Yawning Gap

I really don't know what happened.

Far is that day in August when, after years of not being able to talk to each other, we enjoyed a meal together, catching up like we haven't seen each other twice as much as we really didn't. After that, the agreement a month later.

What I really do not understand is why someone would back out of an agreement wherein there would be no risk to that person, much less an investment. Worse, flaking out, unannounced to an agreement--a promise--is one of the most unethical thing a sane person would do to a friend.

I really believe that suspending, if not cutting, communication abruptly with another person amidst a small conflict is waaaaay off the line. One terrible thing really comes from that, the conflict escalates.

I really don't know what happened.

I don't know why since that meal at that fast food chain, you disappeared. It's still a puzzle for me whether you faded away slowly, like the ceasing early morning fog against the imposing sun, or just disappeared just like the same sun on an eclipse, warranting not only awe, but scorn. Scorn caused by such a mystery a sane person would not dare think about it, knowing all too well that its a waste of time.

People usually tell me that my pride's off the roof, but I respond with determined indignation, stating that this is only using my common sense. When you want different results, you obviously should do things differently, because doing the same deed would only produce similar off-shoots. And that is what I am doing. Knowing well enough that those insane (yes, they are) mood swings repeatedly and successfully caught me off guard since high school, I am not reacting to them the same way I did before: asking you what's the matter, saying sorry even if I'm clueless if I did something wrong, showing concern even if its not my problem anymore, but yours, as obvious as the floods in Manila earlier. And so I kept quiet, because in all honesty, like I always am to you, I'm tired. And modesty aside, I am true of heart.

I really don't know what happened.

What surprised and dismayed me is after all this time--a year, to be exact--you never talked to me. No message in any form, medium, venue. No excuses given (like you always do), much less a reason, for flaking on me that time. Our friends told me some things about you by then, but I just wish you tell that to my face, knowing all too well that they're not involved in this. They said you were in deep shit, and I also just hope you'd tell me that, because after all, we are/were friends by then. They told me "maybe this, maybe that", but really I'm fed up with maybes, with almost everything you do definitive of nothing but your indecisiveness, your decisions changing as skin cells are replaced, unabatedly.

Nobody, and that subset includes me, likes things hanging like this. It sure is a little bit exciting, even fun, when some things hang for only a short time, say, a dunk replay. But when when time passes by, you can't help thinking that that something you thought was hanging maybe isn't there anymore. And what's more inevitably appalling is that maybe it wasn't there hanging in the first place. That only you yourself thought it was, and what you did was painfully less than hopeful, but only wishful thinking. Nobody, except some Taoist hermits up the Szechuan mountains, like things hanging like this. Because when these things happen, these things break your heart.

I really don't know what happened.

I mean, I do know, more or less. I have pieces of the puzzle all together so I have the overall picture. Everybody lies, and so I'm concentrating on things that cannot lie. What I'm hoping for is that something happened beyond that, something more significant, meaningful. And after a year, I was hoping it would surface, since meaning takes considerable time. In all this bluster, I am believing that what happened, or lack thereof, was more meaningful than it appears to be. I take solace in that thought. And I really hope that I am right, because the only alternative is: what came to pass is like cheap crackers, painfully and plainly meaningless.

I don't know if I did something that hurt you, but that's so improbable, since it is you who walked away. But as I said, I'm tired of figuring you out. This time, if its not more productive, at least it's less painful figuring out what I really think rather than imploring what you are. There's hesitation finding out answers because lately when I do, the ones that turn up are more appalling and ridiculous than I expected--a bear tearing up a hive only to find that its full of wasps, not honeys and bees.

Honestly, I'm tired. Modesty aside, I am true of heart.