I can't sleep.

I've been suffering from insomnia for the past couple of nights. Yesterday I dreamed about myself screaming and crying like an infant out of extreme sadness and desperation and anger. I think I actually cried too. Tonight I woke up in the middle of the night and haven't been able to fall back to sleep since then.

Lots of things have happened since I last wrote. My brother came home from Australia for just a couple of months to renew his visa. Then I realized he's officially gay, or bisexual. He's in a committed relationship with his guy roommate in Australia for two years. They're already thinking about getting married in New Zealand. After learning this, I felt shocked for a few days but eventually I grew to accept it and now I feel at ease with the fact.

Another new thing I've learned about fate from this incident: you really can't force something to happen. My mother wanted a son so bad that when I was born, 72 hours after her water broke and suffocated in her womb and probably almost dying because the stupid Catholic hospital refused to give her Caesarian unless urgent, she didn't see me or hold me simply because the nurse told her I was a girl. She finally had her son 2 years after I was born, but he turned out to be not a real boy she's always wanted. My brother went through his first big surgery at the age of one because of a born defect in his urinal tract. He's only 5'2 and I'm 5'5. I've always excelled at school and he was only average. He gets sick much more often than I do. Now being 26, he still doesn't have a steady job or a certain level of savings because apparently he spends a lot of money on his boyfriend.

I feel a bit exhausted exploring the repeating pattern of fate, of the universe's work. It brought me Michael, who I thought was the one and we'd be together forever, who made me believe love did exist and my dream finally came true. Then the universe made Michael violent. It pushes me back to the pit where I really don't know what love it anymore. At nights, I think of these men, oftentimes Ivan, Ken, Eric, Michael, Jes, Caesar, and Sean. I make more money and am more educated than some of these men. I thought by lowering my standards I could get more love from them. But that's only a calculated way to look at things. Like me and Jes, we were people in different worlds, but I did love him very much and he later admitted to me that he did too but things just didn't work out. If I can settle for a man who's only high school educated and makes less money than I do for the sake of true love, why hasn't true love happened yet?

My ill-fated love life is making me sick. It makes me wonder again if I am simply unlovable, by any man. Alex said I am loveable, but why doesn't he love me?

Last Saturday Sean and I went on a date at my favorite sports bar in town again. Some days he doesn't talk to me at all. Some days he initiates a conversation, and other days I initiate. He's 33 and still lives with his parents. On Saturday, I asked him if he could join me to a short trip to the southern beach at the end of the month because I will have a few days off. He said he really wanted to go but he wouldn't have his parents' permission. I asked to further explain why his parents wouldn't give their permission but he didn't. Then I explained for him and said, "it's because you're moving abroad for your master's degree soon and they need to know where our relationship stands." He said that was it. I felt sad immediately, because it simply meant that he doesn't know where our relationship stands. Am I his girlfriend? Am I just a hookup? I almost felt like crying and he held my hand. He said in a cute voice, "don't be sad...I like to see you smile."

A few moments later, I moved on and started to be humorous and came up with some logical solutions for him. These involved eloquent lies, or even virtual presence because he's a software engineer and he should be able to program something like that. We shared a lot of personal stories that night. I cried again when talking about how Baby passed away that day. We didn't want the night to end, so he took me to a massage place in the middle of the night and we both got massages together.

After that, we returned to my apartment where my brother actually crashed that night. It was already 5 a.m. We got quite naked in bed and were making out. My brother woke up in the morning and left my place at around 8 a.m. Sean and I woke up and started to make out again. He came twice that night/morning and I only used my hands. I wanted to lose my virginity to him that night but I hesitated. He kept asking me if I was sure, but I just couldn't do it if the man hasn't told me "I love you." I told him if he could go to the beach trip with me I'd probably do it with him, but he still struggled with his parents.

Am I a bad person? What have I done to deserve this? Even an inexperienced nerdy engineer cannot commit to me. He's not even my type in the first place, although later I realized he's really muscular and has a decent size down there. I stopped shutting people out in order to open myself up to love, but this is what I get. Hurt. Hurt. Is all I get. Is opening myself to a betrayal to my instinct? Perhaps I was fated never to have love since the moment I was born, because my very own parents weren't even there to hold me after all I had suffered.

On my first date with Sean, I told him that I am very sentimental and cry easily but I don't bitch to me man or complain about the things they do. He asked me what I expected the man to do when I cried. I said, "He has to hold me. Don't ask me why I cry so much or tell me I have no reason to cry. Just hold me and I'll be fine."

I want to be held, so badly, right now, and every moment into the future.

My heart is smarting again as I write down this wish.