I was this close to losing control on the bus ride home.

In the first place, I hadn't even planned on going home. I'd meant to stay in hall over the weekend. But then the emptiness hit me and I just had to go somewhere where I'd be surrounded by people and things that I'd grown up with, rather than a place that I could barely call home.

It's going to be the first weekend in a long while that I'll be spending without the boy. That, plus the fact that it's that time of the month when I'm particularly prone to emotional excesses probably explains why I caught myself wallowing in a moment of self-pity.

He usually stays over on Friday nights. And if his mother happens to be out of town (which happens often enough), he'll stay over on Saturday night as well. It's funny how you take such little luxuries for granted until you suddenly find yourself deprived of them.

I wasn't even alone, yet I felt so lonely. I couldn't bear it. And so I packed my bags on a whim and fled for the sanctuary of home.

I never felt more alone as I trudged to the bus stop under a sky that was rapidly darkening. It had rained earlier in the day, and the air was moist and clammy still. Shivering, I wrapped my arms around myself, but the inadequacy of the motion only made me wish more fervently that he could have been around.

Recognising my weakness made my eyes well up with tears of self-pity. And so I stood in solitude along the road, feeling sorry for myself. I must have cut a forlorn figure to passing cars.

I blinked away the tears that had threatened to fall and tried to pull myself together as I boarded the bus. The rest of the ride was spent with my nose buried in a book, letting the glossy pictures fill my head instead of allowing my emotions to gnaw away at me.

It is true, then. Not that it's ever been of any doubt but it's certainly been reinforced by this incident. I'm a "little woman", just as Terence had told me with a hint of disapproval and exasperation. I won't pretend to understand the term completely, but if it's anything at all like what I imagine it to be, then I must be the very embodiment of the term.

It makes me almost ashamed to confess that yes, I'm one of those - you know, the ones who can't live without men. I say "almost" because it's something to be ashamed of only because society looks disdainfully upon feminine displays of weakness. I'm not about to be bullied into feeling ashamed of what kind of person I am just because social norms dictate that dependency is an abhorrent trait.

I'm not sorry if you think less of me. I most assuredly am not an independent woman. I crave affection in all its forms far too much to enjoy singlehood. I'm the kind of woman that feminists strive to emancipate and empower. I'd go to any length to make my man happy - cooking, washing, cleaning, springing surprises, and so on. And barring special circumstances, my man is always at the top of my priority list. This might sound cliched, but nothing makes me happier than seeing how happy I make him.

To end off, here's something I wish I could tell him but can't because he doesn't have auto-roaming:

ying @ 8:50 PM

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