A Life in Progress - 2021

Ch 1 The Clutter 🌀 202102

Fear crushes all hope and snowballs into a paralyzing headache to haunt her even from her weariest nights. It prods the drowsy eyes and lets loose the dozens of anxious ants that crawl their way into the veins, enlarging as the more dwelled upon. The panic, the frenzy, and the unbearable futility drenches the pitiful ego, and she is utterly lost.

Yet prevailing over such colossal worries are his eyes, those of vibrant brown and a soothing touch. Those slanted husky-like eyes, glittering in the morning sun, cascading with different shades of emotions on his every blink: They are sometimes ones of a playful mother waking up her cheeky son for a carefully prepared bacon and eggs; they are sometimes ones of a reminiscing daughter, waiting for her father to awake in the halls of a hallow ward; and they are sometimes purely ones of a rambling fool in love, infatuated with every single movement that he can not help but only to stare at.

He walks up to her, a seemingly damsel in distress, unabashedly determined from the very beginning that he will become her salve and safe haven. He sits to listen, ready to embrace the shedded flaws that fall with her tears. He nods as she rants, ironically awing at her imperfect perfection he longed for, ones that provoke flawless catharsis from the pieced puzzles he doubted their existence of. 

He professes his love, and she gradually nods to reciprocate. Yet she flounders, and he knows. He thus slips on his gloves of adoration and sweeps away the fallen flaws, tears, and dusts. He pampers her, in hopes that his condensed dabs of love he meticuously prepared paint into a Monet-like masterpiece of romance.

To him, she is a mystery: How could such a confused soul emanate sheer vibrance? The profound juxtaposition baffles, but his only desire is to overwhelm with the purest form of love. So he persists.

To her, he is an unexpected stroke of serendipity: The last thing she expected, yet the thing she needed most: The thing she ideally dreamt of in the face of every insecurity and downfall, the thing she doubtfully longed to share the happiest of moments, and the thing she wills to come home to at the end of the day, fatigued out of the mind, to be caressed only with his tender warmth and a glass of negroni. So she persists.

The two ordinaries thus start a journey, as the wise words of John Legend, by taking it slow. They do not know whether they will live and learn, crash and burn, or stay, leave, and return. But what they do know is that this preciously shared love is not one easily encountered upon. So they persist.
 

Ch 2 The Interview 💬 202104
 
   "I think I have a very specific taste in men: a big smile with permed shaggy hair, slanted eyes- sometimes adorned with glasses, beige knit layered with a neat white collar, khaki pants with ankles peaking out, and a final touch of suede brown Sperrys. 

I assume college kids would call this a frat look, or the kid-with-rich-lawyer-parents-and-playing-golf-on-weekends look. If I think about it, I think it really boils down to their shared personalities: They're laid back but driven, confident or even cocky, and just generally witty and fun to keep company. He is precisely this person. 

He doesn't even need to dress like that college kid because he can become anything I want and more: he can become a golden retriever spoiling me with unreciprocated kisses, he can become a knowledgeable professor elegantly unraveling his passion in to simple explanations, he can become a graceful chef pampering me with heartfelt dishes, and he can become a therapist leaning in to immerse in every single word I say. It's crazy, you know. 

It feels like I've known him forever. Maybe because he seems like the exact duplicate of me, just in a different sex, and maybe a more responsible version."
 
   " She's pretty. I got that going for me, which is nice."
 

Ch 3 The Good Mornings 🌞 202106

7:05 a.m., he flinches to awake from the chirping birds and rustling breeze of a soft fall morning. Hesitant to move his melted-cheese-like-legs, he squints his eyes from the sun peeking through the teal windows and rubs the swollen eyelids a little more. He notices her sleeping next to him- she's sleep talking gibberish, and he tries to puzzle the words together. After a few tries, he gives up and decides to kiss her on the forehead. Pecking her on the head, he recalls a week ago, contrasts it to this tranquil moment, and sighs in relief. He is safe and sound, only with a warm house and loving girl.

The alarm goes off at 8, but she somehow sleeps through it. Confused, he nudges her awake, and she groans. He slips his arm beneath her body and tucks her towards him. They cuddle a little; mind you, this is not the tale-like graceful encounter, rather a bed hair and morning breath kind. But they are heads over heels, adoring every part, not despite, but because of all the little things.

She finally squirms her way out to stretch and yawn. He stands up, trots to the refrigerator to hand her a bottle of Pocari as she refrains from drinking water. She thanks him and pops a mint into her mouth with the Pocari, and cleanses the icky morning saliva away. He wonders why she doesn't just brush her teeth, but heads to the bathroom anyway. She tags along with a cheeky smile, drumming his buttocks on every step.
 

Ch 4 Be a Short While ⏳ 202108

Frankly, long distance love is simply nonsense. It defies all formulas for dating to oblige you under a prolonged stalemate you never signed up for. You're challenged into periodic cynicism that not only jeopardizes the relationship but also questions your desired values and capabilities. One moment, you're asking, "Where have they gone: Those unsettling strokes and wordless gazes, and what am I to do without them?" later to resent yourself for asking such foolish questions. You soon find yourself frightened and taken aback by the sheer vulnerability and volatility love has so suddenly unveiled within.

But with merely a single call, a quirky smile, and a silly joke, your worries wash away like the impotently fearful sandcastles not far from the waves. His very presence prevails over your reality, and nudges you towards a land unconquered: land imbued with summer, a warmth nonpareil, the embrace enough to disregard the sweat by summer's heat. He is a lover nonpareil, mystifying, immeasurable, imperfectly perfect. You are then reminded, that he is a forever fortune of yours.

So here I am telling you, again, that long distance love is nonsense. But be that as it may, what other options are there when you simply can not help but to love.
 

Ch 5 Wreck and Ruin ⚠️ 202110

His life is a tragedy. Even Chaplin agrees, as he generously quoted for Thom in his infamous speech of New York Film Festival, "(His) Life is a tragedy when seen in closeup, but a comedy in long-shot."

Speaking of Chaplin, I have this hazy memory of my philosophy professor from college - He had the most unsettling, intensely-dotted hair growing below his bottom lips - muttering about 6th BCE Greeks, and how they reckoned comedy and tragedy to be the same gist shone with contrasting lights, or merely just opposite sides of a single coin.

"Both are based on the violation of mental patterns and expectations, and in both, the world is a tangle of conflicting systems where humans live in the shadow of failure, folly, and death," he said. "Where they differ is in the responses of the lead characters to life’s incongruities."

As I said, his life is a tragedy, and the reason is clear: He is the lead character, and his response to his life's incongruities are molded of only his stubborn quirks: He is a Hamlet of his words, and his obsessive obedience for his values becomes his own vice and arch nemesis.

Let me just give you one tragic example-

He is a widower. Her name was Jas; sweet Jas, dainty, flimsy, and buoyant; her eyes, blue like the Atlantic, and one glimpse, he went down like the Titanic. Her plum deckchair, availed for her seldom reveries, was now blanketed with thin layers of dust; dust that Thom brushed off every sunset, but ones that insisted on settling back every next sunrise, slowly spotting the leather with every brush. Her woody vanilla eau de toilette- Chanel, by all means- visited him at the brightest hours, rummaging through his day to jumble his fondest memories and taint the feeble heart. Chronic throbs leaked through the years until his tears finally dry, and the sane mind reboots: he now fathoms the very day he lives. And on this very day, he promises himself that he will be happy.

A few days and a few years pass, and it's a typical Saturday morning of Wales - slightly too bleak for charcuterie board picnics but still warm enough for playground children to toss off their parkas. Thom strolls back from his brief walk, and he meets Skylar- it's the undeniably embarrassing love at first sight: Her hair, mellow brown, skimmed with a touch of sun-kissed brunette; cheeks of dewy burnt pink; her dimple underneath the eyes, adequately dipped enough to cradle his fledgling, fluttering heart; he loved it all. Her tangerine scarf danced along with her every giggle, and his infatuated gaze resembled the curious eyes of a determined cat chasing after a single laser point. With his inhale, his tragic life that seemed to exude failure, folly, and death, purges; and with his exhale, his fallen castle of courage and pride instantaneously resurrects, and he scores to ask her on a date.

Their first date, he remembers unabashed, is straight out of a movie. They click: Skylar speaks; Thom speaks. She smiles; he smiles. They laugh and laugh until his jaw aches from all this talking, and his heart shivers with rousing warmth. From the first greeting to the last goodnight kiss, she tingles every distinguishable nerve, and he thinks, "Someone flashy walks into your life, and you're gonna fall for it" (Beginners). 

Blushing, Thom arrives back home, crawls onto his sofa, and brushes off his butterflies. Pampering himself with his mom's home-made lime juice, he convinces himself that she could be his golden September in the middle of a purple June. But somewhere across the back of his subconscious - this was where his heartaches of his mother's affair and father's profanity dwelled - he smells wicked fear: fear that resembled a mere flick of the fingers, but one that ensued a mellow sinkhole of failure, folly, and death.

Why?

Then he remembered. Jas. Sweet Jas. Dainty, flimsy, and buoyant Jas. How could he do such thing to sweet Jas? All that echoed within was his relentless promise he made to Jas on that very special day, ' in sickness or in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.' Any infringement upon such promise was a disgrace to him, his words, and his values- and that was not the likes of him.

And in that one hour he realized, that was it - instantaneously over. A glimpse into Skylar's eyes now drowned his Titanic down in to the deep blue, and a single swing of the tangerine scarf warped him into Jas' sporadic reveries, where Thom and Jas would twirl around, tangoing, touching, giggling, and loving, somewhere across an aurora scattered on a canvass of pitch-black skies. So on this very day, he promises himself that he will never be happy. 

His life is a tragedy.

Ch 6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCrnRLV5slc 📃 202112

6:35 p.m.
"Hello, hey, hi. Just calling to check in. I just called cause I haven't heard from you in a while. I'm doing well - really well actually, in case you're wondering. I actually just landed a job - a job I've been dreaming about for a few years, and I just feel really good about it. The people are so sweet and the pay, too, is great - so great. I'm actually really scared cause' I could just tell it's going to be so hard and challenging but also so, so fun - man, I'm rambling- but, um, yeah. Just call me back - I'd love an update, and I'd love to hear your voice. Alright. Well, bye."

9:02 p.m.
"Hi, it's me again. I'm just out for a drink - you remember Cassy? The one you saw last month, tall with glasses and super sarcastic -  well, I'm with her right now, as usual, and grabbing drinks by downtown, and we were just talking about you, and yeah, so I'm leaving a message. I know you usually work until around this time, and I know it's over, and I'm not really a person to ramble on or keep calling like a sad ex, and I know you have your own thing going on now, so it's okay. I'd just love to hear how you're doing. Just let me know if you don't want to talk - if you don't want to, that's also okay - actually just block me if you don't. That would be actually so much better, hahah. Well, I'm going back in, but I'll have my phone with me. Just shoot me a text or something. Alright. Well, bye."

10:59 p.m. 
"Hi, hello, hey. I just got back and - I don't even know if you're getting these calls anymore, so might as well just fuck it and ramble on. I was going through your letters when I got home, and I've been re-reading this part for such a long time. 

'Seven weeks, seemingly daunting. Will be like specks of dust on the painting which will be the rest of our lives together. I know not whether these words will be of your liking. I simply hope that while I fulfill my duties, these silly words will help you dream of better days. These are merely the ramblings of a man who loves you most relentlessly. Remember. It's us against the world.'

I've read this so many times to a point I memorized this book - and that's pretty impressive cause my memory sucks. I guess I just forgot how much I loved your words - I loved them. You have a way you write - you completely dismantle my guard and engulf every remaining bits and pieces of my heart to a point it aches - like physically aches my heart. And right now, I'm drunk, and I ache, and I hate it. I knew this was going to hurt. Now that it actually hits, this surging wave of grief is so overwhelming, and it feels like I'm just watching myself drown in a pit-less ocean for how many hours and weeks - oh my god, how long have I been talking - but, um, yeah. 

I'll be okay, though. I have to be okay. But, um, yeah. Ok, I just feel like this is going to be so embarrassing if I think about it tomorrow. I know that I can't do anything about this situation, but I do know that I'm going to regret it if I don't get this across now. Alright. I'm going to go now. I'm sorry about all this - crazy. Alright. Well,  I'm going back in, but I'll have my phone with me. Just shoot me a text or something. Alright. Well, goodnight. Sweetest dreams."