who am i to you?

9.1

There's this satisfaction of reminding yourself with all the embarrassing things that you do. Sometimes it's intentional, most of the time it's not. It's a form of self-sabotage that I hate so much but I find myself liking the pain it gives me in the head.

That's what's happening to me right now. I remembered the letter I wrote again. The love letter I did not send because I backed out. But the letter is still here. And that's what I always come back to whenever I remember.

I read it all the time.

The cringe never fails to slap me on the face but ripping the letter apart never occurred to me just yet.

This is not the first time I wrote a love letter. And it's not the first time I didn't give it to who it was supposed to be for. I keep it. Then when I get over that crush, I burn it. Seeing the ashes, it's the most liberating thing ever.

I put my pen down and sighed, pulling the bottom drawer of my study table. No information is going inside my head with this accounting topic so I spent most of my time staring at the question. And then I'll get reminded of all those things I did embarrassingly before.

I leaned down a bit to my side, putting my hand inside the drawer to get the letter. I had a hard time getting it because I did not feel the familiar texture of the envelope under the CDs and tapes I have there. It's one of my storage places for old things and I hide everything under all the stuff inside. My secrets have been safe here so I still continue to hide things here.

Getting frustrated, I also used my other hand and looked for it instead of just feeling where the envelope is. I turned all the CDs around and looked under every tape there. 

The envelope is gone.

"Mom!" I immediately got up, my heartbeat picking up a pace.

I found my mother downstairs doing laundry in the laundry room. She went home last week so we can have a late visit at Dad's grave together. And she's staying until the end of this week.

"What is it?" she asked, stopping midway on taking the clothes out the dryer.

She likes to do housework when she's at home. She says it's a form of compensation for all the time she spends away. She cleans my room all the time because she says that I'm like an eight-year-old kid who can't keep his room clean. She even blamed my cat for my messy room.

"Did you go through my drawers?"

She spared me one glance then continued with her chore. "I organized them."

I swallowed. "Did you take something?"

"Something? Why would I take something?" She looked at me and raised a brow. "Are you hiding something?"

I inhaled deeply, calming my heart. "Mom, it's important."