I guess when we're looking along the lines of a two-sided relationship, few can suffice as good metaphors as this quote sent to me by Dianne:

"Needing someone is like needing a parachute. If that person isn't there when you really need them the most, chances are you won't be needing them again."

Recent events have been so kind as to grant me the emotional strain of a rubber band stretched across the Pacific Ocean. How disgusting I might find myself 20 years from now, once I look back and recall the wanton drama I'd injected into such a little thing - but for once, I'd like very much not to care.

Are you familiar with the feeling you get from over-exerting yourself for a Physics project, when in the end you find out that all your sweat and blood can only amount to a measly 15 points?

That's not how I'd like to feel.

I want to feel what I feel after overtaxing myself for an English project, one I get lying on the bed while holding it above my head and examining all the details I'd lovingly formed on every surface.

I want to feel like everything I did didn't have to account for anything, that I wasn't basing my hard work on grades or points or - dare I say it - the teacher's approval.

I want to feel as though I didn't have to feel bad about the low incentive because I enjoyed doing the project anyway, because I loved the subject under which it was made.

But, I was hurt.

Wen animals are hurt, the most primal instincts surge to life, instincts to snarl, or bite back, or slash, or kick. Even the most loyal and domesticated dogs would find it difficult to trust again after abuse. I, for one, am definitely not an animal (at least, in my eyes) but our physical natures would say otherwise. We are animals reigned in by our human minds, and by souls which alone can comprehend ethics and morality.

But, I was HURT.

My mind is cloudy with the need to take revenge, the want to tear down, to destroy, and to take by force what I deserve.

I feel like I've been doing a Physics lab report the entire, damn night. I feel weary, and lethargic, and I feel that my body could not go on. And I feel like I've gotten back the checked results with pretty much the same score as everybody else - everybody else who hadn't experienced one iota of my suffering to deserve what I got. Everybody else who did average, but got a perfect. Everybody else who didn't work as hard as me.

Am I so hard-hearted to be a friend such as that? To base my efforts on worthiness and to feel deserving of the title of "best"? To feel cheated because I feel as if she is indebted to me? To think that she should undergo the same pain I did because she didn't love me as much? (don't get any ideas... I'm talking pure friendship)

It's true. Outwardly, I feel like I've been doing a Physics paper all night, and I find out that all my efforts go unrecognized while others get the grade easy as pie. But you know what? When the time comes to face her I forget all about the hurt and the foul accusations built up in my head during the night. I see her smiling and getting ready to spew out another wacky story of her doing something stupid and I smile back, because I love her that much. (again, it's all innocent. tumigil sa malisya)

Maybe... maybe doing a Physics paper isn't supposed to feel that bad. I mean, sure it's a tough subject and I don't enjoy doing so much work in the least, but that doesn't mean I'm never happy about the work I'd done. At 4 in the morning, I could still be found lying on the bed, simply appreciating the 18 pages of mind-numbing terminology, Wikipedia citations, and imbento theories.

I think that deep inside, despite all wrongs and despite the inclinations I'm having now to not let anyone close enough to hurt me anymore, I'm glad of all the work I've done. I'm happy that I get to love someone so much that in the midst of all rational thought that I should act like an animal and fight back when provoked, my devotion clobbers instinct senseless and throws it in a ditch to rot. And I'm happy that despite the pain, I always live through another day.

So I suppose, in the end, I've done an English project after all.

Yuck, this is all so disgusting. And I thought it would have to take me 20 years to make fun of myself. Haaayy.