Reliving Regrets

Anaisa Castillo, Staff writer

I didn’t mean to drive you away. I needed you to stay, I wanted you to. In fact, everything I did was my way of hoping you’d stay. However, my way of thinking only persuaded me. Persuaded me to think that if I pretended I didn’t care, you’d stay and prove me wrong. That if I purposely ignored you and gave my attention to another, you’d fight to have it aimed your way. That if I purposely avoided you, you’d look for me. I guess my way of showing that I loved you was flawed. Though it’s not so much of a guess now, but it’s almost as if you never left, as if you never left because you never left my mind. Each night I relive each regret, as if I’m being drawn into a flipbook that solely consists and narrates each of my faults. As if the rewind button on a TV controls my mind. I think that’s my problem, that I loved you. I loved you so much that I wanted nothing but your undivided attention, nothing but all your efforts drawn to me, nothing but you. It drove me into a hole of diffidence, because the constant wonder if I was ever enough only led to a day of the blues. It is said that it’s better to have loved and lost rather than to have never loved at all. I used to believe in this, as a kid, and as the person I grew to be, until I lost you. It hurt more to love you than it did to lose you. I know that sounds as if it’s backwards, but it’s true. Loving you, was having to love myself. To tell myself I was enough, to remind myself that I’m doing my best, telling myself I could change. Telling myself that it was time to open up and try again, to try to let someone in once more, to take that risk; it was a battle between myself that I wasn’t ready to face. A battle that came a lot sooner, because I would never have  expected myself to fall for you. I was scared, and confused. Although it’s not an excuse to justify how I treated you, it’s an explanation. An expression of how deep my love ran that I feared it. I remember when my favorite thing to draw was people. Their faces to be exact. Faces were unbelievably capable of prevailing emotions that expressed so much more than actions ever could. You’d often tell me how great they looked, or how I should become an artist. Faces I often drew were those that spewed utter sorrow and agony. Until I no longer drew them and the days came where I drew tears from my eyes instead of those on a paper. Until the day came where I saw one face that expressed so much more than I could ever draw…mine.