Why do I love you?

I've waited a while for this, and I always knew that I'll know love when I see it in the eye. So I guess you can say that I saw it in yours.

So, why?

It’s not because you’re broken, as I have been accustomed to loving the others that have come before you. You couldn't be in a more perfect state. 

And to be honest, I'm quite scared, a bit broken, and very, very cynical. I thought all my past relationships have just about worn me out... I couldn't be more mistaken. 

I love you. I feel it when I wrap my arms around you, and wait for that precise moment when you cross the line between attempting to sleep, and letting out that one final sigh before you finally doze off. It gives me a strange sense of completion. It's when you're finally asleep that I get to kiss your forehead, stare at you for a while. And in that brief moment, I get to reflect about how we've only been together for a few days--yet I  know, in spite of being the unsure and indecisive and confused person that I am, that this is going to last for a long time.

Pause

It’s the pause in between the long kisses. Then I look in your eyes, and I see a glint of something growing in you (and no, it’s not that thing down there).

I know because I feel it, too. And I wish—how I damn wish—that I can put that feeling in a box, seal it tight, put it at the most convenient spot in my heart, so I can easily open it whenever I want to, whenever my short temper rouses me to anger, whenever I’m feeling impatient… whenever, well, whenever the bad in me gets the best of me.

We’re a long way ahead, but something’s telling me that those pauses, the knowing smiles, the lump in my throat—that’s a great place to start as any. 

The Only Thing

If there's anything stopping me, that would be the skepticism about love that I have acquired through the years. It would be the  fear of holding on too tight, of identifying myself with one person--one person in a sea of billions of people. Because in the past months, I've asked this more times than I could count: how do we really choose the person for us? Or do we ever really choose--is it not destiny, some kind of cosmic force, that designates the person we're supposed to be with, at least for the time being?

And then in the midst of my curiosity, just when I thought that I knew better than to like someone (because I haven't really liked someone in a while) and that I have this entire liking thing figured out, you come walking in. And I'm pleasantly surprised.

And to be totally honest, all these aren't nearly enough to stop me from getting too close. Maybe it's the fascination I have about you, or the contentment of entangling myself in you. Or maybe because I've known no other joy more addicting than liking someone I'm thus far compatible and interested and willing to give myself to with. There are a lot of maybes, and only one thing certain, which I suppose is all that matters.

I can go all day justifying myself, going in circles just to understand myself. But at the end of the day, it's you. It's all you, and I guess that's the only thing I really need to move forward.

The Last Few Months

I'd meant to write something here, but for one reason or another I always ended up deleting what I started. It's not that I have run out of stories to tell, or have found strangers to tell my stories to. Writing can become a bit of an obligation that you just want to get out of it. There are ideas and thoughts in your head, but you'd rather not put it to form, and instead let them swirl around, until you manage to push them at the back of your mind and let them fade into memory.

I've not had any luck with dating. The longer I stay single, the more I'm convinced that I should stay single. I'm hardly the type who stays single for long, but I'm liking the change. I like how I can feign interest in my dates, pretending I'm someone I'm not, and, in a manner of speaking, making a mockery of this thing they call dating in my own selfish way. One of these days I'll be caught off-guard. Something will happen, perhaps I'll end up really liking someone. Someone who reads, listens to the music I do, takes my sarcastic jokes in stride... it wouldn't be so bad if that guy was a looker, too. For now, I'll settle with trying to be as well-adjusted as I could be, all while rolling my eyes over everything my date says that he thinks is remotely interesting.

I've had worse luck with academics. In the general scheme of things, I guess you could say I'm doing pretty well. But remember that I'm the type who pushes himself to the breaking point? Who always has to be in his best self? I could've done better, but I was too distracted. Half the time I found myself in movie theaters or sleeping days away. For now the gameplan is to study like fuck, find more good music, try not to hyperventilate at the thought of taking the bar exams a year from now.

I'm near the finish line. I've almost done it. I'm on my last semester, and I know I can do it.

Twenty-three isn't as fun as seventeen

I’m not as young as before. I’m twenty-three. While some will argue that it’s still a fairly young age and I have a whole life ahead of me, it’s still not seventeen. And it’s funny, because at twenty-three, and months away from my law degree, I have never been so clueless. What’s even funnier is that I had an inkling of what to do when I was seventeen: I was going to law school. I was in a relationship then, and, even if I wasn’t, I could detect a spark when I felt it.

Roughly four years after college, I can’t help but feel like life is thrusting me into this whole new dimension I’m not sure I’m prepared for. I’ve always known that I’m a relationship person, and I’m at my best when I’m in one (except for the last few weeks when I knew a relationship was going nowhere, and I would decide to botch it up altogether)…but, frankly, I’m not so sure anymore. I’ve always known that I’m fairly responsible and hardworking, but why am I not working so hard anymore?

I guess my recent and longest relationship changed certain perspectives. I may not have fully recovered in terms of trusting myself and moving forward alone, but I should. Time is running, the bar review is just around the corner, and I have bigger battles to conquer than the ones inside my head.

Sad and Familiar

It's a sad story, but it's one that I've written about too many times before. More times than I've written about law school, the supposed theme of this blog anyway. But it's been a while since I've shared this kind of story, and a long time has passed since I've taken the time to reflect and write about what I feel.

A failed relationship. This time, it took me more than a year for us to finally call it quits. And as I said, it's a sad story, and it doesn't make much sense, but the long and short of it is that it's over.

I should be comfortable writing this story. I am, after all, familiar with how it goes.

But I am not. My failed relationships say more about me than about them. I can keep convincing my own ghosts that there was, in one way or another, always something wrong with them.

But it's me. It's all me, isn't it?