Lost and never to be found is where I am going. Deep deep into the tunnel of despair; climbing my way to the endless abyss.

I’m back. The depression is back. Back with a force, a vindictive vengeance for shoving it out the window not so long ago. You can’t throw away something that is a part of you, it’ll always come back and haunt you the way it only knows how. Depression, my friend.

Fortune. Destiny. Il Destino. Fate.

It’s the year of the dog this year and apparently it is a horrible year. Dogs and me don’t mix; which I find fitting since I have a lovely dog that just tests my nerves with his bouts of lonely frustration; chewing up my window blinds because of the constant abandonment as I go out and spend the night with friends.

How can I curb this little indiscretion that my dear Pickles throw from time to time?

How indeed. So dogs are trouble.

I went to a Chinese fortuneteller today in Chinatown. It’s been about 4 years since I’ve gone to him. I just wanted to see what changed, if anything.

Not much has changed within in my destiny in the past 4 years. My 27th year is still the year the poses the most problems. A XX bad year for me. Money and wife issues. I don’t have a wife, so in my case women issues.

Here is some new tidbit of information. I am not to marry until 30. If I marry before I’m 30, it’ll end up in divorce. I will have two girlfriends before I’m 30. The best range for me to marry is between 30-38. If anything later than 38, I’ll have no children. There is a possibility for me to have 2-4 kids.

Potential mates.

I am to stay clear away from these three signs. Rat, Ox, and Dog (especially the Dog. They are the XX kind). A good year to marry is 2010. I’ll be 31.

I’ll have a long life. Strong and healthy. Nothing to fear there, but the family history of heart problems. 96. That’s a long time to live. I can’t even imagine another 69 years.

By the age of 40, I will have a second career/business in which I will be successful. It’ll bring forth fortune for me to buy and resale property in which will make me rich.

I’m a fire sign. I guess with a fire sign comes my short temper. It’s a family thing. We all have it.

The only season that works for me is summer. Winter and fall are horrible especially winter. It is the XX variety. My spring is a mixed bag. So maybe with summer here, my luck will turn?

Direction.

Apparently I’m a east/south type of guy and not a west. North is not bad. According to the fortuneteller, when finding a potential partner, I should steer clear of any westerners, i.e. Caucasian and Mexican. Two races that I find the female population to be very attractive. For a good fortunate life, I should stick with the easterners. I guess if the girl is a lovely sweet one, she’ll have to do.

That is my fortune. No different from what he told me 4 years ago and not so different from the fortunetellers that read me when I first came down here. Not so much. No.

* * *

Back to my fortune, back to my life. This despair.

Looking back, this has been a bad year for me. Ever since last December. Things just started to go wrong; since I started to date. I’m not saying that girls were the problem, no, that isn’t the case. I guess it is more the fact that I’m going out more.

Where one relationship ended another one started. Things were going great. They were, but then they didn’t.

There are no fingers to point here. Not one person can take the blame as to why or how things ended between us. We were both to blame and we were both the victim. Our differences in who we are got in the way of things.

Now she was a year of the Dog. Not that I’m saying that the fortune had anything to do with why things ended, it was mere coincidence that she just happens to be from the year of the dog.

She’s a sweet girl. Smart, sassy, and independent. Any guy would be lucky to have her. Sure, these are things that people say to make the other party feel better about themselves, but they are also true. She has a mind for business and she knows what she wants to do. She’s sure of it. With that sureness and with where she came from, she has a certain lifestyle that she likes to live. Who doesn’t?

I have a lifestyle that I love living too and it conflicts with my love for my independence. She pinned me right. I’m too laid back. I just am. I’m not going to disagree with that. I’m just a fairly easygoing guy, just going with the flow, whatever is whatever for I don’t care what it is that we do.

“What do you want to eat?” and I would answer, “I don’t care”. It’s not that I’m indecisive as to what I want to eat. No, that’s never the case. I’m not a picky eater. I can eat anything and will definitely try anything that is offered. I can always find something to eat on the menu, so when I say “I don’t care”, it really means, I don’t care. I don’t care what I eat as long as you enjoy it, as long as I get the pleasure of you company. You take my nonchalant reply as apathy when it is anything but.

That’s how I am. My philosophies of life is that life will just bring you obstacles and things in life and you will have to just go with it and take things on. I don’t seek out life because life is all around and it comes to find me. Things that I experience, I experience because they are in front of me to experience; an opportunity came up or that it is a predicament that happened to me. Life always happens, so I’m not in a rush to go out and to find things to experience because one day or another, life will give me that chance.

Different people are satisfied in different ways. I’m not a big spender on food or clothes. These material matters do not matter to me, because they are all surface. It took me 26 years to find myself. 26 years to find who I am, and it is this very laid back, casual, smart ass prick that sits here before you spilling his soul.

It took me 26 years to finally get comfortable in this yellow skin that is me. I’m going to dress in my usual jeans and t-shirt with flip-flops because that is my particular style that I’ve grown to find to be my style. That’s how I roll, and I’m not going to change the way I dress because someone wants me to.

A person can’t change because they are forced to. Change comes naturally with age and revelation. Change comes with a readiness to change. Change comes when you want to change.

I see there’s no point in me in changing that part of myself and currently any other part of myself because I’m comfortable with it. This is me. This is who I am. I’m not the nicest guy, I’m not the meanest guy. I’m not the sharpest dresser and I am surely not the worst dresser. I’m not the most outgoing person and by far, I am not the most passive guy either. I am just a guy who has figured out for the most part who he is and he finds no rhyme or reason to change. None.

Change comes with age and time and maturity. Again, currently there isn’t anything about me that needs changing. It doesn’t mean that I don’t have any flaws. I’m full of them. My life is full of them, unlike any one else. We are all flawed creatures. That’s what makes this life unique.

My personal demons of trust, my coldness, and definitely my short temper are traits that I could definitely work on. Without a doubt, they are traits that can be rectified, but sometimes they are hard. Many of these issues are instilled in me from culture, upbringing, from family traits and genes. Some other reasons are just from experience. They are a few of my flaws out of the many I do have. Again, I’m not a perfect guy, but I’m not a bad guy. Just an average guy with his personal demons.

That is me, and I’m sure there could me much more about me that I can discuss, but given the forum, I’m sure I’ve addressed those issues already. Again, I just don’t deal with people well because for the most part, I don’t socialize well. I’m a newbie when it comes to socialization and especially to relationships.

Wrong.

Again, not everything can be blamed on a particular person. A relationship involves two. We are both to blame.

Near the end, I didn’t make an effort. I know I didn’t. It was all one sided. She would come out to visit me. Sure I’ve made my trips early on, but she was the one who drove out to see me, after work or after a outing with her friends. She would always stop by. I wish I could do the same, but I couldn’t. I have my responsibilities that prevented me from going out there. I couldn’t leave Pickles on a whim because I wanted to spend time with her. I couldn’t neglect him like that. I was just torn.

Maybe the novelty of the relationship worn out, but I didn’t call as much during the night. I had no problem when I was at work, but not when I was home. Maybe I’m just so use to the life I lived before, the hermit shut in that I am. I’ll be watching a movie or a television show that I’ve invested so much time in. Near the end, it was my writing that I was focused on. With each call, it’ll put me behind of what I need to do, achieving my dream. I couldn’t prioritize her to fit my needs to work. And for that, I was wrong.

She would make the effort, she would care. Again, she was right. I can’t tell her what I want, because I don’t know what I want. I’m torn with my selfishness and what I want for the relationship. I was too much the idealist to let the realist get comfortable.

My stubbornness hinders my actions too. My need to be chivalrous because chivalry is a dying action now a days. I was too stubborn to let her pay for things. I was uncomfortable in that aspect of the relationship because I was taught to pay for dinner, for things. I was taught that way because that was the Chinese way. But the sad thing is I just couldn’t afford the dates. Our luscious dinners and lunches were taking its toll on me. We will fight for the bill and if she wins, bravo, but if I win, I’ll pay hands down because that is what I am supposed to do. I know, it’s an ass backward chauvinistic logic there, but that’s how I was taught. Blame it on society and my socialization.

Maybe it was after our first serious talk that I feel things weren’t going to work out between us. Maybe I was just too tired to deal with another tantrum, or maybe I really did feel that I am wasting my time; no, not wasting my time, but hindering myself from finding the right one that I am destined to be with. I don’t know what, but I’m sure that was the catalyst that started our potential downfall. It was then. We just weren’t the right fit. We were just on different planes and different wavelengths. Our misconnections.

Things weren’t working out. Deep thoughts of forever came into my head and I asked myself, “Could I live with this forever?” and the answer is no. I couldn’t. The relationship took its course in the next few weeks.

I thought that I could stick it through, see it to the end, and that ending was months down the line, but to my surprise it was only weeks. Only weeks. Talks of money and budgeting surfaced and then talks of other things. Trust. Questions keep popping up in my head and I didn’t have an answer that I liked. One final call and one final argument that ended it all. A simple misunderstanding, but if we kept on, all we will have are misunderstandings.

Breaking up is hard to do. For those who have been in it, they should know. I had to end it. I agreed to the relationship and I pushed for it, being naive to think that I can make it work. I had to take responsibility here. I didn’t want her to waste her time with me, because it was just not going to go anywhere. I can’t imagine living my life that way, walking on eggshells or constantly fighting and making up. It wasn’t worth it. Things had to end. They did.

I feel horrible for what I’ve done. I drew away, cold and distant, not giving into her. I had to. It hurts, it stings. My heart aches for what I did, but deep inside I knew that it was the right thing to do. It had to end, because it wasn’t going to go anywhere good. So why waste the other’s time. Why? I just wished that it hadn’t been so rough. I wished that we could have came to terms amicably, but when it comes to break ups, one party has to hurt more than the other and I’m not sure which party is the one that is truly hurting.

There are parts of me that want to call; to work things out and to mend things together so we can try to be friends. But I don’t know if it is possible. I don’t know if it can be mended. Sometimes it is just best to leave things broken and in shreds. It saves time that way.

Nothing to mend.

So I am now in that dark place again. There, not because of what happened, but for what I’ve done. I broke a heart and this time it wasn’t mine.