However the past weeks have shown me how cruel and thoughtless I can be when I need to hide and curl up in a protective shell that consists of three feet long silver spikes. Capt said I was heartless, and my dad backed him up. My dad said I was too cold and cruel when he heard me arguing over the phone with Capt. He said I could have handled things better. And judging from the uncomfortably sterling example I have in the form of someone else's break-up...

Why all these obfuscations? I am trying to run as usual. Life is painfully hard these days, especially when all your "bubble gum" dreams are destroyed.

"Bubble gum" dreams? I used that phrase for a poem when I broke up with my first boyfriend. And the scary part is, the heightened emotions that this current beau aroused, reminds me of that first harsh and painful relationship. My first love, associated with pain and hurt and all those myriad confused emotions and now mixed up with my feelings for the current beau. It frightens me so much.

I'm having trouble with my work. I'm not sure whether I will even pass this semester. I hate it when my mental equlibrium is destroyed ... and I have just realised that everything is about me. The profusion of "I"s sprouting up like mushrooms after a torrent of raindrops.

Perhaps, paradoxically, I'm being clear enough with my murky connotations. If you read between the lines. If you are astute enough or experienced enough with the vagaries of hormonal propelled emotions.

I feel guilty. I wrote a more erudite entry about my guilt, but I am tired of it all. I just want this to end. I just want to be happy.

It's all about me again isn't it? He promised. But I am so wary of promises. True happiness comes from within and not without. Is that correct? However I believe that it needs a fertile ground without, for happiness to flourish within, and he promises me that. But we know I have issues with trust, elusive fears burgeoning from that long ago wound.

Sadness.

So many things I could have said better to him. Capt? The new beau? It doesn't matter anymore. So many. He asked me whether I truly liked him and it just brought down the enormous guilt I have been wrestling with. Capt says he will love me to the end of his days. I'm irreplaceable. Special to him. He is willing to renew our relationship if I do not work out with the new beau. I feel tainted. I don't deserve the love that both men hold for me. Sometimes I feel guilty that I don't love them both as much as they do.

Surely one cannot quantify love?

I am selfish. My mother detests my generation for that spoilt graspingness that she says has inflicted too many. I feel that day by day I have changed into that wicked stereotype she so hates. No not feel. It was an epiphany.

Should I wallow in guilt? But that is what I have been doing, and it is a waste of my mental energy. Attempt to recreate myself? Perhaps. Perhaps.