Indulgence

The Elephant in the Room

Fiona Apple from Oh Well
I was feeding on the need for you to know me
Devastated at the rate you fell below me
What wasted unconditional love
On somebody
Who doesn't believe in the stuff
Oh, well.

I could talk about the extremely different and left-of-center gig I had at Calatagan with Paulino, Paolo and Cat. It was really left-of-center, if you consider the twister we saw out at sea was merely one of the many things that happened that day. Yup, it was pretty out there.

Or I could talk about my first real date in a long, long time. Must've been years since my last date, actually. I could talk about that. Or I could talk about how my Dad keeps coming back and forth from Manila and Bacolod and how much I love him and miss him and enjoy it being able to talk to him about stuff that interests us in the depths of which we discuss these things but, how, it makes things harder on my sense of independence. I need the space; I need a space I can truly call my own.

I can talk about today, how I went to Valle Verde to assist Paulino again for zips class because I'm training myself to become an instructor. Currently, through Paulino's discretion, I've been assigned a designation as Assistant Instructor and I couldn't have been more prouder. Ears were flapping so hard I could fly when I saw it put on the design of my card that he sent to me. After class, we started spinning fire for a video and we got to watch it afterwards and it was so weird to watch myself perform.

But no, I won't talk about those things. Not right now. I've got so much shit going through my head right now. I'm going to talk about something that really disturbed me, but I can only talk obliquely since someone else is involved and that person cannot be named.

And no, it isn't Sauron or Chthulu or Voldemort (or however you spell that fucker's name).

It was a late night and I got home at around way past 4 in the morning. I took a shower, changed to sleeping clothes and got into bed, eyes closed and trying to relax when my phone gave a beep at around 5:30 in the morning. Someone texted. At this time? I asked myself. I checked it and my heart almost shattered. It was from someone long ago. Someone I really, really cared about but things didn't go the way I wanted things to. It ended very vaguely and, in my opinion, in a very messy way.

We had tried to resolve it and in a way, sort of re-connected but we never talked about what had happened before. It was dropped then, 2 years ago, and it stayed there on the floor. During that time we had re-connected, I was wondering if I was the only one who could see the remains on the floor, just lying there, all messy and... and... unclean. My friend didn't even mention it. I couldn't even get the hints that my friend had even realised it was there. To me, it was just there, just lying there.

I left it at that. At least we weren't avoiding each other anymore. At least, now, should we see each other in public we could say "hi" and be all nice and stuff; not like before were we had become the elephant in the room that you couldn't talk about. It was like, there you are, in Embassy and there's this elephant and you can't say Look! There's an Elephant! What the fuck is an elephant doing here in a club? Or worse, to walk by the lobby of a movie theatre and see each other and say, I didn't know elephants watched movies in Greenbelt. It was annoying and hurtful and made things so complicated and I was glad it was over. It wasn't cleaned up but we could deal with each other despite the mess being there. In a way, there were some foundations being built over the mess. Instead of cleaning it up, something else was just put on top like something you put under the bed or under the carpet.

It's not how things should be dealt with but that is how it is. I just decided to take it rather than cull another dramatic moment, another moment of tension. I had just wanted to end things.

It pretty much died there until the text. My friend desperately needed company and was asking if I was awake. I had no idea how many people my friend texted before me but truth be told, I was awake and I replied and I just fell back to the same old trouble I found myself in 2 years ago. Damned Blue Moon!

It was a very awkward moment in my friend's car while we were trying to figure out what to do, where we could go to hang out. In the end, I was sent back up home to sleep and my friend went home or so my friend told me. Except I couldn't sleep. Not anymore. My head was just racing with thoughts. I was back in the same old grind, being grounded to fine powder.

And until now I can't get my friend out of my mind and I was thinking of it as maybe an excuse to try and start things over or something, discovered that the feelings had died but are easily resurrected. I still think the world of my friend and would probably find no trouble falling in love again.

But thinking it over now, thinking it over and over again, I don't want to. It was so messy, so complicated 2 years ago, it doesn't seem to have gotten any better. And I've really changed for the better since then. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. That's how it should be, right? That's how I always lived my life.

And why? Is my friend the only one I could be with? Of course not! In fact, I just came from a date. It was surprising and refreshing and different from what I was expecting but it turned out well, I guess and it was shared that there would be a second and I'm truly, delightfully excited for that next meeting.

But once again, there's an elephant in the room. It's not a very big room but the elephant got in. And I don't know what to do and it is really, really digging deep into me.

Yeah, I am not okay.

posted by wanggo @ 2:06 AM