In Continuum.

I think we have a shared problem, you and I. I think all humans have the problem of not having enough space in our lives. By space, it could be a physical space in our house to put our "stuff", if you know what I mean. Or it could be time, because we are always looking for more time to do more things, and it's like the need to clear out more space to put more things. Space comes in many different forms, and we are all in need of it someway or another. But it is one of those limited resources, one of those things that is finite and will run out once you've used them up. We really only have so much space in our lives, so much time on our hands, and so much land for us to live on. Unless we somehow device a way to live underground or in the skies, then that is another realm of spaces altogether. But when it comes to space, it all comes to an end somehow. It sucks when we are at the brick wall of space, we are always frustrated that we cannot break through with some kind of bulldozer and move on to the spaces beyond. We are given this much space, this much time, to do whatever that we need to do before we pass away, or expire. There are times when we accidentally find some space, or time. But you know how it is, it is difficult to fit everything we want.

I am dealing with the problem of having not enough space all the time, you know. I mean, I am the kind of person who has an ostrich outlook on things, though I am not talking about putting my head in the ground in the face of danger. What I mean is that when it comes to my "stuff", the things that I own, I like them to be scattered around my room in an orderly fashion. I suppose anybody who has ever been to my room would testify that it has been kept in a more or less orderly fashion, and I am very proud of that. However, what you guys may not know is how I deal with everything else that I own. I stuff them in drawers, in boxes, in places around my room that nobody - not even I - can see. My philosophy is that as long as I cannot see the great big mess that I have created, then everything is neat enough for me. I have a strict rule to keep an ordered working space around my iMac, but everything in my drawer is a war zone of tangled wires, balls of cables, and other miscellaneous things that somehow came together one day and decided to be hooked up with one another. I cannot see this mess though, they are tucked away in some forgotten corner, but I am OK with that. What I am trying to say is, even though it may seem like I have a good grip on the space problem, I am dealing with it as well.

Then there are times when you are just praying for more time, you know, wanting the day to extend just a little longer for you. I am not experiencing that right now of course, considering the fact that I am still lazing around in the midst of my holidays. Yet, the new semester is right around the corner, and I can predict how it'd probably be like in the coming months without even going through a day of it at all. I am probably going to experience a lot of workload, as usual, piled into the same day and due on the same day. When you do find the time to be with yourself or with your loved one, there is something else that comes up that you need to work on, to study for, to improve on. That is the way college life is, an endless stream of work that comes again and again and again. It's not that I do not enjoy the times spent with my friends while working on project presentations, because I do. There are moments, of course, when I feel like tearing my skin out and then jump into a pool of salt. But the truth is that I only have so little time everyday for everything that I want to do, and there are so many things that we all want to do, you know. Every minute spent on doing something is a minute displaced for doing something else.

A favorite television show missed, or a loved one somehow neglected. When you have only so many pieces on the board to play with, you cannot help but realize that you cannot fit every one of them into the same space. As much as you want more pawns, more rooks, more bishops to be on your chessboard just to crush your opponent, you don't have that kind of luxury. You have sixteen pieces to play around with, and that's all you are ever going to get. So you work around this problem, you try to fit as many moves as you can into the game. Then again, of course, by the end of the game, you think about all the moves that you could have or should have made. It doesn't matter if you win or lose at the end of the day, there are probably things that you wanted to do, but didn't. It's the same with this twenty-four hour thing that we experience, you know, this limited time frame that we are working with. Everything we want to do is fixated within this window, and we have to organize everything to fit into this twenty-four hours, or else it'd be the next set of twenty-four hours to work with. Sometimes we push ourselves, sometimes we don't remind ourselves that the time is up. We push on, we work harder, and we work ever harder. But something will always be left out, something will always be neglected.

What I am trying to say is this fear that I had before last August, or before I got into the relationship that I am in right now. After my last relationship and before my college life started, I saw myself not having any time for any more relationships other than the ones that I have in school with my friends. Being a firm believer that one should not have a partner from school, I didn't see it possible for me to find a potential partner amongst my social circle. With that said, my reason for such a prediction was because I didn't see how I was able to fit everything into my twenty-four hour time frame. You know, the problem of finding space - or time - for my friends, my family, school, and myself. You have to spend some time with your friends, or they'd think that you are distancing yourself. You have to spend some time with your family, because they are your family after all. You have to spend some time with yourself, because this is the person you are going to be spending the most time with anyway, whether you like it or not. You have to spend some time with school because, well, that is everything that I really have to focus on. So, I didn't see myself being able to balance, or cope with, something else like a relationship. It isn't a burden, but a big load that I'd have to carry. I feared that with everything accounted for, one aspect of that would be compromised for sure.

I don't think I can multi-task, and I don't juggle very well. You give me three oranges and I am going to squash two of them for sure. I knew that squeezing a relationship into my schedule would cause something else, or the relationship itself, to be compromised. After all, when you only have this much time at hand, you can only spare so much time for all the components. But I jumped into the relationship anyway, like many people that I know of who already has a lot of things to juggle with in their lives. I often hear about people complaining about their boyfriends or girlfriends not spending enough time with them, that they are so worked up about their school work or their jobs to spare a little more time for them. It's not that they are wrong in saying that, and maybe it is true that they are not spending enough time and giving enough emotional support. However, it is true that while there is a certain amount of responsibility tagged with the boyfriend or the girlfriend in any relationship, one must keep in mind that life really goes on with or without you. He or she didn't have to fit you into his or her life, but they did it anyway. Be thankful for the time that he or she has spared, and not complain all the time that it isn't enough.

The reason why I am writing about this is because of this thing that I am experiencing, this difference in time table that my partner and I are facing - and I am sure it applies to many couples out there too. For me, being in a holiday while my partner is at school makes it more challenging for us to fix a time for us to hang out. Of course, we still get our time after school and the weekends for the most part, and I feel satisfied for the time that we have. It's just that while may people out there may think that she isn't spending enough time with me, I am just thankful that I get to spend that little amount of time with her, you know. I mean, she has her family, her friends, her school work, and all other kinds of responsibilities that she has to deal with. She doesn't have to deal with me in the picture, and yet she accommodates me and tries to fit me in. Even if it is just a little phone call at the end of the day to talk with one another, or just being there online while she works at her assignment. I feel that these are satisfying enough for me, and it touches me on so many different levels, that one is willing to spare that little bit of time for me out of one day, you know?

It is all about perspectives, I realized. It is all about the way you see things, and how you perceive them. You could either whine and complain about your partner spending too much time with his or her day job, or you could cherish and appreciate the little time that you get out of everything else that is going on in his or her life. I happen to believe in the latter, and I believe to be such a lucky guy to be able to be there, somehow, you know. Besides, do we really want to know that we have spent "enough time" with our partners? It's just such a horrible thing to say to your partner though, that you feel like you have spent "enough time" with him or her. I mean, isn't a relationship all about improvement, having fun, and being there for one another. I don't want to think that I spent enough time with Neptina, because that just seems like I have done whatever that I wanted to do, and I want out. It's not like that, because I never want to have spent enough time with someone I love. I want to feel always deprived, always needing to work a little harder, always wanting a little more. I suppose that is the way I see it, my perspective, about time and space. I suppose even with the little time or space that I get, I make the best out of it with her. And, with her, having fun and being loved at the same time comes so easy and naturally.