Haunted

I'm stressed out. I’m anxious. I’m uneasy. I feel faint. I’m in distress.

I’m distrubed. I'm paranoid.

I'm scared. I’m really scared.

Almost a year ago, I received an e-mail from a couple of my friends from back in college, saying that they were planning to get married a year from then. Of course, that didn’t necessarily mean that I had almost a year to prepare for it. That just meant I had almost a year to not think about it.

These were people who I hadn’t seen for years and years and years. They were actually some people who I’d Left Behind because of that little incident of my disclosure of my sexual preference to someone I regarded as my friend, who in turn became the key to disclosing my secret to the world. As I said before, I was no longer interested in knowing who thought what about me. So it was easy to say goodbye. To everyone.

And then last week came. It was Sunday, and I was busy not feeling well at home. Suddenly, a knock at the gate. And then a voice calling my name. Who could it be? I wasn’t expecting anyone. So I dragged my ass out the door to brave the rain and see who it was. Good heavens. Boo!

It was her. The bride-to-be. Groom-to-be was apparently waiting in the car, and they’d just passed by to drop their wedding invitation off. Wow, special. Shit, I thought they’d forgotten about me. I honestly hoped they’d forgotten about me.

They’d apparently been trying to access me through several means. I’d changed my mobile number some years ago, so that was out of the question. I don’t know why they didn’t know my e-mail address, but it was a blessing. But Friendster was a bullet I just could not avoid.

Friendster always scared me because it would make me easy to find. To some, that’s a good thing, but to me, I worried more that it would be harder to hide from people by whom I didn’t want to be found. And now, the very reason it took me a while to even begin on Friendster was happening. Boo!

So... they found me. And in a serious lapse of judgment, I gave my e-mail address and mobile number. And with that, it just snowballed.

I don’t have a Barong Tagalog. I don’t have nice shoes. I don’t know how I’ll get to Tagaytay alone. I might have other plans. I still might not be feeling well. I can’t leave my mom home alone. My aunt is in the hospital. I have more important things to do. Hell, I might even say I don’t really want to see them again. See, I already have every excuse in the book.

Now, I’m trying to dodge every effort they’re making to solicit further responses from me. I really don’t want to go. There’s a reason why I haven’t seen them for almost ten years. There’s a reason why I haven’t even been trying. That reason was that I had a secret. And now, I have a newer and an even bigger one. Boo!

I don’t need their sympathy or anything. Nor will I need the paranoia that may stem from reviving broken ties. I’ve been okay the past ten years without them, why not another ten?

Granted, I don’t necessarily have to disclose anything to them. But I can only imagine how draining it will be to even try to put together plausible stories as to what I’ve been up to for the past ten years, let alone the past year. Hell, even right now, this early, it’s draining already.

So needless to say, just a week to go before the event, I am NOT excited. It just feels is as if I’m being haunted by ghosts from the past. Ghosts that, for now, I’m hell-bent on keeping in the past. Boo!