Please bear with me, while the Idiot is changing

I know, I keep saying "it won't happen again", and yet I pass judgement on you and what you do, I give my unsolicited opinion, and I repeatedly hear but do not listen without judging.

I am trying. Really. The break that you imposed had caused me to think and reflect on myself, and I have been trying.

All the work in the past two weeks has been cancelled out in one fell swoop by my idiocy last night. That won't happen again.

I know these mental habits of mine are my bad habits, my weaknesses, and they are the very things that cause me to say the wrong things at the wrong time to you, causing you distress. It also applies to when I speak with other people.

But it is going to take some time, and won't be an overnight change. I am sorry for the inconvenience, and ask for your patience that I am not Mr. Perfect but am Mr. Aspiring to Be Perfect.

So please be patient while I continue striving to be better. And as a friend, please let me know (as you always have) whenever I am not listening to you, and I am being a total prick.

Misunderstood

You asked, are you really a bad person?

No. You're not a bitch either, if that is what you're thinking.

You are, though, one of the most misunderstood people I know. You are one of the sweetest people I know, willing to do a lot for friends as I have seen you do before at IUB and here. At the same time, you have this hard exterior which makes you as approachable as the Great Firewall Of China, to those who do not know you well. In other words, you are very much like creme brulee: hard outside and soft inside. That is a description which people who do know you somewhat, from back in Germany (our host mothers), would probably agree.

I know, it sounds like flattery. But flattery implies trying to flatter in order to gain something in return: I'm not expecting to gain anything at all.

I'm sorry I told you all the things I told you tonight. As you said, you were already feeling down and out. For me to say all those things just added to your misery, and made you clam up. It was cruel of me. It was petty. It was also completely wrong.
I said all those unspeakable things, for which you probably will not give me a second-chance to remedy and to make up.

I blame myself, my idiocy, the moment of madness that made me say those things because it seemed like the right thing to do at that time.

I blame myself for passing judgement on you, and thus spoiling an evening which I had originally intended as an evening for you to enjoy yourself, to relax, to forget.

When you finally read this, I don't know if you will ever forgive me, or if you are now too scarred. If, like last week, you decide not to communicate with me, I understand.

I can only hope that you will forgive me some day, and allow me to make up for it somehow. And also that you can forgive my friends, who, in all likelihood, told me those things they said in order to help me let go of you last week. Friends say things to friends which are meant to console, which means there is always a particular slant and bias. In all likelihood, they probably didn't say those things or mean it in that way; it was probably the same meanspirited mind of mine at that time that interpreted it that way.

I am sorry, and seek your forgiveness.

Missing a dog

I know this sounds weird, but I have been missing the dog outside your house for the past week.

He's such a nice dog, and I love just petting him on the head and talking with him.

Pensive apologies

I have been thinking about my past actions.

And I realize, a lot of times, I was not listening to you. I heard,but did not listen.
Or I gave too much "advice" or my own opinion, instead of listening to you. It's something I will change, not for you, but as part of my personal programme.

And I still haven't thanked you for your candour, for your bluntness when you told me your decision.

Time

Maybe the same waves of time that have now rented us apart
and swept you away
might someday bring you back
as a different person
as a different soul
to a different me
in a different reality.

Who knows?

Mornings

I miss you most in the mornings. Nowadays, I wake up alone in my own bed, looking outside of the window at the reddish blue sky.

Somedays when I do not turn on the air conditioning, I wake up with the same humid air on my skin, and the feeling of unbearable warmth as my stale sweat sticks to my back.

I think of the mornings when we woke up side by side, on that mattress of yours in your rented room.

I miss your warmth. I miss your laugh. I miss your big smile and your twinkling eyes as you laughed at me. I miss laughing together with you, at something, at nothing, at each other, at myself.

I miss you pointing at your own tummy and complaining that you are fat. Right before we parted, I had said your tummy looked bigger than normal. Maybe it was inflated in my eyes by our impending parting of ways; in reality it was probably not too different from normal.

I still think you are very beautiful, and I am still very much in love with you, but differently. Now, I'm in love with you but willing to let you go, to let you do what you have and want to, and for me to move on with my own life.

I hope you are happy, and I sincerely wish for you to be happy, to be free from anger, fear, the feelings of insecurity.

And when your feelings of annoyance subside, drop me a line. Hopefully we can be friends again.

Being single for a while

I can't bear to be with anyone else right now.

Right now, I'm feeling depressed about our relationship not working out.

I try to distract myself with work, which is picking up; and I know that you don't really care, because you have succeeded in not caring about how I feel about the matter, and because you have succeeded in overcoming your feelings for me as well as your guilt.

Yet sometimes, I wish I could just talk to you. To hear you talk about your day. To talk with you about my day, and how shitty things go or how well work is.

Sometimes I feel so alone, and a lot of times you are the person who understood me best, even while I was surrounded by friends.

I miss you. And I can't be with anyone else for a while. You've set the standards so high...

Something random

You remember the lady who we met at the university fair, who came with her two sons and kept talking on behalf of them?

Yeah, she turns out to be a very high-level person within my umbrella organization. It was so bizarre meeting her today.

It's getting trying

After these few days of not getting any response from you in reply to my email, it is a little hard to take sometimes.

There are so many things that i want to tell you, but which you no longer want to hear.

I don't blame you. Afterall, you have already made a decision, and you are sticking to it as you invariably do: I could see it in your eyes when you bravely told me the decision to be single, that it was set. That it was permanent.

Right then, I had reacted badly. Instead of taking things like a man, instead of appreciating your candour and your forthrightness, I had blurted things which I now regret intensely. I clung on tighter, which repulsed you even more. I clung on so tightly that like a full grown man holding tightly to a slightly-built woman, I hurt you.

And I became even more selfish. In a way, I became a monster.

Now your hurt is over, and things have changed. Or have they? I cannot help wondering half the time, is there no sentiment left, on your part, or has time and work already succeeded in obliterating all your emotions that you used to have for me?

That night when you said to me things while you were intoxicated, on the phone, which the very next day you denied saying any of that, I can't help wondering if it is true that "in vino veritas", and maybe you were telling me some truths? Or perhaps it was true right then, and no longer true now.

I, for one, am keeping to my word. I will no longer do what I did in the past, i.e. to break my word to you. Now that you have made it clear that you consider me to be a pest and an annoyance interfering with your work, I won't disturb you anymore.

And even though now we are on the same island, in the same time zone, I will try and consider of you as being non-existent, even though, seriously, I miss having you around me, just as a buddy.

I love you. Not as any category, as in any relationship or anything, but I just want you to be happy, with or without me.

Hello

I hope things are going well for you.