Crucible

(Date is approximate)

• Like purifying the precious metal by heating it to extremes.
• Like melting iron and tin to create steel.
• Like purifying water by boiling it.
• Like coal is crushed and heated to becomd diamond.
• We went into the fire and came out purified.
• All truths were spoken, the untried interactions were fulfilled, and even so our bond survived. Stronger now.

~End of Jan 2011

Clarity

I understand.

Name

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Hormones

I do not take hasty decisions. But, oh my god, you make me feel so good. Like there's nothing I could miss except you. But I'm still wary that that's only my hormones talking, so I want to give myself time to think it over.

Confusion

I don't understand.

L

Different girl. Different season. Same city. Different girl response. Same emotional pattern. I cry when the girl rejects me. I cry when the girl accepts me. What's wrong with me?

Sex has not yet been achieved, though. I wonder if it's necessary. It's certainly something I want. Crucial part of an integral romantic relationship.

L.

Defiant

So I was trying to go to sleep tonight, but this thought came into my head, and began developing, expanding, practically writing itself as I tried to dismiss it. It's late, it's almost 1am, but the concept would keep repeating itself in me, the title came to me periodically: "Defiant. Defiant. Defiant.". I wondered what would be best, what would help me resolve my issues better (yes, this is based on personal issues, as usual). Should I forget it, let it go from my mind, and force myself to go to sleep? Would this allow me to let go of the past and help free myself from it? Or would that only be a repression, a "pushing back" of my issues into my subconscious, where it would keep harboring resentment, producing passive-aggressive behavior, and holding on to unpleasant memories? The alternative was to write about it, just like my mind wanted. It's practically dictating it. This, I hope, should allow me to at least express what I feel, clear it up consciously, and then maybe figure out a solution to it. It's hard to fight something you can't understand or see. And in mind terms, I think bringing something up to consciousness is the equivalent of being able to see it. Hopefully I haven't forgotten it by now.

I sometimes attempt to understand my interactions with my parents. What I knew so far was that I always prefer to be away from them. These last few months then, have been hellish because I have been forced to cohabitate with them and to depend on them. I dismiss their advice fiercely. I ignore their attempts at friendly conversation by responding with blatant incoherence or obvious boredom, and offer very scarce conversation of my own. I feel on constant reactive mode when they are around me, as if I need to respond to their actions in a manner that will cut our interactions the shortest possible. I act aloof and uninterested when my father tells me about his recently found interests, whether they be world chess tournaments or funny internet videos. I treat my mother's advice as obsolete, ridiculous, or redundant almost every time she offers it to me. I act defiantly.

I defy them to prove they have something to teach me or show me that I don't know yet, or that might possibly interest me. I present myself as cool and in control, unneeding of any help they could possibly offer, beyond their help, beyond their domain. I know they mean well and are not attempting to prove any points like I am, but I act like this nevertheless. And I know this is anomalous because I act very, very differently with everyone else. If any non-family member tries to show me an interest of his/hers, I will at least fake attention, if only for politeness' sake. I take people's advice into consideration, I am willing to listen to them, and I actually try to assimilate their perspective more often than not. I feel drawn to other people's advice and conversation, but I repel my parents'. And I wonder why.

I have developed this attitude since adolescence. I'm not sure when exactly, but I remember some related feelings emerging between 10 and 12 years old, when I was explicitly disallowed from taking public transportation to move around the city, even though my older siblings had been given that privilege at my age. This example is only one of a vast number of tiny, seemingly insignificant acts of protectiveness and restriction that I quickly came to identify as condescension. As in "He can't make his own decisions, he doesn't know, he's just a child". I always disagreed on that. I was proud of my knowledge, skills, and my independence, and wanted to develop these. So with every piece of advice and ruling they forced upon me despite my explicit protests, my resentment towards them grew. It was obvious and loud at first, but as the years passed by, I learned to fake it away. No, you can't go to your friend's party. No, you can't stay the night there. No, you can't go out and play on the street. I don't want you to be friends with him anymore. This is a good friend, go play with him. Put on a sweater, it's cold. Be sure to do your homework. Have you done your homework? Let me see it. No, that's wrong, do it again. No, you can't watch that movie. No, you can't play with your older siblings, they're too old for you. No, you can't play with your younger sister, she's too young for you. No, you can't go hiking down the mountain. Turn off the TV, it's late. No, you can't cook by yourself. No, you can't climb that tree. No no no no no no no no no no no no................. sigh.

I KNOW that's what parents do. I KNOW they meant well. I KNOW many kids barely get any attention while I got a lot of it. I KNOW kids don't come with a manual. I still got the resentment, though. I have a very strong resentment towards them, that now seeps out passive-aggressively whenever I'm with them in the form of my defiance of whatever they say or offer. It's not so much an act of revenge as it is a reaction. I actively resent them forbidding me so many things in the past, so accepting practically any piece of advice or help from them, no matter how trivial or how much I actually needed it, humiliates and hurts my ego. And I am exasperated whenever they offer words of praise or encouragement, convinced that I KNOW that what I did was good and worthy, and that they didn't need to tell me. Yes, I got issues.

I just recently noticed that this reaction of mine causes something else. Being in a reactive mode when I'm around them, I become fairly uncapable of producing initiatives of my own. This makes sense, as producing an initiative I have not shown before will most certainly cause them to project some kind of comment or advice on it, and I refuse to accept any of it. I do not allow myself to commit mistakes in front of them, because their comments or advice then become valid, and humiliation ensues. So I do take initiatives that I know well, that I know will not produce any mistakes. I go walking around the neighborhood in 10F temperature with only a t-shirt on and ignore my mom's inevitable advice to wear a sweater, knowing full-well I'm able to withstand the cold. I help them by changing computer settings to what they want, knowing full-well that I know more about it than they do, and so in their eyes, I will commit no mistakes.

But I do not take initiatives in which I might produce mistakes or show weakness in. And that is terrible. It is stifling. I do not feel comfortable learning or practicing anything around them, because I do not feel fully comfortable about my expertise about it yet. So I am prone to mistakes, and prone to being forced to accept their advice, or to me even thinking that they could have some kind of advice. They usually do. So I don't attempt it. I don't dare myself to practice French, or piano skills, or singing, or even basic conversation around them in the fear that they will have some kind of sensible advice I would be forced to accept, or even an opinion about it that they keep to themselves. I don't share my online friendships, my accomplishments, my thoughts with them. I don't trust them to handle them sensibly. I know they will have their own opinion about it and share it with me, and I simply do not want to know what they have to say. If it's useful, it will humiliate me, and if it's useless, then I don't want to hear it.

Thus, I'm happy that I'm leaving Chicago for a while. I remember being so much more carefree, joyous, and open when I lived by myself. Living as a guest among friends should be similar.

OK, I think I'm a bit clearer on what my issues are now. Now... should I share this with them? I think that would be an act of defiance itself. "I defy you to justify your actions".

Courage

When it comes to saying something potentially awkward, there's a difference between having the courage to say it and not giving a shit about what happens. Personally, I fake the latter.

Ergodic

I just wanted to have a blog post called Ergodic.

Effort

It is quite natural to attempt to minimize the effort exerted to achieve a certain task. I think this concept is often incorrectly extrapolated, however, to include Life as one of those tasks. Like a cherished activity or object of curiosity, Life is meant to be explored, enjoyed. One should indulge in it, not because one has to, but because one wants to. Life is meant to be loved.

And a funny thing about love, is that it is not a silver-bullet kind of solution. I don't believe one achieves a "loving" state and then can stay in it forever, enjoying perpetual peace and kindness. (Well, maybe some people can, but they also claim enlightenment, and that is not a topic I'm referring to today). If you love something dearly, I don't think it means that you will forever be happy with it. Say you love Life. Great! The sun rises and warms your skin, the air feels fresh, the colors brighten your vision, the birds sing, the trees sway, the people around you enrich your perspective and you find yourself, your own reflection in them. Awesome! You're loving Life! Will you rise up again tomorrow with that same attitude? Could be. Maybe even better. Great! How about tomorrow? Could be. Maybe even better. Or maybe you ran out of cereal and forgot to get some from the store, so you couldn't have your usual breakfast. Will you still love Life? Very probably. What's some cereal to someone who loves Life?

I think, however, that love can fade. That it does, like everything left unattended in this world. The brightest paint fades away with time. Flowers bloom, then they wilt. Wood rots, metal corrodes, rock erodes, creatures decay, memories fade, feelings fade. If you want to preserve something, you need to feed it, replenish it. A car won't keep rolling if you stop pumping gas into the engine. Love between a man and a woman starts with a tremendous spark of passion and caring, but it rarely lasts long if not cared for. Or so I'm told. And Life probably won't remain bright and wondrous if you stop making an effort. What is love for Life fed with? I'm gonna go with Will. The Will to live, Will to explore, Will to DO. I myself have lost that quite a few times.

Take care of what you love. While one might wish for an eternal happily-ever-after solution for all of life's situations, be aware that the world rarely works that way. Time is the Destroyer, so we should act as the Preserver. And do remember that if you love something dearly enough, the effort required to preserve it will not seem like an effort at all.

Catharsis

Confession
Spite
Plea
Self-pity
Justification
Intransingence
Decision
Acceptance
Apology
Humbling

Heartbreaker

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-lq2NI9ux4

This was one of my favorites in Guitar Hero.

But now I use the term in reference to a person who actually break hearts, like a friend of mine. Like a close friend of mine. Or like myself.

Jerol and I chatted often with each other. We started our conversations with little <3 a="a" achieving="achieving" active="active" alive="alive" almost-sure="almost-sure" but="but" clause.="clause." course="course" different="different" distant="distant" div="div" each="each" for="for" free="free" full="full" i="i" if="if" in="in" intimacy="intimacy" it="it" kept="kept" latent="latent" living="living" love="love" making="making" my="my" of="of" one="one" only="only" open="open" other.="other." our="our" possibility="possibility" professing="professing" relationship="relationship" remaining="remaining" represents="represents" s="s" sexual="sexual" she="she" since="since" states="states" that="that" the="the" use="use" was="was" way="way" with="with" woman.="woman." world="world">

Last year, under our oath of mutual trust, she told me about when she went out with Robert, and had sex many times, and how it was great, and he was great, and he thought she was great, and everything was great. I listened, I smiled, nodded, and congratulated her, while my insides began to produce sparks of jealousy, envy, and hurt. They resonated inside of me as she kept telling me, but I didn't bring myself to telling her that it hurt me. I wanted to still be her friend, her confidante, the guy she always trusts. I kept it to myself, and the jealousy grew into resentment, the envy into hatred, the hurt into solid pain and depression. But even as the days passed and the feelings grew, I managed to keep them inside and listen to her as she confided in me her secrets and feelings, as mine kept growing and strangling me inside. I stopped talking suddenly in a fit of frustration, and then I cut off communication from the world and got myself into the accident that left me crippled.

And just 3 days ago, she was telling me about how this new relationship with a guy called Mark was going. That it was the best, that it was incredible, and that he said she was gorgeous, but at the same time that Robert wanted to see her again, and she thought that she could see them and fuck them both for the time being, because Mark was going out of town... blah blah blah.

And I felt the familiar sparks of jealousy, envy, and hurt arise, and I decided to stop it as soon as possible. I still waited for a reasonable pause in her narrative, and then told her "hey, I can't take it any more, please don't talk to me about Robert and Mark again".

She went silent, and only said something like "oh", then "ok". After that critical point, the conversation was fully ridden with long pauses and awkward lines, but it was practically over. I tried to save some kind of conversation between us by being funny and apologizing, but she was done. She said "I have to go", and that was pretty much it. She was breaking my heart by telling me her fuck stories, but I think I did hers, even a little bit, too. Heartbreakers. I wonder if she'll still want us to fuck again? I hope so. Her body is pretty flexible.

And now Laura. I won't even go into much detail with Laura. I just finished writing and sending her a very long email that WILL at least break her mindset, our relationship, and all remnants of the friendship that was there. If not her heart.

Summary: We met, I fell in love, I asked her out, she said no, I hurt. I left Pittsburgh to find new experiences in Life, I got into the bike accident. A couple of months later she visits me in Chicago, tells me she has "reconsidered", and would like to try out a relationship with me. I go like "ok... I guess". We don't even exchange a kiss, she leaves Chicago, and we communicate platonically through motivational, uplifting, and touchy-feely emails, based on the hope that we might have a relationship in the future. Our love grows. My motivation for life increases, I look forward to a new and bright relationship with a great girl who shares many of my ideals, if not many others. And tonight she tells me that, before she came to Chicago, she dated a friend of mine before. Ashik, one I introduced her to.

My initial reaction was that of tentative acceptance, trying to fit that new information in with the rest of me. To no avail. I really tried to tolerate, to incur the least damage, but sparks of jealousy, envy, and hurt, similar to the ones Jerol caused, appeared inside me again. I thought about it, and thought it over again, and was trying to find nice and accepting things to say to her, but none came. I could not justify it, I could not absorb it, I could not take it. Over chat, my response had no smileys any more, and I was already brewing actual angry responses at her. She left to sleep and wished me good night, and I told her the same, but I lied. I did not go to sleep. I wrote the email containing the questions that she told me to send her.

It is one of the most hurtful emails I have written. Copy-paste right here:

questions

"so I don't think jealousy is a factor"

not on his side

many thoughts, many thoughts in my head.

writing them as they come,

so by the time we went to that dance event, you were already with him. So you had a reason to turn me down, am I right? He got there first... he was the one you chose first... or did you already have your eye on Ashik and so you didn't see me as the first choice?

I'm going to be very brashly honest here, so if you don't want to know about it, stop reading. Now. For real.

You know what this makes me feel like? Second-best. Second fucking best. Antonio, meh, he's cool, but let's keep searching. Laura, meet Julian, Jose, and Ashik. Ooh, Ashik, now that's better. Let's get together, Ashik! OK, Laura! Yaaay. Now Antonio comes by, he asks me out, and I go nah I'm not interested, (while thinking "I've got your friend to take care of me for now"). So I say "OK", like the fucking little wimp that I am, I feel rejected, and move on, with only rejection on my side to make me feel bad. But hey, I'm used to that, you know - rejection, it hurts deeply every time, but at least you learn to predict how is it going to hurt, when are you going to feel like crap, and you resign to its humbling, painful pattern. That's ok. I wrote "Pissed" on a particularly painful day, but it was OK, it was part of the hurting process I already knew. I was pissed at you, I was pissed at Ashik, but I was pissed at many other things too, so it all evened out. And hey, that's life, right?

As there was really nothing keeping me attached to Pittsburgh after you rejected me, I decided to quit the program I had already been losing faith in, and go do my own thing, fulfill my own adventures, my own wishes, start over somewhere only with myself. High risk and bad luck combined broke my body, though, and I ended up in the hospital. Damn. It sucked. I couldn't walk, I could barely move, and it'd be a year before I even realized how broken would I be for the rest of my life. Maybe only mental damage and paraplegic state would've been worse. But hey, that's life, right?

So a couple of months pass, and you visit me in Chicago with my parents. I'm very happy to see you, surprised that you'd decide to spend Christmas Eve with my family instead of yours, but yeah, you don't really celebrate Christmas, so no big deal. We start looking at some zodiac signs playfully, you hint that you're thinking about us when you say we should look up OUR zodiac sign compatibility, and then, on your second night here, you tell me you had been rethinking what I had told you, that you actually were interested in me but you had just not told me about it when I asked you... so I think, "if she had just said yes to me when I asked her, instead of waiting until I had a life-crippling accident, I might just still have my full health and my bicycle". But she didn't. She rejected me for some reason, and now my life has taken a giant downturn I might never recover from. And now I've got a potential future girlfriend that doesn't quite like me in the "usual" sense, but at least likes me enough to want to have a relationship with me. So a bit of good there, if mixed in with all the buts. But hey, that's life, right?

And just tonight you come and tell me that you were having a relationship with Ashik before. Secretly, instead of the potential one that you KNEW you and me could have had, you went with him as your first choice and considered me as the "maybe-for-later guy". So now I'm being told that, not only did your flaky guy-choosing skills allow me to leave Pittsburgh and ride into the worst accident I've ever been involved in, but that the love you have been professing for me, the one that you've used to try to motivate me into a better attitude and spirit, is second-best? That this love isn't a feeling you've been keeping latent since we met, but something you had to reconsider, that I was plan C, the one you thought would be a good option after several failed attempts with other guys, one of which I even INTRODUCED you to???

You know, I consider myself a tolerant person. But not limitlessly so, and especially in matters of the heart. My heart rose so high when it met you, it hid and cried when you said no, it shyly and slowly came out of its hiding place while you were in Chicago, it's been slowly rising to try and take a positive uptake on life, trying to use you as a motivator, and the fact that you actually loved me strongly, sharing the best I found in me to give to you. And now that you tell me about Ashik, I think it broke. Everything that we had built to support it crumbled to dust, vanished, and my heart just sunk and dropped so hard, hit rock bottom, and broke. Hard.

Yes, now my feelings are speaking, and not necessarily my neutral self, but what I feel is very true. I have the urge to call you a slut for going around looking for the best guy in your eyes, being so quick to grab him, and then when it somehow doesn't work out, go back and look for the less-fit middleman you left behind. But that would be rude, so I won't call you that. I don't know who took the initiative, and I don't think I want to care.

I have to clarify, I bear no ill will towards Ashik. My feelings might suggest otherwise when/if I actually see him, but he has very little fault in this matter. He has not been the one messing around with my heart, even if he was an involuntary accomplice. He's still a great guy, and I guess you're still a great girl, but that doesn't mean that you haven't hurt me like I'm attempting to show to you here.

I'm assuming you and Ashik were already together at the time of the dance events. Even if he wasn't, even if that didn't help string the events that led to my accident, I'm still plan C. Either the best left-behind or the pity project. You've been using second-best - not even - third-best love to uplift my life and tell me that everything's going to be all right.

You know, it freaking hurts, but it's making my decisions so much easier as I write this. Pittsburgh WAS a great place to return to, when the Laura that I knew before still lived there, the Laura who loved me genuinely and who wanted a relationship with me because of who I was, and not because I was the best option left behind. Now I'm realizing that returning to Pittsburgh, as fun as it would be to jump off its bridges sometime, has now even less people I care about genuinely. Plus two very sad and heart-breaking memories. (Yes, there's another one before you, but I told you about her).

You know, I COULD keep myself quiet, tell you that I understand what happened, that it doesn't affect me, and act as if nothing so important had happened, as if we still had a chance to keep growing a relationship between us. But I'm tired of doing so. I'm tired of being subservient and of forgiving falsely. I've done it - I've sacrificed honesty and expression in the past for the sake of respect and tolerance, and of discovering the "mystery that is" behind a boy-girl relationship, the "miracle of love" that people talk about so much. But doing that hasn't worked for me so far anyway, and given the incompatibilities both of us already knew we had... it just isn't worth it. It's not worth the potential incompatible relationship, it's not worth your caring and friendship in the way that I see you now. I have opened myself up to you completely, and you probably also have, so that link is already open, and it is not yet to be closed. That is why I decided to write you this letter of expression, of telling you what I really feel and think. Destroying what we have and might have had in the future. We trust each other enough to tell each other everything, right? I still trust you with honesty. But not with relationships. Not even friendship.

No, you did not cause my accident, that was my reckless doing and the car driver's. No, you did nothing wrong by dating Ashik, that's natural selection at work. No, you did nothing wrong by coming back and wanting to form a relationship with me after your other relationships had not worked out and I was in a wheelchair, that's just changing your mind, even if it is for plan C. But making me think that your love for me was as strong and pure as mine was for you, and allowing me, helping me lift my hopes up on it, and afterwards telling me something akin to your love being fake... that truly hurts. I do not accept, respect or tolerate that. And you might say that your love for me was indeed pure and strong, but I do not see it that way. I do not feel it that way. I don't see how it could be seen that way.

I had so many things to tell you about the potential relationship between us, that we had in our minds, but I guess they are worth very little to you now. Or to me. I have never been so honestly expressive to a girl's comment in the past, so this is a first for me. Sending this letter will take boldness and discourtesy, but it's what I feel like doing. I guess I should thank you for this new experience.

I also want to thank you for your times of friendship and support while you were in Chicago. It did help me recover and it did make me happier for a while. And the book you suggested, good book. Try out the pendulum experiment, it's cool. But those moments do not balance out with this massive disappointment. It does not work out that way.

I do have some questions for you, if you still think it's worth answering them:

1. Was your relationship (either actual or brewing) with Ashik what made you say you didn't like me when I told you I liked you?
2. Did you come to Chicago to visit me and "reconsider your decision" mainly because you felt pity on me?
3. During which time period were you and Ashik involved in your relationship?
4. Did you and Ashik have sex? How many times?
5. So what IS it exactly about me that you disliked, and for which you didn't want to date me initially? If it wasn't self-confidence, what was it?
6. Do I possess only the "logical/clear-headed" attractor for you, or do I possess some of the other attractors you mentioned as well? (physical/chemical/romantical/emotional)?

I believe you at least owe me your honesty after I have given you mine.

Tell me what you think.

Sincerely,

Antonio

ps1: I told you had a darker side.

ps2: I guess the grammar and math classes are off.

ps3: Did you ever imagine I might react this way?

ps4: Feel free to tell you want about this. I'll do the same.

ps5: Good thing southwest flights are changeable.

ps6: I resign as your valentine. You still have time to find another.

ps7: I'm sure Julian can help you set up your WiFi access point.

ps8: Have I gone ahead and destroyed something precious between us?

ps9: And despite its extreme over-usage, coarseness, and lack of literal meaning, the spirit of reckless truthfulness that pervades in me right now compels me to tell you:

FUCK YOU

She broke my heart. I hope my message at least chips hers, makes her cry, makes her feel terribly guilty, makes her afraid of relationships for a long part of her life. Heartbreakers. My two best potential relationships, gone in a few days.

Man, if she could've at least told me 24 hours earlier, I wouldn't have bought my tickets to Pittsburgh already! Now where am I supposed to fly to?

I think the answer is fairly obvious :). Helloooo, Austin!

Distant Tension

...

What you want

Figure out what you want. Because only then you'll be confident enough to cut out the extra crap in your life you don't want, but that otherwise would be stuff you'd think you "might" want.