My inbox has been lagging for quite a while now. Some 2000 texts from early this year.

I’ve been meaning to clean it out. But I knew how much care it took, to go through them with the Nokia PC application, delete half, and transfer the rest to an xls document, and maybe leave a select few for days when I need to reminisce by scrolling/walking through my inbox.

When I finally found the patience to organize them two hours ago (only 70% done now), I realized, I hadn’t yet found the emotional resilience to deal with the task at hand. What I had so conveniently blocked out in the past 7 weeks, was still there in my inbox, waiting for me to deal with it.

I’d long forgiven him and we have since met up, made amends, sealed new promises, reinvented ourselves, exercised our spontaneity, left fresher love bruises and said more meaningful goodbyes. But we had conveniently kept all our skeletons in the closet, because we both knew how little time we had together. Carpe diem.

But now it is here. I am looking at decay and all its ugly crevices and I have just understood that forgiving and forgetting are two separate entities. I can forgive, but I can’t seem to forget. I don’t see the point of dragging the corpse out and forcing him to explain himself again, but silence eats away at me so.

Even if I were to delete all physical reminders of those three longest nights, will I completely forget?

As the abdominal girth slowly shrinks — or so the people around me insists — I am gradually making peace with my low rise acid wash skinnies that two months ago, I would have refused to wear with anything less than large, roomy shirts.

Massive muffin top.

Speaking of carbs, I was sent on a muffin search this afternoon. While standing in La Boheme, the incredulously dark and moist looking chocolate chip muffins glared at me for a good minute. But because today was a good day — I had dragged my insomnia stricken self across the pavement before 6.30am, with music pumping extra loud because a storm was brewing and running to Pink’s stupid song So What, which goes slow and steady then with an infectious tempo increase at the chorus — imagine jogging at a steady pace and having to nearly sprint when the chorus comes on, and then slowing down again, and speeding up again — I very nearly threw up when the song ended.

So you see, it was a very good day. And being in a shop full of warm pastries was hardly a test of willpower. Just today.

And just for today, I was extremely tolerant of his prying. He was asking for every fucking detail and I don’t know where I found the strength to answer 99% of them patiently.

Me: He said… And so I said…

Him: So what did he say to that?

Me: He said…

Him: And you said?

Me: I said…

Him: And what did he say?

Me: He said… So I replied… And he said…

Him: And what did you say?

I am very thankful that it was only a short coversation that I had to relay. And then there was more, but that’s the gist of it. The whole Q&A style. But I’m not complaining. Does it sound like I am? No one I know cares about the details pertaining to my day.

He does.

Everything seems so okay on the surface, but truth is, he doesn’t believe me. Last night, we sat there in silence because I didn’t want to tell him the full story. But my conscience was breaking under the weight of that glare of his that I couldn’t see — and he could hear it break. So the interrogation took place. When I eventually came clean, it was too late. I murdered trust.

More deception the following afternoon. Here’s a skirt that is so madly photogenic — I was supposed to sell it, but now I don’t think I can.

As a consequence, I never stray far from the formula.

Earlier this evening, the well preserved memories were polluted with coldness — maybe by the lackluster of our exchange at yesterday’s lunch. Maybe by time and distance.

The foam of a latte is only shiny for about five minutes, after which, the layer of fine bubbles disintegrates.

Is this the point where everything begins to fall apart? I sat up in bed, in the dark, way past dinner time — exhausted. And like a tacky horror film, an hour later, a moment of flashback was thrown in by the Universe, to extinguish every ounce of optimism that I had regathered for “old” time’s sake.

It was a reminder. That I will never change. And the variables never change.

How long can you chew on something that has no flavour left?

Clearly, it has become my forte. I have so much patience nowadays, you can spread me real thin like a piece of latex.

I really hate waiting — the same way I formed an aversion to commuting alone. But I suppose who you’re doing it for matters too. Perceptions will change. The same way I found myself sharing a piece of chewing gum.

I’ve been wondering all week, if I had reciprocated a little more, like he had wanted me too, would I have minded chewing on gum that cycles back tasting a little like nicotine.

With the prospects of new beginnings, letting everything else go isn’t too difficult. But a part of me worries about making the same damn mistake again. No matter how much I tell myself that this is a new journey — from my view behind the steering wheels, everything looks uncomfortably familiar. But this is the exact moment when the person in the passenger’s seat speaks, his strange calm frightening my inane fears about tripping over the same stone twice, into silence.

He tells me that the variables are different each time. He reminds me that I steer the direction of where we’re going. He quietly glares at me when I wouldn’t listen.

And then I don’t really remember how the rest of the evening turned out, except that there was a flurry of tears, anger, fear and genuine respect. I am older, but I behave like an insolent teenager who says hurtful things she don’t really mean. He is younger, but always so sure of himself. So composed.

One day, with a dead serious face, he tells me that he likes to analyze people. Oh? Tell me about me, I had said, laughing, because this doubt I have inside, knows me so well he couldn’t possibly do.

He made a handful of guesses; some completely wrong, some blatantly obvious and some easily deducible. I was smug about being right. But a few weeks later, he tells me something about myself that even I would never have thought of asking myself the right questions to come to the conclusion he arrived at. He was so right about me that it took me a whole minute of silence to verify what he said, and even then, I still couldn’t find the courage to admit aloud that he was right.

Here’s to the start of something new.