Anyone would do tonight.

Self doubts, nostalgia, and failure have been plaguing me all day.

It started with the failure of a little thing known as an instruction permit test. For which I am supposed to be studying for in order to get my instruction permit so I can get my licence so I can drive and taste a little bit more of that freedom that I crave so much.

Failure wasn't possible for me and it happened. I don't know why I wasn't able to get it. I don't know why I failed. I read it. I studied. Failure is not an option but it brought me back to the reality of myself.

That I can fail. That I am not perfect. And with that, today came to me in the form of unhappiness and yearning because I woke up with him in my mind, another dream of him. Another dream where he is still with me and we are happy, and just joyfully being us. And I need to come to terms with it. I hate dreaming of him because it reminds me of how painful my reality it is. How unbearable is the fact that no one in the whole goddamn world calls me their sweetheart.

I was lonely for a relationship. It entered my being and surrounded me, engulf me in it's draining emotions, and I try to forget. Try so hard to forget how it felt to be happy in a relationship. And ended up trying in the wrong place. In my sanctuary. In my hammock with a book in my lap, swinging softly in the breeze. Knowing that no one would interrupt me.

Big Mistake. I remembered how one magically night years ago when I didn't realized that it was magic but just plain seducing, I dared. My sense of risking it all not having gone anywhere. I did risk it.

I was reading there one summer evening, being all of myself at at age 18 turning 19, I thought I had the world in my hands. I felt beautiful, school was out, I had a summer job, and my first boyfriend who I hadn't at that point have sex with yet because he was a virgin and I was playing out to see if he was really mine to keep in a relationship. Seeing if he like me for me, and not for my body.

It was one of those hot sticky but windy nights where everything feels wet. My uncle had just moved from Seattle and was currently living with us. It was because of this that I took this risk. Such a huge risk. He was sleeping in the living room till he found his own place, so I knew that once my parents had retired to their room, they would not come out again.

By this point because of my work hours, I would make it a habit to read late into the night on the hammock, deliciously enjoying a book under the desert sky. My parents never suspected anything that when my boyfriend got out of work at 11:30 (I still remember) that I called him. I called him and told him to come over. He did, riding his bike from his work to my house since he didn't have his car yet. I snuck him through the side gate in my backyard.

Everyone has stories, memories, of lovely romantic, star dazzling evenings in their relationships of how they were wined and dine, taken dancing, frolicking on the beach, just beautiful romance days that are remembered sweetly with a sadness if the relationship ended or a secret smile of knowing, of appreciation if the relationship was still alive but with a different kind of passion fueling it.

But what they tell you is not the full story. They just tell you, it was one of the most romantic nights in my life. And they expect you to understand, to feel what it was to be them on that night and be treated by a person so wonderfully that the word enchanting meant what it meant.

My night didn't involve money. Didn't involve going out. It didn't involve music or food or entertainment. What it did involved was a summer dress used as PJs because it was becoming frayed, the smell of fast food in the air coming from his uniform. The giggles of a girl high on happiness as she watched her first boyfriend distractedly looking around, being a nervous wreck because if they were caught, who knew what the consequences were except for that they were bad, very bad.

The coaxing of shy murmurings to climb into the hammock, to take off his shoes, to take off his work shirt, and climb in with me on the woven fabric. His smile so boyish still, his eyes reflecting the same level of mischievousness that was felt because we were old enough to have an adult relationship and feel the seriousness of each other, and yet young enough to still feel like teenagers rebelling with that night.

What surprise me was how little he knew and how I opened up his world. He had never even been on a hammock before, much less the luxury that was mine. A stolen hammock, different, sturdy from the ones that are seen in ads because it is durable, more like swinging on a thick mat than the image of strings woven together that are so often brought to mind.

He didn't even know how to get into one, how to climb in one. I had to stop the hammock, get out, show him how I climb in or else he would have tipped us both over with his crazy legs trying to jump in. Trying to be quiet and stifle laughter at his naive, and hiding the bit of shock that it gave me.

I settled myself into it first, getting comfortable with my book, lazing around, and caught him staring, looking me up and down, watching how he blush by the faint light of the moon as he realized I caught him checking me out. I smiled and beckoned. He climb in so slowly, afraid to disturb the illusion I had created, the aura changing from playfulness and giggles to one of unmistakable desire, unsaid feelings of love, and a thin layer of fear of taking a risk with each other's hearts.

I don't even think we talk much beyond idle chatter of how our days were. Soon the talking stop and the soft kissing and whispered conversations cut in by the inability to stop tracing each other's body due to our urges. Minutes. Hours. Nearly the whole night was spent with each other in that hammock, swinging, moving, murmuring silly notions, kissing, revealing new things about each other that we didn't know before. Lovely, beautiful, desire, passion, love, yes love, form our connection that night and when he left, well past 4 in the morning, I could have cried because I wanted him back. I wanted the night to be young again. I wanted him and me in the hammock, an ignored book between us. I wanted my fingers tracing the outline of his collarbone, wanted him showering me with those warm kisses everywhere on my face, behind my ears. And it wasn't just about lust. It was so much more than that. For the longest time it really was just that feeling of 'holding hands'.

It was about wanting to feel loved and know that I was. That in the night, there was nothing else between us. It was just us, him on my mind, and I on his mind only. No one was more important, nothing else matter. We were all that we needed or care for. He was really my everything and I was his everything.

I was. He was.

And today I was no one's everything. Not even close. All I can hope is to not be forgotten. To be someone's tonight and let them be my tonight. All this came back to me because I went outside to deal with my moodiness, the restlessness I felt at myself for being so stupid. For not passing that test.

And on that hammock, I closed my eyes and heard the way the wood groan softly as I swung from side to side, and I could almost feel him right there next to me, I could see him. And it hurt because I knew that unlike that night, if I open my eyes there would no one there. No missed phone calls from that special person, no texts, no voice mails, nothing for me because no one was thinking of me in terms of being their everything.

I did what I always do. Even back in high school, middle school when the waves of loneliness, of . I push the feelings as far away as I could and read obsessively so I could forget. I could forget my own reality. My own pain. I could forget my own personal demons.

All I can think of now is that I need to write. Or read. Maybe the knock the fuck out with a sleeping pill or two. It's always better in the morning and besides I have to live up to my own philosophisy anyway.

Because I do relate to absent people than build relationships with those around me.

Not that it's by choice. And it will be better in the morning.

It has to be.

When he came along.

Thank you to the black color Kawasaki bike rider who decided to ride by my house and turn at the corner.

You will never be aware of this but at the moment you decided to cruise on down by my house, there was a young woman who despite her early morning and quick jog, was still feeling the blues from the late night before. She was, at the moment, curl up in a fetal position in her bed, hugging close her only source of comfort, her old raggedy teddy bear, not having the motivation to get up to get her day started, to even eat.

She was feeling sorry for herself, overthinking and bullshitting herself into believing that she will never amount to do anything. Never make her dreams come true, and she felt ugly. She was telling herself, no wonder why no one wanted to date her, she was UGLY. Unattractive, and no man would want her, she was lucky to be in a relationship, but like anything else she did, she told herself, it turn to shit, and everything else would turn to shit that she tried and that just for the moment she was fooling herself into believing that she was doing anything worthwhile to her life.

This and a million other negative thoughts were going through her mind.
Then she heard the sound of the engine, it cut through her, and in that moment, she had to see it.

To see something so beautiful, so full of meaning to her. It brought her out of her slump. (And yes I am referring to myself in the third person haha.)

It brought her out, because cruising by, she didn't just see a guy on a motorcycle turning the corner. She saw her freedom in the way he lean towards the corner. She her independence, her confidence, riding on the seat. How if she could learn to do that, she could be beautiful in the sense of not only fully trusting herself to be able to do anything, but also confident enough to take on the world.

It was a promise she made to herself, not to be scared of anything. To fulfill her potential, and to not keep her desires a secret anymore. It was more about her being herself, than just the fact that the rider might be cute. It was about a hobby, and a form of self expression to the world, not that she was a badass for doing this, she didn't think of herself that way (really she didn't.) It was just her, she wanted to know. She wanted to ride, she wanted to be more of herself, and find herself and her self-actualizations through her metal wet dream, her future in form of a motorcycle. It was about herself. About doing things she only dream of, of making herself happy, make her dreams, her reality, and not letting anyone telling her that she couldn't (he was such an idiot in that sense for telling her own limits to her) and not letting herself stop herself.

About being knowing herself enough to be able to reach her potential, and not stopping herself from it. Not anymore. Just doing it. Dong it and lettin og, and looking forward to the days when she has her licence in her wallet and knows that she did it and be proud of herself, just the way she feels when she's writing and knows that she has 2 books done, safely stored in her email and her computer. Her work. Her dreams. Her potential. Her self-worth. Not proving anything to anyone, but doing it for herself, and that's what brought her out of her sadness. The vision of her fuel-injected suicide machine in all it's beauty and her accomplishments behind it, and behind her, giving her hope. Giving her happiness. Giving her the chance to know herself and live life like she wants to, because that's what it is all about.

So thank you to the black kawasaki rider, even though you'll never know. Thank you, for reminding me to not 'carry the world upon my shoulders', to actually lived. Life's too short and I have self-actualizations to realized, dreams to make realities, places to travel, ambitions to meet, and above all, people to love and appreciate because they love me back and I don't ask for it.

I will not chase my dreams. My dreams will have to chase me to keep up.

Dream number whatever.

What a strange dream.

I was leaning against a chipped white railing, and I was smoking a cigarette as casually as it is.

I woke up craving one.

I haven't shared a smoked since last January, almost a full year, with Nessarina in the park. She smoked most of it anyway but still.

I had the chance to smoke a few times after that, I didn't. I threw them away.

But now to dream of smoking one is weird, and to crave one is bad and I've been craving a smoke and a drink for awhile, a few weeks. I'm not going anywhere near them. I don't want to start a habit I can't stop. I think it had to do with kissing hookup #9. He was a smoker and even though I made sure I had gum with me, I could still taste it in his mouth. This might just be it.

I'm not going to dwell on that. I finished clockwork orange and took up Genius of the Sea again since I wasn't able to finish it during the semester. I'm still on page 18 of the WIP. I'm hoping to change that tonight.

The day has been upside down, with its goods and bads. I had a very good exercise romp, just purely driven. I'm going to sore tomorrow. But what fueled that was the hate of what I saw earlier. A mutual friend of mine with the ex posted a picture. they were in it. She was in it. He was in it. I hate myself for looking at it. It was taken three days ago. I realized just what he did to me. It's been a year and I'm still reel by it.

I wanted to break something, I wanted to destroy. I wanted to cut. I wanted to hurt. I exercised. Then took a shower. I came out and realized that my face was swollen.
I had a mild food allergy. Mild being define by breaking out in ugly red splotches and my face swelling up to where I'm unrecognizable. My parents wanted to take me to UMC care when I couldn't breathe through my nose because it was too swollen. I kept repeating to myself control control control. I told them to wait an hour and took two benadrylls and then went to blank out my mind on tv, hoping to relax my body enough to let the meds kick in and not panic. When the movie ended, most of the splotches were gone and I was breathing better through my nose so I told them there was no need. and there wasn't. My eyelids are still swollen but otherwise I'm 85 percent better on that. I'll be fine by tomorrow.

I blank out through two movies I already saw that I liked alot, in between finishing a clockwork orange. I also saw another movie that I never got to finish. A chick flick that I knew wasn't even going to be remotely well done, and just done for the movie. So why did I see it? because sometimes I just need to concentrate on someone's petty dramas aside my own. I haven't seen this much TV in a looooooooong time. I was pretty sick.

Then we got the call about the house. they're not giving it to us. Stupid bank. the foreclosure effect has them running scared. If they weren't going to allow it, they should have told us in the first place instead of wasting all our damn time, and apparently we were preapproved already. Whatever. Let them rot in their fear.

Sounds like a shitty day right? I think it's mostly my anger that lets me get away without busting into the poor old' me's. The best thing of the day was that my dad made bomb ass mash potatoes which I enjoyed very much because I wasn't going anywhere any type of meat (they had crab legs for dinner >_>) in order to provoke even more allergies. That and one of my bestie's woke me up with a text saying Will & grace is back on their time slot. I got to talk to him for a few minutes, even though I was still sleeping.

tomorrow will be better. I will reach page 20. I will go to the library and pick up my books, this time with my library card because today when I went I didn't have it on me >_>

Off days make me yearn to be back in school. Pitiful, not even a week off and I want to go back already, mostly for my friends, but also to feel like I'm doing something.

I hope I go back in spring semester a smaller dress size (or two, but that's wishful thinking) and my WIP fully written and done, and a winter list of a lot of books read.

Hope hope hope.