In Continuum.

In The White Room

I don't want to be second best
Don't want to stand in line
Don't want to fall behind
Don't want to get caught out
Don't want to do without
And the lesson I must learn
Is that I've got to wait my turn

The white walls in this white room is staring back at me, spreading out its imaginary arms and asking me," What's next?" But to be honest, I have no idea. The cans of paint arranged themselves in a circle around me, the smell of the brush freshly out of the plastic wrapping attacked my nose. There was a smell of a new beginning all around me, blank canvas on the four walls just waiting for me to fill them up with colors. But reluctance is holding me back, unwilling to start decorating and renovating the new house on my own. The white in this white room is too striking, and the way the sun is reflecting off the white walls is discomforting. Maybe I should fall asleep again until the next waking, and hopefully somebody would be at the door waiting for me with new inspirations and ideas on what to paint on my plain white walls. Now, who is it going to be? Who is it going to be?

There were a couple of commodities in high school that would grant you a higher status in the social food chain. At the very top of the pyramid was that somebody with everything, while the bottom were the poor souls with just their textbooks for company and nothing else. If you had a cellphone, you were cool. If your family owns a Mercedes, you were suave. If you had a girlfriend, you were the man.

So when my close friend Krishna got himself a girlfriend somewhere between the third and fourth year, it caused quite an uproar in the community, with the boys desperately trying to dig out news and information about this girl who secretly went out with him after school. Of course, sex was inevitably the question asked, but at that age we hardly knew how to unhook a woman's bra, let alone a woman's anatomy. It was just curiosity that drove us to the questions, and of course Krishna's curiosity to get a girlfriend. Because seriously, at that kind of age, who was serious about anything?

Looks like I got to be hot and cold
I got to be taught and told
Got to be good as gold
But perfectly honest
I think it would be good for me
'Cause it's a hindrance to my health
I'm a stranger to myself

I recall a conversation that we had on the phone when we were talking about his relationship back then which everybody objected to. Honestly, there was a bit of jealousy involved because nobody wanted somebody else to be cooler than himself. Girlfriends aren't something you can buy with any amount of money, they are not cellphones or Mercedes Benz. But personally, as a close friend of Krishna, I realized that his relationship was going nowhere at all. Besides, I thought his girlfriend back then was not comparable to his intelligence. Even at the tender of sixteen, his mental maturity and everything else was already comparable to a twenty-year-old. Of course, overwhelmed by love anybody then becomes too stupid for any form of objective judgment, and there he was on the phone with me telling me to get into a relationship because "It feels so good to be in one". So I in turned asked him if he was in love for love or in love for her. Of course, he was stumped and we moved on to the next topic. Forget about what I said about the twenty-year-old thing, it only applies to the single and available Krishna.

Coriosa, or rather Corinna(I have to stop calling people by their monster names), were talking about her past relationships in particular instead of mine this time - thank God. And we came to a conclusion that her past suitors all have the same problem in their heads: They cannot differentiate between being in love for love and being in love for her. When asked about the difference to one of the guys who dated her, the usually smart and intelligent him went on to claim that they are the same thing. Corinna was obviously furious and with an answer like that, it is not difficult to be completely turned off.

So that got me thinking about where I stand in my own idea of being in love with love and in love with her - whoever 'her' is. I must admit that I was a slave of the former and not the latter. My first little serious liking for anybody was based upon an empty frame beautifully crafted and painted. I needed somebody to fill the blank space behind the glass, and anybody with decent looks and a remotely good personality fitted the bill. In a way, I am guilty to say that I used that person subconsciously to fill that space, but I have changed now and at least I realized the difference. The truth was, with that person in my life, I lied to myself and persuaded myself that this person is going to fit every bill and be the perfect person for my life. Wrong deduction, and at the end of the day there was no hate or anger, no depression or sadness but an overwhelming sense of self-accusation. I was being too naive and stupid, but at least - I told myself - I learned my lesson.

Miniature disasters and minor catastrophes
Bring me to my knees
Well I must be my own master
Or a miniature disaster will be
It will be the death of me

This is how I see the difference.

Being in love for love is like the home of a very rich bachelor. Before a partner comes along, he spends his time decorating his house, furnishing the interiors and the exteriors to make everything near perfect. But of course, there is a missing piece to this puzzle despite everything going for him. There is a missing spot in his bed, a missing spot in the kitchen, and a missing spot in his arms. The woman of his life is missing, and she exists in his life only as a stick figure without a face, walking around the house like a ghost of some sort and wandering through his life without words, without emotions, just a sense of existence. So the rich bachelor goes around his life searching for a person to replace that ghostly stick figure. Ultimately, it becomes the craving for a perfect picture - a perfect love - that drives him and not so much about who that person is. It doesn't matter who that person is, but as long as that person gives love, he is fine with anybody. If that person wears out in his life, he moves on to the next and to the next, always looking for the pot at the end of a rainbow. But like our mothers told us when we were kids next to our beds, the man who tried to look for the pot at the end of the rainbow, died trying.

I don't have to raise my voice
Don't have to be underhand
Just got to understand
That it's gonna be up and down
It's gonna be lost and found
And I can't take to the sky
Before I like it on the ground

Being in love for a person however, is like a man sitting in a plain white room with the plywoods, the paints and the brushes and the furnitures all around just waiting for you to cut them, to use them and to move them. But you are just waiting, and watching as the blade of sun glides across the white walls of your room, and falling asleep amidst those cans of paint till the next hopeful waking. We are contented with a simple life, but always waiting for the doorbell to ring or a knock on the door, that somebody who might enter your life to paint the walls of this white room with you. Life in the white room might be a little bit boring, a little stale. But the brilliance start with a soft knock at the door, a press on the doorbell. Sure, our lives aren't nearly as dramatic as yours, but at least we enjoy this simple life. And simplicity is good - always.

For people like Corinna and myself, we are all in this life's waiting room, and the waiting room is white in color. Unlike you, there is a certain pattern in which you are dealing with your relationships, and you are exactly like that rich bachelor, delusional and desperate. Say all you want about following your feelings and emotions, but if you are always going to skip from one love to the next like jumping puddles after a rainstorm, when are you ever going to stop and be contented? An advice for you, and a great one: Grow up.

And i need to be patient
And i need to be brave
Need to discover
How i need to behave
And I'll find out the answers
When i know what to ask
But i speak a different language
And everybody's speaking too fast

I dreamed of white clouds and flowery fields. I dreamed of running through them and then falling down with the string of the kite still in my hands. I was six and full of energy, a revisit of my childhood in my dreams. Somewhere from the woods a sound, the image of the green field was disrupted and I was startled. Looking around, there was a door in the middle of nowhere, and the door looked sort of like the door to my plain white room. Oh yes, I fell asleep in the circle of paint, in the middle of the white room. It is about time I wake up, about time I wake up.

The doorbell is ringing as I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hands. I looked untidy, this shouldn't be the way I receive my guest. But the guest would understand, right? I only just moved into this white room, I only just started on this new simple life of mine. She will understand, she will understand.

So I took a deep breath, braced myself for the person behind the door and felt the cold knob against my sweaty palm. The anticipation was rising inside of me, excited that there is finally this other person to paint the room with, next to each other. I twisted the doorknob, the ledge opened with a click, and in front of me stood this stranger to my eyes and yet, with so much familiarity and comfort. Oh yes, I've seen you in my dreams before. You are...you are...

"Hello, and you are?" I asked,

as I welcomed you into my life.

So what now?

What now?

Miniature disasters and minor catastrophes
Bring me to my knees

Well I must be my own master
I've got to run a little faster
I need to know I'll last if a little
Miniature disaster hits me
It could be the death of me