BEEN AWAKE SINCE FIVE THIRTY And have been finding myself thinking a lot about what my life has been going through as of the late. Spent an hour going through my Yahoo! mails, re-reading, then deleting all the e-mail I have received over the last few years from a certain someone whom sadly has decided to move on in life. The friendship is there, but well, one has to admit sometimes friendship isn't what you were hoping for. And to think this is what I've to go through after physically being drained for the shoot two days ago at work. Ah, the agony!

It can be surprising how even at this point when you feel you're doing what you must to take care of yourself, you can hear a little voice in your head warning you about being too selfish. How you'd hear your brain whispering to you "Oi! What are you doing? Why tell the whole fucking world you're going through an emotional time? What are you doing?!!? Do you want them to pity you? Do you want them to worry over you? Do you want them to think you can't handle this?"

But then, part of me realises writing about it this way is a good way to get some of the toxin feelings out. It can be hard for others to imagine, but people like me tend to be emotional cushions for others. We hear out other people's problems and take them in to help them recover. We absorb other people's worries and work actively to resolve them. But when it comes to our own problems, we tend to remain mum about them and handle them ourselves. At least until we feel it tide over us and make us explode or snap angrily at the next unsuspecting person nearby.

Blogging about it, in many ways, helps me feel better about surviving it.

A friend of mine however brought to mind something that may frightening be true. Have I actually been sabotaging my own relationships all this time? Though the reasons my friend raised might not be the actual reasons behind them, I still did find myself worriedly looking back and thinking about how many times what could have been a simple and good relationship became complicatedly messed-up due to my personal expectations and preferrences on how relationships work. And though I do believe all my concerns were valid (from simple stuff like "please share with me your plans for the damn week" to more complicated ones "why do you hesitate when you say "I love you" to me?") could I have been inavertedly maneuvering relationships to an earlier demise due to the fact I am leaving for another country in due time? Or is there a larger more intrinsic reason I have yet to admit to myself?

This feels like an emotional mid-life crisis.
And sadly, though I know I have the support and well-wishes of many friends out there, I feel this is one I may have to go through alone.