Sunday morning, rain is falling. I love that song.

 Today I woke up to the sound of water outside my window. Clouds rolling on by. It's slightly cold outside.

 I pulled out a thin long-sleeved t-shirt from my winter boxes and started my day at 4pm.

 It's midnight and it's raining. I loved it when in rained, back then when he was here. I loved his early messages telling to me glance outside. It's great when you are waken up by a good call or message, when you don't mind having to get out of bed. I loved how much he would kiss my forehead. The first drop fell and he would instantly head to my house. He would come in with 2 coffees in hand, smoothies, junk food, sushi every once in a while. Always to find me asleep on the couch covered with my beige blanket. He wouldn't wake me, but snuggle with me. I loved to open my eyes and find I wasn't there alone. I felt his warmth and I felt safe. His snoring didn't even bother me. How he loved my beige blanket. And after several rainy days it no longer smelled of soap, it no longer smelled of me, but it smelled of us. This deep penetrating scent we both made together, the combination of our sweat, lotion, vanilla, musk. This scent I ache so much for. I feel I catch a whiff of it from time to time, sometimes I imagine it, sometimes it's real. Friends have told me I smell of him sometimes. But I don't, maybe a little. But it's different. I loved those afternoons doing nothing, long days of nothingness. The first days of winter we looked our best. Jeans, boots, cashmere sweaters. Then we became family. Sweats. PJ's. We found out we both wore Hanes socks and Calvin Klein underwear. At night the couch was no longer fluffy, it had holes shaped like our bodies. I miss those holes. We always intended to get out, but we never really got up. Long days, but time flew. Rented films spread about, nintendo cables across the living room, styrofoam containers with left overs. I loved it when he brought me flowers, just because. I loved how he hugged me, to the point of suffocation. I was never suffocated, by his hugs or by him. In fact, I felt empty when he wasn't here, my couch was fluffy, my living room clean. Even my family felt weird when he went away. But he would soon be back, 10 hours later or just as soon as the sun rose. I loved his laughter. I loved how he came in and out of the house as if he were family. He got to know all about my kitchen, he would stand up and be back 10 minutes later with bowls full off stuff. I loved he even tried to wash the dishes. I loved how he mocked my attempts at cooking. He would always offer to do the frosting of my horrible chocolate cupcakes. I loved his hands. I hated his dirty short nails I never got him to keep clean. I loved his nails, actually. I loved he would caress my arms until I fell asleep. 10 or more hours on a couch. Right then and there, I forgot how much I loved to smoke, I was so comfortable I totally forgot about cigarettes. The rain poured on. Late at night he would head home. Now I smoked. Totally in peace with myself, with the mess in the living room. The last hug was always the best. The kiss on my forehead. The smell of rain and wet soil. The good night call. Each in our house. Each in our Calvin Klein underwear. Smelling of the other. Singing ourselves to sleep. Literally. And not wanting to say goodbye. But we did, happily, knowing tomorrow would be the same.

Time cures every scar. Time soothes every heartache. Distance helps us let go.

 Still, I think we can't always forgive and forget. No matter how much time has gone by or has much distance we get, we never can actually forget.

 But we need time and distance. We find out again who it is that we are... We get back to being ourselves. It makes you more 'you'.

I once heard this quote that we shouldn't try to be someone else because we'd always be a day late. How true.

 Me, I'll never be the easy kind of girl. I'm easy-going, laid-back, open-minded, and free to do almost anything, but I'm complicated as hell. I'll never be someone to settle things easily, or to quickly settle for something. I won't settle. I'll never be easy to convince. I'm stubborn. I'll never be able to just jump out of bed and get out of the house. I think I'll always be unpunctual. I'll NEVER give up a friend without putting up a good fight. I'll never understand that people, for the most part, simply do not change. I'll never stop being a masochist. I'll never be able to just say 'ok' and move on, without first mourning as hell and going through weeks and weeks of sad music. I'll never give up on people after the 3rd big disappointment, like people should do. I don't think I'll ever give up faith or hope.

 I'll always find my cure on friends, dinner and wine. I always have and always will.

 Lately I wonder a lot about those people who never really make any real connections, who never get their 'person', or get them and let them go. I have 3 great ones, 15 good ones, and a bad one. That bad one, still doesn't stop being my person.

 I wonder about 2 friend of mine who went from being the closest of friends to complete strangers... or well, enemies rather than strangers. They had 'it', that 'it' you have with your person(s). That connection that is so unique and true, and so different one from the next. They were completely in sync.

 Now, one stole the other's boyfriend, had a quick relationship, and now the guy is back with the first one. How she took him back? I don't know. Mainly out of spite, I think. How is it she took him back, when he's an asshole, and she didn't take back her best friend? How was the other so unashamed and un-remorsed about stealing her best friend's boyfriend?

 Don't they feel alone? They seem alone. Both of them. And they're both the complicated bitch type of people who'll never find another 'person' for themselves as they had each other.

 I'm just back from dinner, instead of partying like crazy and drowning myself in alcohol as the cheap solution I always use when I just can't find my cure. When I can't find the glue to put my shattered pieces of heart back together. When my mind is a gray cloud. My life feels like a storm.

 And it rained today. I love it when it rains. It soothes me and I find nothing gets me down on a rainy day. The air feels clean.

 Dinner was the kind of thing that doesn't feel like dinner. You're somewhere else yet you feel at home. Several friends of mine agreed with me on having a low-key saturday, going somewhere new, getting far from home. We drove to this restaurant we had never visited because driving the distance meant laziness. Distance is a concept that always provokes laziness. Driving far. A 12-hour flight. One of our 'persons' in a another country. Laziness.

 I love going out for dinner when it is not really dinner, but more of a talk show. We all get our 30-minute talk show. Complete attention. Absorption on whatever topic we decide to talk about. School, old boyfriends, dates, poop, religion, news... or things as boring as the weather. Things that we can truly talk about with real friends. Chit-chat doesn't exist in this world, the world of a circular table covered with a linen table cloth, candles, bottles of beer, glasses with wine, shrimp, oysters, pasta, rib-eye...

 Completely unknowledgeable of the many other tables and people around us, of the so many other things going on around, outside, far from ourselves.

 It might as well be a lonely table in a lonely room in a lonely city. So unaware of the world. When the entire world keeps on moving and we are at pause.

 Dinner became a 4-hour thing, of which only 40 minutes were spent eating. I love to eat. But the best part of eating is what comes afterward.

 The restaurant empties. The bar closes. Butlers walk anxiously around our table, urging us to leave. It's closing time. We barely notice it. We suddenly realize we're not that younger anymore, as much as we love discussing stupid things and talking about sex and poop and things so meaningless, we now are immersed in deep talk, real things. We are now a younger versions of our parents, we realize. Horrible, the moment you realize you are becoming what you so much tried to not become. We are now the spitting image of our parents, we now remember how we hated and criticized them for this, we pulled on our parents clothes begging them to leave the table when they spent 3 more hours on the table, talking with friends about things we never understood. We were young then, and bored at their conversations.

 It's not so bad. We realize that now.

 We are older, wiser. Even if we're only a bunch of 20-year-old who are still a little hungover from the night before. We've grown.

 We are still very much ourselves. The same we were back then.

 We sometimes lose track of who are, we are driven into other paths, into other ideas, by people who don't know where we come from, who we truly are. But here over a white linen table cloth and ash-trays full to the brim of cigar-butts, we are surrounded by people who do.

 It helps each and every one of us. It helps me.

 Change is good. Get out, do something different. You're 20, you don't always have to party like a maniac. This new restaurant doesn't remind of him, like half of the ones in town do. I've made emotional attachments to almost every place I ever visited with him. This is new, it's not his at all. It's just me. Try a new perfume. Find the one that makes you feel confident. I got rid of the one I left him smelling of. Every once in a while, dress differently. Something totally out of your style. Play with your hair. Burn a CD for your car filled with music so unlike you you'll feel powerful while driving the same old streets.

 Soon you go back to your music, your clothes, you get new 'likes' but always go back to your classic ones, to your trademark bag, your trademark smell, your trademark friends. You become more you. Over and over again.

 But never lose those old friends. Those that made my Saturday night feel like being home again. The ones that make you so unaware of time, curfews, or what you are putting into your mouth as you talk about what's going with each ones life.

 I'm getting back to being me. And I won't stop being all the good and bad things I am.

 The night ends with cups of coffee. We realize we now look 60.

 It's not so bad. It's really good, actually.

So we argued for hours... and hours... and it seemed like weeks. It seemed as if he were back here again, sitting across the couch in my living room, and we were having one of our fights. Only this one was far worse than any other. He was miles away, but I felt him here, so close I could almost feel my fist punching him. Punching his ego, his stupidity, his curiosity.

Even though I could sense him sitting besides me and almost see his eyebrows going all the way into his hairline and his mouth becoming smaller and smaller, as it always does when he's guilty, he truly was miles away - not physically, but emotionally.

Emotionally miles away, he talked as if he cared, he argued as if he felt it, and he cried as if it was true, but deep inside I knew my words didn't have even half the impact they did then. I was right.

 As we were about to hang up he brought up the typical inevitable question. He seems to be able to conjure this phrase out of thin air, and I am trapped, into what feels like a very real corner. "Do you still love me?"

 Honestly, not as much. No matter what people say, love decreases when you are disappointed by someone. Maybe not love, but caring.

 We did same old dance, he groveled, I pitied him, he cornered me... this time I didn't give in. Somehow for some reason, this time, no amount of tears could erase his stupidities, his becoming someone else. His becoming into a stranger.

 A cold "Yeah", and I hung up. He knows "yeah" means "shut up", and he knows that I'm physically unable to say the literal words "I love you" when someone truly disappoints me, when somehow for some reason I no longer feel it. Not at the moment, at least.

 That became the first time ever that we hung up without me saying that I loved him back. Before that, I told him I no longer care to ruin my friendship by saying what I thought, I no longer was afraid of losing him - the risk of him disappearing was worth saying what I had to said, was worth screaming what no one would ever scream at him.

 Still, I gotta say, we left things unsaid - I couldn't say more, I felt it was not the time or maybe... I had run out of balls. As for him, he didn't even answered to all I said.

 I told him I knew after that he wouldn't be at all compelled to call me. I didn't need any explanation. He tried to deny this, but I knew he would maybe never call again or he would wait weeks before he did. I also knew he would not once again, at least for a month, would call me drunk, out of fear of frightening me, out of fear of giving me a reason to scream again, out of fear to make me be right again. And he just can't stand to be proven wrong. I told him, although he tried to deny it, that I knew. And he knew I knew... he also knew this time I was OK with it, I would be OK with him not calling, I maybe would be better off.

 Two weeks went by. No calls, no mails. Just cold awkward messages that had every feeling hidden between its lines. We went back and forth and played a game of tennis for a while, both of us not willing to give in first. Until he broke.

 His messages became from completely pointless to jealousy and regret. He asked me about a guy, and I gave him the honest answer that I really didn't care for the guy, he was an ass. I asked him if he was happy now, he was - followed by messages filled with I love you's.

 I still didn't give in.

 Until Sunday night. Sunday nights always make me do stupid things - they're the culminating point of the week, the reflection, the 'nothing better to do'. A message. "I feel like I no longer know you. You've become another person."

 I unleashed hell. Messages are man's worst invention. There's no taking it back, no erasing, it's there and it's there, it's readable, and it is subjected to the interpretation of what that one person wants to make out of it.

 We argued. More messages. He denied it and he begged me to never say that again, he swore he was the same freak that I had met, the same very person who wouldn't stop loving me no matter what. And he begged me to write I felt the same way, when I didn't he blamed it all one me. Apparently I was the one that had changed. The tortilla flips again... and again... and again... as it always does when it comes to us.

 I was truly coming to believe that we would never talk again, no more calls. Yesterday he called. It was the shortest call ever because I said goodbye as fast as I could. He simply called to say hi, to ask how I was, and to tell me to take care and, of course, to say how much he loves me. In his voice I knew his confidence trembled, his words told me he was shocked to his core that I was truly OK, I was much better in fact. Maybe I am better of. Maybe not. Maybe I will never know. 

 Maybe I would like to remain "off", but my heart wouldn't allow it. I'd love nothing more than to say "This is it", but I'd be lying.

 Today I went out, had shrimp and wine, cleaned my mind, talked with friends I hadn't really heard 'cause I've been living in my head for a month now. It was good, it was a small pleasure I could feel taking over slowly, and my chest began to move slower, my breathing became rhythmic again. I could almost feel the summer breeze literally washing my troubles away, it cleansed my skin, my mind.

 As I drove home the radio station I hate the most suddenly won my attention. I saw cars move nearby, red lights glowing, green lights sparkling, the street lights making shadows that crept into my mind, I didn't feel time, I was so immersed in my mind and into what the guy was saying, that I really didn't care if I got home, I could've kept driving all night. I don't know if I was going at 20km/hr or 150km/hr. It really didn't matter. Time. Speed. Distance. Why do we measure it? Why does it matter? Why not measure time by how much we get done, by how well we make use of it? Why not measure speed by how fast or slow we live, by how we enjoy or let the moment pass by? Why not measure distance by how far we feel and not how far we are, how much we are able to remain close when we really aren't or to grow apart when we're sitting next to each other?

 The DJ played corny background music, as it always happens in the radio station we hate the most. It's elevator music or the kind they play at Macy's as lazy shoppers make their way through clothes racks. And the guy talked about trust, about friendship, about the closest of friends.

 I was tempted into changing it, my hand mid-air, but I kept on listening. He talked about betrayal, he was saying relationships will never be the same afterwards. He wondered and made unanswered questions about why we betray those who have given unconditional love, those who we know we will never be able to replace, those who truly know who we are. He invited the listeners into appreciating that person, YOUR person. He said betrayal or losing someone's trust doesn't necessarily end a relationship, "You might keep on talking", "He/she might keep on calling". Out of routine, out of the fear of not being alone, out of now wanting to leave this person no matter how hurt we are.

 But trust? Trust is now dead. What's the point on keeping calling or talking if it is now this superficial empty-shell of relationship/friendship. Will we ever be able to have or get back what we had?

 I was now blocks away from home, when had I gotten here? What path had I taken home? It was all a blur. City lights. Confusing thoughts.

 Maybe this was me. Maybe we lost our trust in each other. He betrayed me and I betrayed him. Is it betrayal if I crossed the line with the only purpose of helping a friend, of lending a hand, of having him take conscience?

 It doesn't matter. We both feel betrayed. We talk but we say nothing.

 Still as I parked I wished he would be here on my doorstep, just out of his weekly reunion with his friends, waiting on me to have a cigarette, to talk about nothing, but mean everything... even if it's nothing. Like he did when he was here.

 Now a stranger is in another city doing whatever it is his friends do, whatever it is he does or think now. And I'm entering my house by myself. Another stranger, in another city.

It's been quite a while since I last posted. He's gone now, way gone - miles and miles away. If you don't know who I'm referring to, please check out my previous post.

To be honest, when he was here I don't think I ever actually decided on my feelings for him. I would say he was just a friend, but truthfully, I doubted it more than once - I always kept quite. He didn't. He did call me once, 4am midweek, trembling voice, to tell me he was falling for me. I quickly rejected what he said and asked him to consider a confusion whatever he thought he was feeling. After a few weeks we were able to go back to normality.

Now that he's gone my past life with him (when he was here, that is) is even more unclear. It looked like love, a lot like love, me and him, and vice versa. But how come back then we were so certain it was nothing more than a dysfunctional friendship? We cherished our friendship above everything else and believed ourselves lucky to have whatever it was we had than no one else did. Lucky? Now I wonder how nuts I was. I still adore him, appreciate him, and sometimes am rather lost without his words and support - he truly got to know the real inner self of my being in a way people that have known me for 10 years still haven't been able to. I should've kissed him before he left - I cried the most I've cried in my entire life and I clung to him with all my strenght...and he left... and I kept on living. Not living, but walking lifelessly around in a life that didn't feel mine for the next couple of weeks or so.

And I didn't kiss him. If I had kissed him we would finally have settled that enormous question mark between us - if we were even remotely in love our relationship once he left I'm sure would have been healthier, less competitive, and with loads more patience. And if we would've finally left the L-word to rest, it would have been the perfect way to say goodbye. We would've kept talking and loving each other, maybe we would've competed in certain things, and we certainly would've fought, but then again we would've been able to advice and support each other on going out with others, on sleeping with others (in his case), we both would've understood we have no reason or right to claim things from each others, and neither one of us would've been offended when we disagrees on each others' decisions and actions. But we didn't kiss.

In a way, we left the question mark on the air, and the power still up for grabs.

Our weird relationship and dysfunctionality grew, if anything, to a point where we don't recognize love from hate. As much as he can bring me back to being me when I lose track of myself, as much as he can make me smile, as much as he supports and helps me in every existing way, he claims rights that aren't his. And I do as well. More than once did I swear I would stop talking to him altogether and turn him into a mere aqcuaintance, into the old friend you simply lost contact with. But each and every time I failed, I needed him and he needed me every time everything else stopped making sense, which was every time we stopped talking to each other.

Although we grew in different cities and different religions as well as beliefs, we learned to respect each other's ideas 100%. He supports the fact that I'm against pre-marital sex, and I'm OK that he's totally on board (and probably sleeping around quite a lot now that he's there). Although some things we had to learn to respect and accept, we stood similarly in others. For example, drugs. We both consider it a major "no", and he always talked seriously against drugs since 2 of his cousins are actual drug addicts (and no older than 20 years).

But he went away. And he began doing drugs.

Occasionally. Lightly. Marijuana. Sporadically.

I restrained myself on saying so many things I wished I'd said from the start, out of fear, out of not wanting to lose his trust, out of knowing that no matter what I said he would try them as well. For one thing now I accepted his probably not only doing marijuana, I accepted I've kept quite out of fear, and I recently had the balls to confront him. Of course it didn't go well, but he cried like a baby like he always does, he begged I continued to love him, and asked for forgiveness. And for the first time, I didn't cry. There was nothing sad or even pitiful of the situation, it was angering in every level. He quickly said he was sorry and all that shit... for hours and hours.

And he seemed destroyed, truly destroyed, by everything I said to him. But nowhere did fully agree with me. We didn't reach a solution as we normally do, he didn't give in. I know he will certainly do it less often - I KNOW. But he will definitely not stop, and judging by his crazy friends he'll probably fall when he's offered something else. For the first time ever, I hung up without any sentimental crap. No such thing as I miss you, I love you, not even take care. Its the coldest hang-up we've ever had.

And as I predicted he would be afraid to call again. His pride has kept him from calling me for over a week now (when we have never exceeded 3 days). Although he's messaged me, saying how destroyed he is, how incomplete he feels by not having me there, and all that shit. All I answered was he had finally truly disappointed me, he had finally realized my fear of his becoming into a stranger... and that unfortunately not even then did I stop caring for him. But he was right, I am no longer there. He doesn't have my support anymore. And I'm lost with nothing else to do. I'm not calling him. Not writing him. Not giving in into being there for him. Into making everything appear OK.

But I can't help but suffer and hurt by the fact that he isn't calling either. Where is he now?

Probably having a smoke with his stupid friends. Now truly thousand of miles away from me.

And still he thinks he can fix things by simply saying "I love you".