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FORTUNE COOKIE
Could The Answer
Be In A Pastry?
By Neli Lalanne

I ordered Chinese today and the cookie said “answer what your heart prompts you”. What I want to know is who comes up with those slogans?  Who sits down and randomly writes nonsense on paper so it can be stuffed in a cookie and delivered to emotionally torn people, people who believe they’ve made correct decisions but still can easily be thrown off when stumbling upon advice from Asian pastries.

I would like to sit down and have a talk with him or her on the basics of anatomy, explain to them that the heart is nothing but a blood pumping muscle with no ability to talk, reason or give advice.  Sure it is comforting to think that the heart knows best.  Several times I have been guilty of elevating it to brain status, listening to it as if it were the Oracle at Delphi and I was Greek.  I remember…Oh I remember, how convinced I was about this guy, how determined I was to make him see my worth despite his decision to wear blindfolds whenever it came to envisioning an “us”.

I went through all the phases of shock when he stated that now was his time to focus on him, do what was best for him, his career, and his life, none of which involved me.  I was relegated to being the friend, someone that would be around, and when time allowed perhaps between business meetings and dating new women, maybe we could hang out; have no label for our semi-platonic relationship, engage in old time physical interactions without old time status. That particular arrangement horrified me to my very core but for extra moments with him I was willing to toss away chunks of pride and settle for being ‘on call’.  For each eye lash that fell on my cheeks I verbalized a silent wish for him to want to try…those babies are probably blowing in a landfill somewhere, all of them denied love petitions, testimonies of stubborn hope.

So many times I put my self-esteem on mute while dialing his number; I doubt he wasted any time thinking of me, why would he? I was wasting time for both of us.  While I was busy being hurt he was probably undertaking more important tasks like… flossing.  It’s been raining in the city and pouring on my life for some time, and now that the storm is over, now that the skies are clearing up and the sun is peeking out, I happened to order Chinese food, cracked open a cookie and got subjected to all sorts of ludicrous thoughts of me and him and a future that can never be, all because some moron wrote a non founded message.

He saw love as a distraction, he told me that in a few years, maybe… He rearranged his priority list and I am no longer on it.  My heart prompts me to work my way up his latter but it has been proven that my heart is not fit to make judgments only my mind should balance.  My brain refuses to let me linger in ignorant bliss another second.  In a few years his name will ring a bell but it’ll take me a while to remember which one, besides at that time I’ll be too occupied with more important matters and will not be reminiscing of past lovers whom once upon a time made me feel ‘unessential’.  The truth is it only hurts until the next one, at 20 something falling in love is seasonal, and happens at least 4 times a year. A toast to life after love; I am moving on and officially closing Pandora’s Box.