Pickled.

In the end, old emotions, when revisited, are much like biting into an old pickle, isn't it? I love pickled green chillies. Every time a restaurant serves it as a condiment, I gleefully fill my plate up with it, and proceed to numb my senses with its flavour and disregard the original flavour of whatever noodle I had ordered it with.

Emotions and memories, with the gift of hindsight, are just like those pickles. They still pack a fiery punch, especially when bitten the wrong way; but its spiciness isn't even close to the heat, pre-pickling. It has extra flavours- sour or sweet, depending on the pickling. And if you're smart about it, you keep it away, in a jar, until it is ready to be opened. If you open it up too soon, you end up spoiling the batch of pickles, for good.

My sticky fingers need to learn not to open up this bottle. I finally found the jar on Friday night. I never thought the jar would come in that form, but it did.

I don't think I've ever felt my heart break in two the way it did on Friday night. And it wasn't just my heart, I felt my world shattered. For the first time in a long, long time, I felt naïve. I felt that my entire universe had come crashing down, and I just kept thinking on the ride home: "How could I have been SO wrong?"

When I came home, he attempted to rectify it. In a way he did, but I don't think he knew what was the extent of me that had been damaged that night. A part of me died that night. The part of me that trusted in the best in people. The part of me that always fought the arguments when other women said "All men are the same".

So here I am. Broken. My only hope is that I do not seal myself with unbreakable armour, just for the sake of being whole again. Because in the end, that is the only true unfairness to me.

.................................................................................................

On Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday night, I was convinced that I would never entertain ideas of you, in that light, anymore. Because honestly, your confession changed my entire view of you. I was almost repelled by you. And I meant it when I said, that night, I felt used, disposable, interchangeable.

This morning though, my fickle heart turned on me and I awoke to those thoughts again. And then you texted me. Wishing me a happy Monday. Clockwork.

Too many. Far too many.

Tonight.

You come home. Well, its more my home than your's. I wish you'd feel that home is where I am. But you don't. Is my home where you are? I don't know. I don't know if I have a home. I have a place I live in. Customs and habits I have been comforted with. But a home? I don't know. The rooms I occupy, from the bedroom that has been mine for over 10 years, to the office room I have occuppied for over a year now, seem to suffocate me. I have no windows and there is too much clutter. I feel the need to run out into the sun right now. But I know if i keep running I won't feel less lost than I am here.

Tomorrow, will be the first time since I've known you, that you will be home, but you're no longer mine. Mine to tease, hug, to call "my man". Mine to wrap my weekend plans, mine to text first thing when I get home, mine to facetime and watch Game of Thrones with.

Mine to kiss tenderly, a quick peck on the lips, just the way you took me by surprise at the airport before we parted ways. The last time I saw you.

The last few days play by like a movie trailer constantly in my head. Cuddled in with a Dr.Pepper tshirt. Hugging me and thanking me in the elevator when we left one of the most breathtaking skylines in the world. Making me promise that I will see you again once we left, before you took my waterproof pouch. Even that little fight in the plane where we made up immediately and again, you quickly kissed me on the lips, your way of telling me everything will be alright. Your way of showing me you have feelings.

If this ever got to you, would you scorn my emotional cycle? Or will you take me into your arms and never let me go?

Don't let me go. I know you don't want to. Why does reality have to encroach on our private agendas?

Why, hasn't it been too long?

Please dear, do not inundate me with your abandonment issues. I know what its like to have them, I still have them. And guess what- the universe won't let me live in peace without it.

So it is strange that at these emotion-ridden, abandonment times, I seek you out, dear virtual paper that holds my thoughts. Even years after *cue laughter*

It hurts to let go. Sometimes it seems the harder you try to hold on to something or someone the more it wants to get away. You feel like some kind of criminal for having felt, for having wanted. For having wanted to be wanted. It confuses you, because you think that your feelings were wrong and it makes you feel so small because it's so hard to keep it inside when you let it out and it doesn't come back. You're left so alone that you can't explain. Damn, there's nothing like that, is there? I've been there and you have too. You're nodding your head.”
― Henry Rollins, The Portable Henry Rollins

But whats worse than letting go? Anticipating letting go.