Sorry seems to be the hardest word

What started as a smooth Friday night ended in mixed emotions.

We had the same four very intelligent, beautiful and strong minded young ladies on the same wavelength; the rectangular table of moderate size, enough to nicely display the dishes we order and comfortable seats for two on each side with storage space for our precious belongings; latest news and updates to share and amuse each other with; though the service and waiters were a tad bit incompetent, or more like not in the mood. And the music? Well, can't say it was great.
Still, it has always been one of my favourite Japanese restaurants.

Nothing prepares you for the unexpected. Just when you think the night is simply going to flow in one direction, sudden shock breaks the calm waters and you are left with less than a milisecond to react.
What do you do?

You protect yourself. You protect yourself from having to see, feel, taste, and even to know, hurt.

I thank God for my three strong pillars of strength that night. I've always imagined something like this happening for years and it couldn't have been any better than having them around. Off we went for ice-cream, Swensen's eight scoops of Earthquake, to be precise. And I was alright. :)

Things were smooth again. Until I got an unidentified call. It rang twice and made me wonder.
And then in the washroom, I received the sms. That's when it stabbed through my heart.

Three weeks of silence and not a single apology.

And that in itself set the foundation of my intoxication - eight glasses of J.D. Coke later that night when we met up with a larger group of friends for a farewell celebration.

A friend once told me alcohol brings out the extremes of our emotional state. If you're drinking out of joy, you won't stop laughing and can't control being loud. If you're drinking out of woe, you won't stop crying and yup, pretty much looking extremely hopeless.

I cried over one word. The world's most questionable word that I can safely say is repeated a million times by a million people in a day.

WHY?

And it wasn't why am I not in love or why did you forsake me or why am I bitter or anything dramatic like that. Bear in mind, it isn't the end of the world. Not like my wedding got called off or my future is in ruins. No, no, no.
I just couldn't understand why saying sorry seems so difficult a task. And that led my mind to further unnecessary and silly thoughts like "is it because I'm not good enough to say sorry to?" and "do I not deserve an apology" and yadayadayada, with no thanks to washing the thoughts down with more drinks.

Needless to say, I felt sick. No, like really sick. The chemicals in your body naturally produces these juices in your blood that causes your nerves to dance up a very sickly feeling. And I got it way before I even had my first drink. I began to fully understand why Carrie threw up at the beach during the party at the Hamptons after she shockingly bumped into Mr. Big and his lady. The body has its own way of reacting to something your heart cannot take.

So in a way, it was good I cried it all out and threw it all up. This is not to say I'm all out encouraging you to drink your troubles away. No siree. I'll never believe in that. I would've headed straight home to bed if I didn't know the party was on anyway. When looking for an answer, never seek poison.

When I was in the washroom, I thought about my inner strength and God's watchful eye on me (yeah, all this while being semi-drunk, barely walking in a straight line. It was like the battle of the little white angel on your right shoulder and that little devil in his red underwear and fork on your left). I've been listening to some of Pastor Prince's CDs May had given me as a gift last year and his messages have been AMAZING! She had presented them to me for my birthday/ Christmas 2003 but I never touched it until last week. Ah, the essence of timing.

I needed to release the emotions that I've been trying to control, just this once. And on Saturday morning, I awoke early at 7a.m. with no hangovers and a very empty stomach. I was free.

Many thanks to my driver (who kept complaining that my seat was too straight, my engine pick-up to slow and air-cond too cold) and two escorts following behind in a red hot car that night, one of whom had tissues on one hand and held my hair in a ponytail when I ejected whatever was left of Mr. J.D. Coke.