:: ON BEING READY ::

My good friend Eric will be on vacation starting tomorrow. He's bound for New Zealand and Australia and will be back on the 26th. I was gushing to him earlier and had this conversation:

Abbie: Hey, you will be gone for so long! What will I do without you? Paano na kami ni Marge? Baka pagbalik mo I am already dead!
Eric: Ano ba??? Ang drama drama naman as usual!
Abbie: Well, I hope I am finally able, well, better, and over him when you get back!
Eric: Hay naku, kasi naman ang arte arte! Baket ba kasi sobrang pakipot pa? Ayaw pang mag-pa-date! Pakipot pa!
Abbie: As if! Yeah, there's a lot of windows but it doesn't mean that you will grab the first one that is widely open.

*sigh* People at the office and my other friends thinks that I am just playing coy and hard to get. Not really. I just feel blank. I feel empty. I feel nothing to whoever they are fixing me to. I am just so out of it. I am so callous about it - as Binchy puts it. I used to think that I am just taking this whole "feel and marinate the pain" a little too seriously. I thought that I am just closing myself to others for the sake of keeping myself "freely free" for a few weeks, months or even years after the most disastrous break-up in the history of my life. I had in all occassions declined simple get-to-know-you dates for fear of him getting wind of it (even after we reached the murky stage), also for the pride of NOT being the first to cross the other line, and for the sake of valuing the relationship by not dating so soon. Much as I have wanted to hope and expect...I know deep in the recesses of my heart that this is very different from the numerous parting of ways we had before. I know that this one has the dreaded PERIOD. He left me and he's not coming back. It's now time to pick up the pieces of my life and whatever pride is left of me. Should I even condition my mind to this? When I still stupidly yearn for him when I should just be plaing angry with him?

The compliments are great and the gestures are sweet. Words of "I wish I am ____(insert name of the ex). But I will make sure that I will not hurt her!". Gosh, how come people are wishing that? Am I really treated that badly? Even friends are pushing me left and right on the so-called "windows" for me to get back on track again. On ordinary circumstances and end of relationships, I would have considered and re-considered. I just don't know this time. I've been majorly hurt and in the process of re-discovering and loving myself and my wants again. But you know what is the dread? The dread is this very BLANK feeling I am having lately. I don't want to let anybody inside. I don't want people to know what I am thinking, much more, what I am feeling. I know that I am closely and inch by inch closing myself to everyone - even to my closest and truest of friends. Is this the definition of "ruined"? :(