Frozen.

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

The title of this post is Frozen, but my current layout doesn't display titles. And I'd just like this to make sense.

I think I sat there for a full hour. Just blinking, staring at that name I swore never to recognize again. My fingers posed dead on the air above the keyboard. He's always made me feel this way. I can't blame him, though. I couldn't blame him either for that coldness that started to materialize around me, binding me deep in memory, memories of him I though I'd forgotten.

I resisted not answering that comment. I wanted not to. But I knew I had to. It sounds like an awful excuse for an irony, or rather, an awful irony for an excuse, but, see, if I said something back to him, he'd be sure to answer back. Hopefully, he isn't as thoughtful as he used to be, and would forget all about it by the time he got a higher digit up his comment count.

Stomach churning, I typed in a reply. It felt like a lie. It made me come out to never have thought nothing happened at all, that he wasn't part of the time I spent, that I never really thought of him at all. That I never saw him in a different way, that I never gave him as much thought and emotion, I guess, as I did. But it wasn't a lie, either. Because I haven't forgotten him at all.

He stated my name, then told me he remembered it. Then asked me if I still remembered him.

Damn me to fire if I didn't.

Almost like those flirtatious girls that just pretend to be his friends, but actually trying to get his attention and failing dismally (charm is a very disarming thing, especially his), I demanded why he remembered only my name. Playfully. And I could imagine him on the receiving end, laughing, remembering how I used to be and how I hadn't changed at all. And maybe feeling the same awkwardness as I do now? No. If so, he wouldn't bother to alert me of his presence, so that I wouldn't have to reply, just the thing I dreaded. And then; as I pushed the right keys to make his name come to the screen, the time seemed to drag by. I didn't need to erase anything, as I keep doing with this post now, nor did I have to turn back to see if there was anything I missed. I wonder why. No, I wonder how: how I could utter his name in perfect precision while the back of every letter pricked me in the face. I wasn't used to saying his name out loud, nor to writing it down, and yet there I went, passing by it as easy as breathing.

And again, I wonder, why I'm making such a big deal out of it.

I continued to tell him he wasn't hard to remember either, though as if it was only his name I remembered. How vain of me to try to make it seem like I had nothing more towards him than a memory, in a way, in a paradox, a forgotten memory. There was the lie and the truth together.

But here's the weird part.

After I clicked the comment away to him, I felt nothing. Not like I used to. Like I wished I said better words, like I wished he'd see through those words, like I wished there was something to see through his.

At that moment, that ice, the ice that kept me frozen in the moment from when I remembered his name again, it cracked. Realization seeped through, filled me, until the shards broke off and it dawned upon me. I needn't worry, I needn't fear. He's gone. He's just a memory. A sweet, perfect memory. It wasn't something I held on to anymore, but something still in sight, in a distance. I don't need reasons, or hopes, or aches, or tears anymore. I lapsed into a resigned, yet triumphant smile. I loved him, and I don't any more.

I loved him, and I don't any more.

How surprisingly brave of me. Never thought I had it in me to completely throw away every thing he left of me. But then again, I didn't. Because by being the first one to steal and break my heart (yes, he did, without even knowing), he taught me how to open up to love, he taught me how to hold on, he taught when to stop, and when to let go. A lesson tattooed on me, for the rest of the life I live.

All by giving me a dazzling smile and sweeping me off my feet.
I ought to thank him, or at least punch him square.

Come on. I can actually post this in my blog? For the world, he might see it. And he'd figure out right away it was him I was talking about. And he'd know how I'd felt. But it doesn't really matter, because I'd tell him anyway, and if he found out by himself now, it wouldn't make a difference. A different way, or a different time, maybe, but what I'd tell him and how he'd take it would be up to him, and what he'd know would still be the only thing that would be left. Because though I was the one beaten up here, I'd healed, and nothing shows through of how I'd lost. Somehow, I'd passed it all, and now, and here, I can honestly say that I don't love him anymore.

And this all happened within a span of five minutes.
Wonders never cease to amaze, when you feel like, for that moment, just for you, time had been frozen.

10:23am, 4-08-08, Tuesday