...230702, 1009hr, central time...

i believe, i think i believe, i want to believe.

you know that something's wrong, when you cannot articulate exactly what you believe in. or, you say it and you feel like a fucking hypocrite. because maybe you actually only want to believe. maybe you've already lost that faith, but you don't want to admit it.

i remember in kate and leopold, kate [meg ryan's character] said something to the effect of: what if true love is really an adult version of santa claus?

everybody says he exists, you want to believe that he exists, because good things happen when he does. but what if. what if one day you wake up and fantasy is over. what then?

i feel like i believed in love the same way i believed in santa claus. no i didn't write my list to be sent to the northpole, no i don't get presents for christmas, no i didn't *really* think there's some guy stuck in my chimney. but come christmas time, though my family doesn't celebrate it, i still wonder. i wonder if perhaps some miracle will bring me santa claus, who will bring me the presents that i want, without me even asking for it. who will recognize all my efforts of being a good girl without me flaunting it. who will appear, because i believed.

i just feel that if i don't believe, he will not come. [it's almost like i'm talking about god, but that's for another day.]

right now, i cannot say i believe in love. i know there're people who do, people who will be anxious to tell me to believe, because they feel it and they want to share that knowledge with me. [again, like the christians i meet, but please, another day!] but it's different. it's different because i'm someone who grew up believing in it, but gradually lost it. and when it's lost, i don't know if i can get it back. i don't want to become a cynical bitch who will eventually get married because "i'm the right age" or because "i don't want to die alone." it's just wrong. so i need to believe, i need to tell myself that there is a happy ending to this, and it will come to me. it's just not the time yet.

i still have that teeny weeny shred of belief left in me, because i don't want to lose it and i'll protect it with my life. but when it's only such a teeny weeny bit of faith, is it still faith?

i want to believe.

right now, i'm the little girl who chose not to write to santa claus this christmas. so when there's no present come christmas day, she can proudly say, "i didn't want anything anyway, everything's okay." but christmas eve is the real test. will she be awake, pricking her ears trying to hear the jingling bells on the reindeers? trying to sense the big man leaving presents for her brothers. trying to remember that she didn't want anything anyway. or will she be soundly asleep, knowing fully well that everyone's been lying to her and the other kids, and that the other kids will find out one day that it's all a bluff. a bluff with the kindest intentions but still.

maybe by making this analogy, i've already called bluff. damn.

i want to believe. because if i don't, he will not come.