being someone’s reason for a smile, than being the cause of someone’s sleeping at night with a smile on his face. I am no different from the rest of the general population of women. I have that same weakness to be needed and loved.

But for the past two years, that need has not been something that I have really felt. There was too much security in how much I loved myself. I used to say all the time “I love myself enough that I don’t need anyone else’s love to make me feel complete.” But now as I write this early in the morning, in a rush so I can get to school on time, I begin to think that while it may be true that I don’t need anyone’s love to complete me, that feeling of actually being someone important in another person’s life is something that I have not felt in a long time. And what’s more is that I miss that feeling.

What’s more is that actually making him happy is something that I find myself wanting to be doing. There’s that smile on his face, that twinkle in his eyes that I would be loathe to see snuffed out. And if what he said was true, that when he was around me, he always felt better, happier, then I would not want to be the cause of affecting him oppositely.

What began as being friends with him for the fun of it, just might turn into more than just a game.

Do I want this?

More importantly, am I just imagining this?

Can I risk hurting another guy just because I have this need of mine to fulfil? Or am I really starting to become attached to him? It’s much too early to tell. As he said, “It would be smart to take things slow.” But not in the context that he meant, because he was talking about the fact that if something did happen, it would be a big deal within the family. On my side, taking it slow just might be smart because it helps us evaluate where we really want to go with this. Me, especially.

I swore to never be in a relationship.

I don’t know what I’m getting myself into.

Is this just another escape for this errant bird to fly despite clipped wings? Or is this me finally taking a chance on something that I always saw as folly? No matter the case, it’s too soon to tell. Even if there were a spark there, even if something beautiful could come from it, there is one thought that I cannot shake from my mind:

What if he is leading me on the same way that I am now?

Don’t mistake me, I’m not leading him on out of cruelty or manipulation. I simply want to go on and see where this will all lead to. He said it himself, you never know what something could lead to if you don’t give it a chance.

But what if in the end, it’s him who decides that this isn’t what he wants while I’m left alone, yet again, an errant bird who cannot fly?

Clipping the Wings of an Errant Bird

I need this. I need to start writing again.

Since I moved to Oregon, my life has been one big blob. In the beginning, there was the beauty of it, that thrill of moving someplace new, of starting a whole new life. It’s painful just to write about this now. To say that it was everything I had expected it to be would be a fantasy. It’s so much easier to throw this out into the online world than with the people I see everyday. That is not to say that those friends I have made by writing online aren’t considered real friends, on the contrary—lately, they seem to be the only people I have to support me. They’ve been there, the only constant in this ever stagnant series of days that now is becoming my life.

It would be easier if they were not the way they were.

I never thought my aunt and uncle would be so protective of me. Back home, it was all so easy. My parents knew me to be a bird that they could never cage. Now that I am here, I feel as if my wings have been clipped off. One cannot possibly imagine how hard it is for a person like me to be confined to the house and not allowed to drive out whenever I want to, wherever I want to. The reason behind their rules is clear—they have assumed responsibility over my well-being, and they just want to make certain that nothing happens to me while I am in their care.

But the fact is that my parents trusted me enough to let me live thousands of miles away from home. Why can they not see that?

From being a social butterfly, I have been reduced to knowing only a few people. But despite the sudden loss of a social life, since I met him, the loss does not so much matter now. It’s so easy to put aside the thought that everything I am going through right now is anything but pleasant when we talk, and yet at the same time, it’s so hard to forget about it when all I want to do is to be able to hang out with him, and realising that I am a prisoner in this house.

That he understands my predicament, and does not tire of me (at this point) is to my great fortune.

But I need to break free from this monotony.

I cannot allow myself to be trapped in this life where everything has been set in stone. Where every waking moment has been planned, and every single day is a repetition of the last.

I need more than this. I need to start living again.