Into the fire
And it was still that night; but then, I knew, that I could have gone on and on, forever carrying the proverbial torch for her, silently, willingly, and uncomplainingly.
Yet as I laid there quietly, tossing, brooding, weighing chances, and brooding some more, my emotions, as safe as I thought they were in that balloon, came pouring out like nobody else's business. I found out, that I couldn't contain them after all.
And I thought, that if things were going to change, I had to change them for myself. It seemed that finally, I was already prepared to take that step. I guess, somehow, there just has been an urge to let my feelings loose and see how things would unfold from there.
And, I guess that for the most part, I expected things would get awkward as it did back then, and for that, I was prepared. I was ready for a lot of things. I knew by taking that step, I was going to be shunned, temporarily, otherwise, or maybe even ignored altogether.
But, like all good drama soaps, things just didn't turn out the way I expected them. Not that she fell for me like it was a dream come true - for it was a given, and a blatant one at that, that that was improbable, if not, simply impossible. But the thing was, she didn't ignore me, nor shunned me.
Instead, for what it meant to me, she shrugged it off, acknowledging that it was just a joke and I was the big joker. She laughed, and, for her, that was the end of it. Convincing, as much and as hard as I tried, didn't exactly make her change her mind.
And from there, like all good times, and bad, things began to crumble; and I began to get cold feet. Maybe it was simply frustration. Whatever it was, the fact remained. And that was simply gut-wrenching and heartbreaking altogether. I was hanging within an edge of my life with but a thread of hope and she was just laughing it off, shrugging it off. She thought it was all a joke, or maybe yet, she thought that I was the joke. Regrets began to sink in, and the screams came after that. I felt powerless, and I was simply dying inside.
Admittedly, love was, and still is an area where I sucked - and I sucked badly, at that. But even this was just all too much. Stepping up, I lost my ground. I came out of my comfort zone to do something against my better judgment. Out of the stove and into the fire, they say.
And yet she didn't have to be so numb. She could have just slapped me in the face when we met, screamed, shouted, got angry - all that would have just been okay. Laughing it off just drove me insane.
And there were just a lot of things that I didn't know nor could even begin to comprehend. Things began to take on strange and unfamiliar forms. Not knowing where to go, and not knowing what to do is simply something that I've never been accustomed to feeling.
I just feel so bad right now, and I'm not okay at all. I can't concentrate on work; we were supposed to submit a design proposal this January and I haven't exactly started working on that yet because I was too busy thinking up of ideas to surprise her when we meet. But then, I suppose even that is going to be just another joke for her. I fought with a close friend when he made a snide and foolish remark about her, but then she doesn't even care about that, does she?
I'm yapping like a baby, or perhaps, more fittingly yet, like an overgrown chimpanzee who just lost his banana. I always knew I got it bad, and I could swear that I came prepared. But I never expected her to react like that, and much less myself for reacting this way. I mean, I never reacted like this before, but I just don't know where to go from here, nor where to begin. I wish I can just pick things up where I had left off, wake up from a bad dream and then it was business as usual. I drift in my dreams, thinking, or perhaps maybe hoping, that everything would be alright. But that just won't do it.
At this point in the playful and often confusing scheme of things, the only thing that was clear to me was - well - the unclarity of things. Some say I'm simply too pessimistic for my own good. But I don't know; things just aren't looking up. At this point, I don't know if I should quit, but then again, I don't know if I should continue either.