catch-22

ph: Bimbi Gardel

I'm home and feeling.... happy.

T'was nice to have you over for a bit. Just playing around at the playground and walking around the estate, almost as close as lovers go. All that playful talk and doublespeak, the coy holding of hands and the bloopers that never seem to escape us. I like spending time with you, I do.

And when we couldn't continue avoiding the phone calls that chased us away I bent down and planted a kiss, the words inadvertently slipped out and I let slide an admission of my feelings. So I try to cover it up with feigned nonchalance and rehearsed finesse, but I do believe I meant it. I did.

I know you can never see yourself going the distance with me, and should we even try I know we'll be faced by far too many challenges you would want to have on your plate. To begin with... We aren't even supposed to be emotionally or physically available for each other. I must admit when we first started talking I took it lightly, say, like someone to fill in the times for when he is gone, but as we moved along I found myself getting more and more attached to you. That said, I've been trying hard to pull back and head back into where I'm supposed to be, but his nonchalance and mistreatment, coupled with how you say the most tender things sometimes, I find myself faltering out of track.

Perhaps what I need now is to eradicate myself of the alliances that I know are bad for me. But who defines good and bad? What if... The person that drives you so deliriously ecstatic is the same one that causes you to feel so inadequate and upset all the time?

And here's where I become a confused emotional wreck. I will not allow myself to go back to where I was at the beginning of the relationship. And I cannot bring myself to love him wholeheartedly and willingly, and fall back on him with no reservations any longer. I am tired, and I am spent. I've spent too many days waiting on him and too many nights crying myself to sleep. It hurts to know that I'm never factored into his plans, that he could if he tried but he doesn't, but what can I do or say?

Festivities are supposed to be happy moments but lately they've turned out to be the loneliest and saddest times of my life. But what do I know? And how can I change things?

I won't lie. I enjoy the attention I get from the men around me, the things they do and the lengths they would go. But of course, if I could, I would love to stay faithful and stop cheating. Be the girl I was. So in love with him, and just him. He was my kind of perfect, my kind of everything. I loved him as fiercely and as charmingly as I could. Protected him and rooted for him. I would love to be that girl again. But how? How? When he's just not there for me? How?

And how? When I find myself getting more and more attached to you with every kiss and every touch?

It's a Catch-22. I don't know what to do.