I wake up in a dream and somehow I cannot remember how your facial features once look like. I tell myself that I do not deserve you and that you’re better off without me.

When I was a kid, I was fearless–full of confidence and gusto. Today, somehow it takes me three days to think about whether I want to commit to going on a hike or not. Yet last week, we were up in Utah and I made it on top of Angel’s Landing.

“It is not my body that brought me here”, I told myself.

“It is my mind”, I continued.

So why am I afraid to love again? Sometimes the mind deceives your brain, it tells you that you cannot–that there’s really no way you can survive another heartbreak.

“But what if it leads to happiness?”, one part of you asked.

“You don’t know that”, another part replies.

Loving a person is like attending a college you’ve only seen through pictures and online virtual tours. It seems like it’s the one for you, the open campus space, the medieval architecture, the vast libraries, you imagine the perfect scenario of how you’ll live your life from there. You THINK you will be happy there but the reality is that you won’t know till you actually experience it.

That’s the thing about love. You can only THINK and perhaps hope that you will be happy but nothing really comes into reality until you actually love.

To love is to do, to do is to be, to be is to live in the present moment.

If there’s one thing I should be honest about myself is that I am afraid of getting the short end of something. I would research for a week just to get a good deal on something worth $10. I want to know that I am getting the best price, the best value for money product, the best discount codes, the best cashback, the referral bonuses, the credit card discounts, everything.

Somehow this translates to love. I’m terribly afraid of settling, of committing to something, yet alone someone.

When I love I want to possess, I want to own.

Is it more difficult to commit to someone or to actually relinquish yourself of all commitment towards the existence of that person? Murakami said: “But I didn’t understand then. That I could hurt somebody so badly she would never recover. That a person can, just by living, damage another human being beyond repair.”

I’m selfish, I say that I want you to love fully yet I play this dance with you–always keeping you two steps deeper in this well of commitment.

“I should never love you more than you love me.”

This gives me strength, this gives me leverage. Why o why was I so fearful of loving more?

Was it because I don’t want to hurt again? Was it because I’m just an egomaniac trying to manipulate you? Was it because when the time comes for you to leave me I’ll give myself this consolation prize of “I never liked her that much anyway”?

I don’t know~I really don’t know anymore.  I tell you my life is complicated, that I intend to see us go the distance. I portray myself as an enigma, like a puzzle that’ll never be deciphered.

You like that, I can see it in your eyes. You’re drawn to my complexities but you’re insecure inside. You ask me “so what are we?” and I tell you “I’m trying my best, this will all make sense in due time.”