This morning I suffer from the light-headedness that comes from no sleep - a sort of drunkenness, very good for writing because all sense of responsibility for what the words say is gone.

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I went out with some friends but had dinner at Old Place alone. And how people stared! What's wrong with someone going in and hanging out alone in what's known as a 'Love Nest' for couples. I ignored their stares and perversely sat at the most conspicuous place in the restaurant. Now people were getting uncomfortable with a single in a lover's hangout. Some of my friends invited me to join them but I refused. I sat there...thinking, pondering as I watched the people about me.

As I observed the couples around me, a sense of loneliness engulfed me. I watched them whisper sweet nothings into each other's ears, hold hands...kiss...I watched them feed each other, laugh together, giggle over nothing, each set wrapped in a world of their own, oblivious to other worlds surrounding them. I was just an observer, the outsider looking in. Impassively.

I travel back into time and remember the times I too, used to spend there. Going out with friends and sometimes on dates, it just seemed like an everyday thing then. It's so funny that sometimes when you look back, it isn't the grand things that you remember...you remember instead the little things that you used to take for granted. Kindred spirits, for instance. Friends whom you love...friends whom you share everything with - laughter, tears, joy and sorrow, from corny jokes to age old wisdom. The many times we cried over broken relationships, the many times when we celebrated newfound love. The 'conventions' that we had there to discuss how best we could help each other, how best we could cheer a friend who was heartbroken. I remember the times when it was my turn to nurse a broken heart, how we cried over a cup of coffee, how we girls thought all guys are undeserving jerks and devised ways to torture them. Somehow they were able to bring a bubbly laughter out of my tear-streaked face. How crappy we were, that when one of us were angry with our boyfriend, everyone else was, too. And oh, I miss those times.

Pessimism sets in. I felt like screaming at them to open their eyes, nothing lasts forever. I've danced to the song of heartbreak and tears and sorrow, seen so many relationships shrivel and die, that sometimes I just wonder if it's even worth the trouble. Nothing lasts forever. Why does love that ends with death amuse? How much longer will they sell out on our depression? How many more tears before we rest in peace? How much more hurt, sorrow and despair? Days only settle in dawn, grey skies forever...