Proper

When I went hanging out at the bar last night, I bumped into this lady who I have met a few times at the joint...

I listened to her story and tried to approximate her dasein by drawing references from my own past...

In essence, the story is about breaking up from a relationship....

At some point, this question I asked....

"Why are you still so angry when you don't want to take him back?"

Hearing these words out of my own mouth, I came to the realization that..... the question is no more directing to her than to myself....

So I sat there staring aimlessly at the happy people....

So I, myself, asked.....

"Is anger still eating me alive?"

"How would I know?"

"Why would I still be in anger if I don't want him back?"

So, I stared towards the direction where this ex of mine and I once were... the space was now occupied by two young girls sipping their beers...

Yet, in my mind, I saw da J from Hell and I drinking Apple Martini celebrating... sort of... our engagement....

Were we happy?

Ya, we were...

Were we mesmerized?

Absolutely....

I also vaguely recalled how the bartender then told us how something was supposed to be done in a certain way otherwise it would be bad luck.... perhaps... how the other thing she prepared for us was supposed to be drunken.... though I don't quite remember...

I ordered an Apple Martini before stepping down to have a smoke... aside from where we once stood... when he told me never to doubt his love and affection....

Then, I looked away...

Somewhere there.... he kneed down in the middle of the road... to me, proposed...

So, I let the old movie play.... watching the memories of the past replayed... wondering how all these might have made an impact on the future thereafter which has, so far, unfolded....

Back to the bar, I sat there pondering about the visions of the past...

I stared at the green fluid occupying the large glass....

I took a sip.... and the following quote emerging in my mind....

The Hindu saint Sri Aurobindo once said, "Why is it that when people begin to relinquish the world, the first thing they relinquish is common sense?" Inner Works P. 109

From then on, no longer was I staring at these two girls a la bar...

I was staring into the past....

And... I thought again to myself...

Am I still angry?

What would I do shall he be right in front of me?

The imaginations spoke in a far succinct fashion then words....

So I saw...

Slap him in the face and slap some more... kick him in the balls and once more... doing a few more of them Tai Quan Do kinda side, front, and back kicking some more.... (oops... loving intention... zen moments... 8-O lol)

To myself I thought...

I guess I am still angry...

Then, I pondered again....

Why am I still in anger even though I don't want him back?

And... like what the acquaintance had put it... why do I continue to feel the pain although I no longer want that once-upon-a-time the object of affection?

Could it be that I am but addicted to da sense of emotional arousal resulting from the suffering?

Could this be a simple demonstration of operant conditioning?

Or, could it be that... he just disappeared from my life and I just lived on as if he never existed though the unprocessed past holds their original space which I have been carrying on my back unwittingly all these times?

So, waking up this morning and after all these years, I sent him an email with something like...

"I realized that we never broke up properly"....

Only to be questioned by a friend of mine later that... what accounts for a proper breakup?

.... while waiting for a reply stating.... "we broke up years back" from a man to whom I will not go back....