In Continuum.

Happenstance

"I apologize for insisting on writing my own bio, but I just cannot be satisfied with another's account of my psyche when even I don't understand it myself. Welcome to the world of this indecisive control freak hopeless romantic..."

--- Rachael Yamagata

hap.pen.stance; Etymology: happen + circumstances: A circumstance especially that is due to chance - Merriam Webster Dictionary

Mirrors never appealed to me, the way they reflect always the worse of me and never the better of me. To myself, the better aspect lies within, and the problem with mirrors is that they are never insightful enough to penetrate even the thinnest skin. The truth is, I hate mirrors and I hate them with a passion. It is a sort of phobia I think, when people ask me why I don't have one in my room. The simple explanation is that I don't like to wake up at night and see a reflection of myself in the mirror. Putting it away might be useful, but I still hate the idea of seeing myself in the mirror.

Which must have been the reason why I know the floor of the bathroom and the stains on the carpet better than my reflection. I look down all the time when I enter the bathroom, subconsciously. The same thing happens every night, and the same as last night. I bathed until my skin turned red, my fingertips started to prune and the steam started to condense on the mirror, blurring out the images. It is about time, I thought to myself. At least I won't see myself when I step out of the bath. What was I afraid of? Guilt, or hope?

I clenched my fist and allowed the water to run down from the top. The water gathered in the depressed between the bent fingers, and collected there like a small pool of mercury, rolling about upon my skin. I watched as they rolled off between the knuckles and down the back of my hand, then replaced by new water running down from the shower head. The same went on and on, filling the finger gaps so flawlessly and perfectly - the only thing that fits it so flawless and perfect, now that your fingers can't fill them anymore.

The worst part about living in a small country is the fact that you don't have many places to go. Everywhere you go after a break up, you bump into something or some place that will remind you of something. So you go around 'exorcising' the place, hoping to have new memories to cover up the old. My own journey of exorcism hasn't been too fruitful, because there are too many places to go to, too little new memories to cover up the old ones just yet. I see shadows of the both of us everywhere, lingering around the corners, sitting on the benches and buying a certain drink or food here and there. We seem to have polluted the area or something, and everywhere we went, we left a memory stain of some kind.

I see you in the 7-11 buying Mr. Softie, I see us in the other 7-11 buying alcohol. I see us in that nice notebook shop, which name I cannot recall. I see us at the counter of HMV, and I see us in the TCC at City Link Mall. I see you at the bus stop opposite the Serangoon Interchange, and I see you on every bus 53. I see you coming in through the guard house at my house, and I see us sitting at the swing over at the park. I see that same stone bench where we visited months ago, and I see you kidding the same hippopotamus at the same gift shop at Raffles City. I see you at the back of every bus, and I see you from the corner of my left eye...

There are a lot more places of course, and I can't seem to get rid of these images. As painful as it is, life goes on because tomorrow is another day. It doesn't feel good to be the person told the decision, but I can't begin to imagine how it feels like to be the person making one. Something was missing wasn't it, and I was only too stubborn to see it perhaps. You had the courage to admit it, and the courage to face it, a courage not found in me at all. As much as I want to hold on to it, I guess if you made your decision, you are still going to run around in the same circle if we tried again.

So I am saying to you here, that you made the right decision. Because truly, throughout your relationships with anybody, you have made so many wrong decisions, and the ones that were right ended up being wrong - that includes me. I am a mistake of some kind, when you were so hopeful and wistful at the beginning of everything, right? It didn't turn out as you hope it to be, and I dearly hope that the next relationship shall be your very last, that you are going to love this man - this other man - no matter what and never look back. On me, on the man before me, or the man before him. Don't ever look back anymore, like I am now trying to look ever forward. Because looking back hurts our necks and mostly our heads, and at the end of the day we taste only tears and blood.

Happenstance, what a title to use for an album. It is the constant struggle inside a person I guess, to accept that everything happens for a reason and not because of any circumstances. To deny the existence of happenstance and to convince yourself that things happened, because of certain existence issues or the ones that were inexistent. And the latter seemed to be my case, and here I am dealing with it in my own ways.

My friend on MSN now is telling me that I don't look or sound like I just broke up only nights ago. Truth to be told, this is my way of dealing with it. To pretend that nothing is wrong, nothing is amiss when everything just is. Because I am sure that my acting skills will one day convince me otherwise, that I will fix myself and recover. I tell myself how stupid I am to shed tears when I do, and I tell myself just how silly I was to be stubborn about the obvious truth. At the same time, there is also the exorcism-part that I have to deal with, and of course the message deleting. This is how I deal with it, so please respect my actions. After all, you have been special and so much more. To reduce you down to a mere memory, that's a trick I have yet to master.

But there must be a reason for repeated broken hearts - perhaps a promise of a better love, a greater relationship. Who knows? Because after all, without the hopefulness in love, how else can anybody tolerate the ups and the downs of love? This is why we are always so stupid and willing to fall in love, because of this ridiculous hopefulness in reason, in a chance that this one might be it, the last, the one. But the truth is, as I have learned, is that not every first love can be your last. But am I still hopeful? I sure hope so. I dearly hope for the next love to come soon, because to tell you the truth, I cannot live like this - like that alone.

So here I am, saying fuck off to happenstance and hoping for the best. I do hold that little light of hope for reason, and that there is a reason why I have repeated broken hearts. There must be a reason, a contrast of sorts I imagine, to see just how amazing the ultimate true love will be.

I wouldn't want to turn into a person who believes in happenstance, to believe that things happen because of a circumstances, that we broke up because of the situation that we are in, that we aren't going anywhere. There has got to be a reason, and that reason isn't because something was missing, that you weren't good enough for me, or the possibility that you are a jerk - which you most definitely aren't. I want the reason to be this: There is a greater love out there, and for you too.

Let's find that, and in a few years time share our love stories with one another and have fun talking about it. I promised that I will be your best love-turned-friend. That is a promise that I will never, ever, under any happenstance, let go.