A true clean slate.
written: 10:08 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2008

I feel loved when...

The Five Love Languages

My Primary Love Language is Physical Touch

About this quiz

Unhappiness in relationships is often due to the fact that we speak different love languages. It can be helpful to know what language you speak and what language those around you speak.

Tag 3 people so they can find out what their love language is.

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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I'm pleased to announce that, after nearly a year of getting my licence, I highly suspect that I chalked up my first speeding ticket - or any sort of ticket, for that matter - today. I took the usual route to school, that long road opposite Courts whose name currently eludes me. There are a couple of overhead bridges along the way and my mom has told me before that sometimes there would be traffic police (or companies that the traffic police has outsourced the task to) standing at the overhead bridges with cameras, catching drivers that drive above the speed limit.

The speed limit is 70 km/h. The lane I was driving in was completely clear. I swear, there were NO CARS, and since I'm a very impatient person who likes driving fast, I was cruising down happily at 80 km/h or so...until I reached the second overhead bridge and saw some guy in uniform standing there with a camera-like equipment in front of him.

Oh. Shit.

I've been driving on and off for a year. I take that route to school everyday. When I first started driving I'd check the overhead bridges for such individuals before speeding, but lately I think I got complacent due to the fact that I'd never been fined before so what the hell, I'll just slack on the vigilance and drive as fast as I like, as fast as traffic conditions allow.

Did I mention my lane was completely clear? And that I cannot stand driving below, like, 60 km/h, and that's a very optimistic estimate? Did you know that I get this urge to tailgate slow drivers but I never give in to it because I still maintain a pretty safe following distance?

And since we're on the subject of driving, my one-year licence anniversary is coming up (September 10) and I think it's quite sad that I still don't really feel comfortable driving people around. I love driving, but if I'm going out with friends, I'd prefer not to drive. Not because I'm cheapskate and don't want to expend the necessary petrol needed to send them home, but because the thought of driving other people around still makes me nervous. When I'm driving by myself, I have only myself to answer to. Cue, therefore, really shitty driving in the form of driving damn fast before a turn and braking really hard a few seconds before I turn, and just braking really hard in general. If I were a passenger in my own car, I swear I'd get motion sickness.

So, yeah, I'm a pretty shitty driver and I fear for the lives of my passenger which makes me nervous which makes me an even worse driver, so don't feel offended if I don't offer to drive you home. It's just my general discomfort with driving other people, which I'm trying to get over (case in point: I sent Chloe home last week. BOOYAH!). And if I do offer to drive you home, you're either really special to me, or I'm just feeling extraordinarily nice that day.

On a completely different note, Tingren's post about her love language or whatever results kind of got me thinking.

I've been single ever since the last relationship ended early last year. During this time I have liked maybe two persons, neither of whom I was seriously interested in. I couldn't see myself being together with one of them, and my interest for the other person was purely just a crush. It felt really good to feel excited about seeing someone again, the same kind of feeling that I used to get when I was way younger, less experienced, less jaded. You know, schoolgirl crushes, basically.

But neither scenarios had any chance of working out at all and simultaneously, I didn't want anything to happen. At first it was quite obvious that I was obviously rebounding and no matter how needy I felt, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that it was quite possibly the worst time ever to confess my undying love for a guy. Then as time went by, I didn't care about whatever happened anymore, I was completely out of the rebounding/needy zone, and I was just really happy with my own company and with being by myself. Being Super Single, basically.

Then the crush happened and I was all, OMGZ!!!!11!1 I ACTUALLY LIKE SOMEONE WHO ISN'T ON TV!!11!1! That was pretty much all I wanted, really. I didn't want to pursue anything with the person in question for a host of reasons, but for the purpose of this entry, I just didn't feel the need to do so. I didn't feel the need to be with anyone, to answer to anyone and to need anyone. Maybe tied up in this concept is also an unwillingness, perhaps subconscious, to go back to a position where I found myself needing someone else. I don't like being vulnerable or needy and I sure as hell don't like exposing my vulnerability to other people.

So I got the only thing I needed out of the crush: it answered two questions for me once and for all, and I haven't turned back since. I am quite literally unencumbered now: no more emotional entanglements, proverbial tears over spilled milk, longings for the past and what-could-have-been's. I'm not rebounding because there is nothing to rebound from, and for the first time in a really, really long time, I truly feel like I have an emotional blank slate from which to start all over again.

How totally awesome, right? If anyone had told me this last year (and in fact, many people did), I wouldn't have believed him/her. Funny how things that were once of life and death importance to you simply diminish in significance until they dissipate into nothingness. They become just a chapter of your life along with all the others, and when there's no need or reason to flip back to it, you simply let it exist. It's just there - not because you necessarily want it to be there, but because there's quite literally nothing you can do to obliterate its existence.

Besides, I don't think I really want to. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was absolutely spot-on when it said that the only way to move on isn't to forget the person, but to remember him or her or whatever. Eternal Sunshine was also the first film I ever watched that I completely understood so I think it goes to show how deeply-entrenched that principle is in my...I dunno, life philosophy or whatever.

Anyway, I think I've felt this for a while now but I didn't really think about it until I read Tingren's post. So here goes: OMGZ I FEEL SO FREE.

HAHAHAHAHA.

Having said that though, I do get what it feels like not wanting to need anyone or to be needed by anyone. I can't go the distance of saying that I want either (though admittedly, the latter would definitely give me a huge-ass ego boost and I'd rather be needed than to need, thanks) but I think there will come a point when all your past hurt and heartbreaks simply stop signifying anything. "It is a tale, told by an idiot - full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." (Macbeth, I forgot whose soliloquy - at least I think it was a soliloquy - it was, I think it was from Act 5 Scene 2.) And when that time comes, you won't feel so repulsed by the idea of needing/being needed anymore.

I'm not saying that I'd fall all over myself to put myself back into that position again, because I won't. All I'm saying is that it's not an impossibility anymore the way I thought it was an impossibility, like, way back when. I've always thought it was so cliche, what I'm about to say, but it's really true that when you hit rock bottom, there's nowhere to go but up, because there's no way you can sink any lower than the lowest point of your life.

Of course, the trick lies in identifying that lowest point and it seems to always change but these "lowest points" (forgive the contradiction) don't happen simultaneously. And I don't really know what I'm saying anymore so hopefully this entry made some sense at the very least.

On another but peripherally related note, I meant to write about this sometime back but kind of forgot. Early this month I received an SMS from my JC boyfriend at like, 2 in the morning, wishing me happy birthday. He apologised for the extremely belated birthday greeting and said that he was overseas or something.

That didn't surprise me; he's made it a point to SMS me once a year ever since JC ended. What did surprise me was his usage of the nickname he had for me when we were together, and even before we got together ('cause, you know, we were friends before). It was weird, but in a strangely endearing sort of way. And I, in a rare burst of good will, answered with a 'thanks' and also used the nickname I had for him, way back when. (At least, I think it was my nickname for him. My memory might've failed me.)

Then I started wondering when I'd ever get around to apologising to him in person for the way I treated him after we broke up, and if I do get around to doing that, if we'd ever talk normally or be friends again. Before the whole mess, we were really good friends and I really enjoyed his company. During the whole mess, I was way too emotionally inept and just fucked up, period, to deal with it the way I should have dealt with it, the way I would deal with it now. And the most amazing thing about him is that he never held it against me, the cruel and insensitive way in which I treated him. I don't wanna go into details 'cause I'm really not proud of it at all, so suffice it to say that if I were in his shoes, I would totally hate my guts; there are just some things that I can't forgive.

Apparently, he's way more magnanimous and forgiving than I am. Perhaps if I made the effort to be friendly, a renewed friendship could be established. I don't know. The thing is, I don't know if I can do it. I have absolutely nothing against him and theoretically I'd love to be friends, but the idea is just so weird and strange and foreign to me. Maybe I'm more conservative than I thought, but the idea of being friends with a guy you used to call your boyfriend, a guy whose hand you used to hold, doesn't really make a lot of sense and it makes me feel unsettled and uncomfortable. It would entail talking about the past and joking about the past and I just don't see how I can ever do that. Even saying things like "the nickname he had for me when we were together" made me feel weird.

Is this normal? Then again, I don't consider myself a very emotionally normal person, most unfortunately. So I guess if anyone wants to end their friendship with me, the most definite way of doing so is to date me and then break up with me (or vice versa). Um, should I even be joking about this?

In any case, I didn't do anything to lay the foundations of a possible friendship and I doubt I'd ever do anything. I'm just not the kind of person to stay friends with an ex, even one like my JC ex towards whom I feel no animosity and vice versa. I think on some pragmatic level I don't really see the point. We try to keep so many friends but we only truly spend time with a select few and chances are, I won't have time for him anyway. Besides, what would we talk about? I haven't spoken or seen him in literally years. After the requisite catching up has been done, what then? I don't know.

Shit, I don't want to pay my impending speeding fine. I tried to pout my way out of it when I was telling my mom the incident and I think it worked, a bit. We'll see what happens if/when I get the letter from LTA. Hopefully I didn't get caught. HOPEFULLY.

My mom was all, "You have to take responsibility for your own actions!"

Okay, so theoretically I'm on board with that idea and I think we should have the balls to bear the consequences of our actions; but realistically, I don't wanna pay the damn fine. And I know my parents will pay for me. And I want to take advantage of that because I'd rather spend my money - which I don't even have a lot of - on clothes, thank you very much.

I am SUCH an unapologetic spoiled brat, I swear.

So it all goes back to: HOPEFULLY I DIDN'T GET CAUGHT.

Fuck man, the stupid lane was CLEAR, dammit!

before sunrise // before sunset

Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010