break it down

I miss you like a bboy misses the beat.

I miss you like ska misses syncopation.

progress/regress

I can now say “Bboy A and I broke up” without breaking into tears. In fact, I can say it with a weak smile on my face, to signify to those who are listening, to myself, to the world… I’m doing OK.

Against my better judgement, I clicked to his facebook profile. It’s a limited profile (thankfully, we are not Facebook friends, yet), but he took to the time to change what he took down when we starting dating.

Relationship Status: Single

This sends me reeling backwards, past the progress that I’ve made in the past 2 weeks; past the brave face, past the joie-de-vivre demeanor, past the excitement and curiosity of singlehood. This sends me back to the days when I didn’t believe that Facebook was the thing for me, to the days when I believed that Bboy A might be the one for me, to the days when I knew I was finally over Big D.

Fuck Facebook. Fuck “love”.

rebirth

I saw it coming. I almost willed it coming. But yet, when the moment arrive, I met it with disbelief and trepidation. No, with denial and fear; like I never wanted this to happen even though I had toyed with it in my mind for months to come.

Bboy A and I broke up two weeks ago.

I pity the man who comes to the conclusion that he must break my heart, because I am so bad at letting go. In the span of a four-hour conversation, I rushed through the stages of grief:

1. Denial: Are you serious? Do you know what you’re doing?
2. Pain: You don’t know how hard this is for me, you don’t know how hard this is for me…
   
3. Bargaining: Can you just give us a chance? I can change, we can do better.
   
4. Depression: My body knows of its loneliness. In times of grief, I can rarely sleep more than a couple of hours at a time, no matter how tired my mind becomes. After the finally hanging up the phone at around 5 AM, I rocked myself to sleep, only to wake up 2 hours later.

It wasn’t a new tune for me. When I was dumped by Big D, I couldn’t sleep for days. My body refuses to give me the rest that I need, it forces to me encounter time and time again the initial pain of the conversation. It’s true that it gets easier with every breakup, maybe because Bboy A was never “the one” or even one of “the ones” for me. It’s dealing with the habits that make it hard; the way I called him just to hear his voice, the way I would pick up things for him at the local store, the way I would get excited to spend a weekend out of New York.

this is not a picture of me

This is a poster that Bboy A and I enjoyed in Beijing. It took me a year to my hands on it, for him, for us. I am ashamed to admit that I used it as a final bargaining tool. I told him, through sobs and confusion, that it was for him, for us.

I’m so scared to tell you this, because I’m so afraid that it will mean nothing to you.

I will hold onto it, for the day when Bboy A and I could be friends. Perhaps never in the truest sense, but at least in the sense that Big D and I are able to be friends. I will hold on it, for the day when I could give it to Bboy A without any hidden agenda, malicious intent or unrequited love.

homecoming

I came back to Montreal last night, on another agonizingly long bus ride. I read and slept for the most of the way, but as soon as we got close enough to the city for me to recognize the highway exit, I turned off the reading light and just sat there, enjoying my return to a city that means to much to me.

It’s a strange mix of fear and love each time I come back, because Montreal holds so much history for me, somewhat painful at times. I think of Big D, I think of my insane parents, I think of the hardships of college applications and clandestine rendez-vous. Because the me coming back from New York, from Beijing, from France is never the same person as the me who left Montreal not so long ago. And it’s scary to try and figure out how this new person fits in with the old life I left behind.

I come back this semester as an insane student who took 10 classes without telling her parents, as the girlfriend of a bboy from Philly, as the ex of Big D, as the new NSOP coordinator for Columbia… I’m not sure who I was when I last left, but it was definitely someone in a different mindset.

on lumberjacks and heartbreakers

Big D. Grew. A. Beard.

Wow.

I was told, just not long ago, by Emo-tastic A that Big D was definitely the better looking of the two in the relationship. First of all, really? I mean, I’m not that easy on the eyes, but … really? I never thought that he was hot stuff… In any case, that balance is finally thrown out the window, because he’s got massive facial hair right now… and his hair is pretty long… It’s rather strange, but I guess… It’s a good change for him… good change for us?

Or maybe not. Because now I can’t stop thinking of him… and his new look as a lumberjack.

We’ve been emailing back and forth a couple of times now, and I have been almost regularly sending him picture text messages. I’m reluctant to tell him about Bboy A… would it seem like I was rubbing it in his face? (Honestly, maybe I am, a little.) Or is it because I’m not actually over D… and basically lied to A when I said I wouldn’t get back with Big D if given the chance… (in a I’m-scared-shitless kind of way, maybe.)

08-08-08

on the topic that Bboy A and I got together on the day that Big D and I were “planning” to get married.

Emo-tastic A: You’ve got like, some kind of weird obsession with 8, eh?

Me: Yeah, I guess.

A: Is it like some kind of food fetish? Like, the past tense of eat?

M: Or oral sex.

Is this it?

So I just got off skype with Emo-tastic A… after talking to him for waaaaaay too long. -___-”
And I was all pensive and shit about crap that is way too complicated.
(Talking to my past has that effect on me sometimes. Damnit.)
And I’m kind of freaking out because I have so much work to do tomorrow it’s unreal.

Fuck. What am I doing?

I learned tonight that I’m not completely over Big D, that he was some kind of big shot in high school, that he was the better looking of us two… It’s not that I’d want to get back together with him… at this point, it’s hardly possible and it would be so destructive for me. But maybe I just miss our physicality? The way we connected? Will it get better between me and Bboy A? Was it ever this… awkward… or… whatever this is with Big D?

Bboy A told me that he missed me over the phone today, and even though I missed him a lot today, I just couldn’t say it. I tell him all the time, though text messages, e-mails… but putting it into words is a lot harder than either of those. Maybe it’ll remind me too much of the sweet words between me and Big D… I stared at Bboy A’s lips the last time we made out, from the nose down, he looks exactly like Big D… maybe all boys do. Making out with Bboy A is messy, jarred, and at times… too urgent. Maybe I just need to give it time. But, do I like him enough to give us that luxury?

Long distance relationships bite. One-sided relationships suck even more. Thanks, Big D.

on love, loss and the loss of love

M and P were my closest friends in CEGEP, and even before that they were such good friends that the rest of us even came up with a hybrid of their name. In Linear Algebra, we were also known as “Team Asia, A for Awesome” or “Shut up, your team is too loud”. In Physics, we would sit together and come up with ultimatums for physicists, such as “Wife? or the Principle of Conservation of Energy?”

M e-mailed me back today, a really unexpected reply to my “back in the same time zone as you!!!” message. Last time I had come home, M and I sat talking for a long time, about everything under the sun. And of course, as every young adult conversation goes, we ended up talking about relationships, namely, how I still couldn’t (can’t?) get over Big D, how M was doing with her boyfriend and how everybody else we knew where handling their love lives. I guess you can call it a “gossip-fest” (as P refers to it), but to me, it was honestly some catching up and some moving on.

I must have let something slip to P, I don’t remember. But if I had, then it obviously showed that we hadn’t intended anything malicious by our conversation about others’ private affairs, and I guess I definitely believed that M, P, and I were close enough to share these things with each other. After I left for my adventures in the East, P sent M an e-mailed expressing her disappointement, and it was pretty much downhill after that. M never had a chance to clearly express herself in person to P, and P only responds with nasty e-mails.

Obviously, I feel really responsible. If it wasn’t for me and my… inability to get over Big D, M would have probably not started talking about all kinds of other relationships in our circle of friends, and M, P and I would still be on speaking terms. It’s strange, how helping me getting over the loss of love, we wound up losing more of it.

blast from the past 2.0

In an incomprehensible and bold move, I dashed into my mother’s closet and took back my box of Big D things. It was stupid, perhaps, especially if she notices. But it was… necessary? It was strange to have two years of my love life sitting at the bottom of her closet, underneath her pantyhose and leather handbags.

I think it will be necessary, also, for me to actually get rid of all these stuff sometime in the future. Like, throw it away, or bury it… (burning it would be too angry…!) Do I need to get rid of what remains of us in order to move on? (or rather, did he get rid of his box of my things?)

As I was organizing the contents of the box, I couldn’t help but remember specific things we did. I still had such a photographic memory of what he gave me over the two years: a business card holder when I got my first summer desk job, a tile from Mexico with our number on it, a t-shirt that read “I <3 my physics geek”. We kept a notebook throughout much of our relationship, kind of like a diary to one another, because we didn’t see each other as nearly often as we wanted to. He wrote things like “I hope you don’t cheat on me in Taiwan…” and “I can’t until we live together; learning from a hot girl is a lot better than learning from a sheet of paper.”

I couldn’t help but ask stupid, instinctive questions to myself like, “How could something like that turn into something that it is now?” Big D and I haven’t written to each other in weeks, haven’t spoken in months, much less seen each other. I know that he has lost the desire to stay in touch, much less spend some time to travel to see me.

It always takes two people to start a relationship, but only one to end it.

on love, music, and the love of music

It appears that I will be missing two (2!) great concerts as I leave the West for the East. Death Cab for Cutie is in Montreal on June 6th, a mere 3 days after I leave, and Reel Big Fish is showing up for the Warped Tour sometime this July. As I’m typing that last line, I feel somewhat like a phony, because I’m really not that hardcore of a music fan. Come to think of it, I think I would almost rather stay home alone (or with someone close) and listen to their CDs on 300$ headphones.

I’ve only really been to two concerts all my life. Both of them were for Reel Big Fish and both of them were with Big D. The first was in April of 2006. We had been together for about 10 months then, and my friends surprised us with two tickets for our birthdays (which happen to be in the same month). It was also the first night we spent together… and oddly enough, it wasn’t as awkward as typical relationship scenario would usually dictate it to be. The second concert was in Paris, where we spent many a-night together. (It was also the first time a lesbian hit on me, but that’s another story).

He’s gone to two more Reel Big Fish concerts. Once right after he cheated on me, during the summer of 2007. Once just recently (as he told me via e-mail) at a small place in Ithaca. I sometimes wonder if he misses going to concerts with me. I also sometimes wonder if… I will be able to enjoy a Reel Big Fish concert as much as I have without him skanking by my side. It’s a strange thing, to relate concerts to him, because I’m hesitante to start going to them alone, or with someone new.

I was planning on visiting the underground ska scene in New York, but safety concerts (um… roofies?!) and lack of time deterred me from visiting venues. But Beijing is looking promising, because we’ll be a bunch of Westernized kids looking for things to do every night. There is this club, D22, looks promising, who knows? Because… oh, those summer nights!