this crazy love of mine

I was at Coffee Beanery with my officemates for an after-work break and one of them noticed I didn't appear too jolly today. I said it's my PMS that's giving me the blues and oftentimes this gloominess gets me into long, seemingly petty but nevertheless critical arguments with p. I don't know how it starts but I'm definitely aware that it usually occurs around this time of the month, and, sure enough, it happened again tonight.

It started as plainly as a rundown of events that happened in the office/hospital, complicated by a stream of extremely corny (and unacknowledged) jokes from me that got me tired and irritated, and finally resulted in a heated battle of best (or worst?) one-liners we could ever hurl at each other. Well, I really did feel bad after about 5 moments of painful silence just because he didn't react to any of my jokes, and, I kid you not, it really came one after the other. Ang kulit ko kasi, akala ko mababawi ko at mapapatawa ko siya after the last corny anecdote -- but nooo!!! He didn't budge!!!

I fully understood that he doesn't have to laugh at my jokes and it doesn't follow that he's not happy with me if I'm not funny at any particular time that I'm trying to be (phew ang gulo ko), but it DID hurt that he didn't say anything at all (I was expecting even a sarcastic laugh or a "Nye, corny" comment). I felt like a senator auditioning for Saturday Night Live. And just a few hours ago I was with a bunch of people who hee-hawed at whatever outrageous idea came spurting out of my mouth!

So pinanindigan ko na ang sama ng loob ko and I went on feeling bad about myself, and about how I couldn't make p laugh, which proceeded to me thinking that I wasn't making him happy, and me being insecure about how other girls' (i.e. classmates/housemates) jokes merit a chuckle from him. Shallow, yes, but it still mattered to me because I do believe that it was humor that first brought us together. I remember snickering with him in college at a teacher's joke from a previous session, and how great it felt to know we sort of isolated ourselves at that very moment into a world that was exclusively for our enjoyment. We would remember it years after and still smile at the thought. Tonight I began recalling when the last time was that I really make him laugh -- and I couldn't remember anything recent.

Of course it ended with us patching things up -- but only after an hour of sour words that ranged from self-pity to swallowed pride. At the end, p was more exhausted than relieved that it was resolved, and said, "lagi na lang ganito, pinalalaki muna yung problema bago inaayos."

Napaisip ako. Aba, oo nga naman, pinatagal-tagal pa tapos back to normal lang naman. But isn't it in the long process of unravelling a ball of yarn that its purpose is met? We can't go from the first chapter to the last without going through everything in between (including the bad chapters), right? So with that I told him to just be grateful that it's over....

(to be continued)