Love Birds | ✓

7. The Penultimate Barrier

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Overthinking was always second nature to me.

No matter how much I tried, it would always happen. Perhaps I was emotionally more sensitive towards other people's needs. It's why I always took their needs upon my head. A lot of people told me that it was not always the best thing to do, but probably it was always just instinct kicking in.

Some called it motherly tendencies, some called it protectiveness. But it was all just the same to me because at the end of the day, I just liked helping people. I liked seeing people happy and if I could be the reason behind it, then why not?

While it was fulfilling in many ways, it was just as detrimental in many. Time and again I've spent away my energies in mending broken pots, my own pot of being cracking a little more every time.

And sometimes, it just felt like a never ending process of getting used.

It was hard then not to think about  what was it from my end that went wrong every time that people used me as stepping stones for their ultimate goals in life.

Perhaps I was naïve and didn't understand the world's ways in spite of fooling myself into believing I had experience enough.

And that would set me thinking.

And thinking.

And thinking some more.

A little more.

And a little more.

Just then, before I knew it, I would be trapped in a never-ending pit of thoughts whose singular purpose in life was to suffocate me in my own mind. And they just wouldn't stop.

Until you taught me how to make them.

I remember it to be a winter evening when I was supposed to come over to your place for dinner. Things had been a little rough that day and like habit, I ended up driving my thoughts to be a peak that only settled with a headache.

I was quiet all through dinner and unlike every time I complimented your cooking and pushed aside my veggies, I ate everything offered quietly, not toying with my food like cliché movies and yet me not speaking anything either.

It had been seven months since we were dating by then and there hadn't been a time where you hadn't asked me what was wrong when you sensed my obviously blow apart moods. So in spite of being thankful that it was a silent dinner with a warm ambience and good food, I couldn't help but wonder how come you were silent this time.

You smiled at me and cleared away the plates, and this time I did settle for going cliché by playing with my wine glass. I shut my eyes and rest my head on the backrest of the chair, trying to control my breathing, that would in turn release the stress from the veins I could feel pulsing extra hard on my head.

Your scent reached me before you did, your perfume mingling with the calm of my breathing before you took away the glass from my hand. You gently led me away from the table and made me sit upon the sofa couch, my eyes a little too heavy to bother opening them.

Making me sit upright, you make my head rest on the height of the sofa that's neck level. And then, you gently begin massaging my head. It was so easy to loosen myself in the touch of your fingers, my mind suddenly floating through a space of calm. I don't quite know what my thoughts were but it was all well.

You gently kissed me on the side of my neck before pulling me up, a lazed, goofy smile replacing my previously stiffened features.

"Your mind is meant to be for you."

I opened my eyes to find his boring into mine, his gaze unwavering.

"I know, but I can't-"

"-let go?" he completed, and I sighed in spite of myself.

"I do hope you know that overthinking is the biggest form of self-harm you can indulge into."

"What do you mean?" I ask, his words suddenly churning a storm in my heart.

" It's true, you know. You repeatedly think upon the things that hurt you until you're emotionally spent. Isn't that just like scarring yourself repeatedly with the thing you know hurts you most?"

The room remained silent for what felt like eternity, the tension thick. I had never thought about overthinking until that point in time that way.

And yet... it was true. That was what overthinking did to me anyway.

"I don't know how to stop," I confessed, feeling shamefaced at my realization. But you only took took me into your lap while comfortably lounging on the sofa, looking pleased with the realization to brought me too.

"Well then let me teach you how," he whispered as he pulled me over his chest, our lips meeting and parting like waves on a serene shore.

That was the day and there's today, when I realize that you freed me of a demon long since robbing me of a peace. And all it took was a simple realization and a kiss to seal away this one.

That day, you not only held my hand into gradually letting go of this habit, but you also broke another barrier into making your place deeper into my battle-worn heart.

The penultimate barrier.

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