paying the consequences of obstinancy

My logical side is telling me that it is easier if I stick knife to my heart. No darkening of sight by the edges, no coldness, no palpitations. But I can’t do it. It’s to messy and traumatic for my housemates. Besides, I can’t escape. I won’t escape. If I am going to die today, I might as well dying for a reason and it damn better be the right reasons!

~o~

I’ve been thinking, since the the other night. Since the night T said those words. I’ve been thinking in between waking up and forcing myself to sleep. I’ve been thinking while I let my tears stream unabashedly down my face mixing with the hot droplets of water falling from the shower. I’ve been thinking every person who hurted me so badly I wanted to watch them die. There was the guy who raped me when I was seventeen. The moron ex-boyfriend who cheated on me with my close friend (those bastards!). The cousin who would masturbate just eight feet away from me hidden only by a thin door curtain. The uncle of my mom who fondled me. The old bosses who back-stabbed me. My anger was making me scrub my arm harder than usual as I took a shower. Perverts! Assholes! Fuckers! Each face was registering on my face and it took sometime for me to realize my left arm was as angry with me as mean red streak revealed itself. As I inspect my arm two faces registered immediately in my face. And they popped in my mind the same time. The bottom two in my hate list.

How astonishing. Him & T, whom I both considered my best friends, are in the same list as sex offenders, cheaters, emotional blackmailers, power-hungry ,and depraved men. I continued the task of scrubbing and this time I moved to my elbow while my mind continued to look at their faces with wonder. In my mind their faces seemed like I can touch it which I did. I touched his face first. 

A series of memories started to cascade. The first time I saw him. Me sitting at Julia’s eating while he was playing the guitar. Him giving my the Orange & Lemon CD and me gushing because he looked like one of the band players. Him breaking up with me telling me that he wanted to be free as I stomped angrily away asking my former manager if I can leave early. Him waking me up telling me to eat breakfast he brought. Him holding my hand as we drove to the lighthouse. It was like watching a movie. So much more memories flitted in my mind. Until it ended at the airport... me hugging him and him hugging me as I am pushed forward by people going inside to have their luggage go through the x-ray machine and when it was about my time I looked around and saw his very sad face like someone he loved died. 

And then I touched T’s face.

Another flashback. Me hearing his voice the first time. Me seeing him the first time with a big scowl on his face. Me looking into his eyes and shocked to see it green and wondering if there was gold in it. Being amazed the first time I saw him laugh and mean it. Touring Cebu and taking silly pictures. Drinking with Johann and all the time can’t get my mind of the kiss he gave me. Receiving a cute card with a puppy on my birthday. Sharing popcorn while watching a movie. Me pushing him to do what he initially wanted to do which is to be a gigolo. Video conferences about each other’s day. And then seeing him smile as he said “I wish I was there with you.”

Now I’m confused. How in the world did these two people end up in my hate list?!? All day I can hear the voices in my head sparring. Zoloft, my Zoloft where art thou my Zoloft. My head is so noisy I can’t hear myself talk aloud. The angry, bitter, and spiteful woman in me argued that both of them used me to their own advantage like sexual, ego, comfort which made them deserving to be in the list. But the reasonable (or insane, I think) part of me was saying I am old enough to make a choice, I allowed them to hurt me, ergo, I must be responsible enough to accept my fault and stop thrashing them.

The reasonable voice in my head continued to talk in me, “What they did to me was painful. Sure. Booo hooo hooo. But that is love. That’s relationships. That is life. It is quite inevitable that people will hurt people. But it is up to me to allow when and how I am hurt. And the hurt they have inflicted is not really comparable to those others. Besides... you knew from the very beginning both of them were not meant to be for you.” It makes sense. It does. But my wounded pride would not be defeated so easily. I argued if I am not good enough for them. Are they so perfect that they think that they are the easiest to understand? Is it not unfair that they ask so much when they give so little? But as questions and angry retaliations thundered in my head I tried to evade my own thoughts. I do not want to hear the reply to my questions because I know what it will say... “Make right the wrong.” 

The day continued uneventful but when my head hit the pillow and I slowly lull myself to sleep a passage is whispered in my heart. Something very familiar and very true. And as my mind listened to the truth in the passage my pride melted and in turn I was gripped with horror. I have lost my two closest friends. My selfishness will leave me with no one. Where is my head?!? How can I put them in a list reserved for people I wanted to see dead! I regret a few things in life and this is one that will be with the other few I would regret.

I know that when I wake up I am to make right the wrong. No matter the price I pay.

~o~

And so I started a vigil and waited for T. I had to chat him and pray to the God of big and small things he will talk to me. It’s a difficult task as when he got online he refused to talk to me. And when he finally did talk to me what I did not know was that chatting T would be close to slow death. I don’t know why as my fingers type my messages to him and read his reply I was feeling more light headed because my breath is getting shorter and quicker by the second. I rummaged around to look for a bag. A paper bag at that point would’ve been really handy except there are no paper bag in the room. Only boxes and wrapper with a smiling Santa and red ribbons with gold stars on it. Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! I am going to lose my closest friend and I won’t be able to greet him Merry Christmas on Christmas Eve! And I can’t breathe anymore as panic grips my heart so I very very much think I will die before I even finish wrapping my Christmas presents!

~o~

‘Tis hard. Making right the wrong is not just saying sorry to T (I don’t think I have to say sorry to him. I don’t think he really cares about me anymore to be hurt by what I wrote... but... erhmm... argh! FINE!). Making right the wrong means waiting for the the one for me and not jumping into relationships that hurt me. Making right the wrong means trusting the Author about my life and not making judgement calls out of whims, desires, fantasies, what ifs. Making right the wrong means me having to do spring cleaning and taking garbage out --- take a hard look in my life and change inside out. How I will manage it, I don’t know yet. But I know this, I don’t have much time because my life is passing every moment and I don’t want to look back five years, three years, or even one year from now and wonder why the three hundred and sixty-five days in my life are meaningless. I do not have the strength and the will anymore to pay the price of being a pig-head.