Trying to Stop a Ticking Time Bomb

"What do you think will happen if we don't end up together?
Are we gonna hate each other? 'Think we'll keep in touch?"

"I think that... if life separates us, and we end up in totally different places,
always remember when our paths aligned for this period of time...
And I'll be thankful for that...
And hope that wherever you are, you'll be thankful too...
And I think it's the best we can wish for."

---Strangers Again, Wong Fu Productions


I never wanted to watch this short film... It went out viral during the heydays of my life... my short, very young life... Who can even tell me that's the happiest I can ever be when I was not even 25? But hey, happiness didn't depend on age. Love didn't depend on age too. I was once so happy I won a Division Wide Story telling Competition that I ran to school with a trophy clenched on one hand and I was cheering, I was flying, I was on cloud 9... And that was just in Grade 3... So you see, happiness to me was a choice, as for everyone too... And the video was just too melancholic I couldn't relate. And so when it went viral, I opted not to watch. I said to myself that this is something I will never understand... Because when people say it's sad and lonely because it's about breaking up, I knew I won't have to go through it...

But now that I find myself in a deep pit and I'm grasping for answers, this video shed some clarity to the situation... It was right, a relationship does have stages... And to tell you frankly, it's not a gold mine, everyone knows it happens... Even I know it is normal, all those stages, but what I sought to believe in was the fact that ours will be different. Ours will be better. Ours will flourish and continue and bloom and grow... and strengthen and last, and last forever...

I would always hear it from important people in my life, that one can grow out of love and just lose it at one point... And that in a relationship, you get too comfortable that everything just seems to pass, like the sun that rises and sets, the winds that blow then vanish... You begin to take things for granted, and you begin to search for something different... They say humans never really get contented. It's always a search for a better state, and life is about progressing... As with relationships too... And when it starts to fail, it is already A TICKING TIME BOMB... And that love, no matter how strong, will begin to fade and what will remain is friendship, if you have invested on it... Otherwise you lose everything, and you can't connect again...

And now I see the reason why that video became viral... Because the truth applies to all. It is not selective; it is not truth for others and lie for some. But let me tell you about how I face this truth: I face it with a grain of salt, knowing that though it's the general truth, I may challenge it, and I may, soon after... someday, prove it's wrong.

We are somewhere on Stage 6, Downhill. There's not much time left when you're here.

This is where after being too comfortable and after tolerating each other, and after facing the possibilities that this might not work, one tries to make the effort on MAKING IT WORK...

The biggest enemy is time. You have to beat the time...
And that's what I'm feeling.
Every minute of the day, I was trying to start anew, but I can't remember how to live every moment without her... I'm stuck in that moment, and I know I have to get out but I'd rather not... I fear what pain there would be after this... Like suddenly realizing the reality, or discovering the discovery... I fear what she might find out after being apart, And you know, I don't want to be apart and think I have to move on... I see this as just the TIME she needs to think through things...

But I can't give her that time... I feel so weak, I feel so vulnerable that I keep on trying to make it work, trying to ask her to talk to me, trying to fix this before the time ends and before it eventually becomes easy for her to walk out and harder for me to walk the other way...

I feel like having to beat the time is crucial, that at some point, when it all ends, I'd have that small, useless pride and tell myself at least I did not stop trying. I did not want to stop trying...

This is how important it is for me... And I want to challenge those stages...
I want this to eventually work out...

But I'm trying to stop a ticking time bomb...
it's dangerous,
it's packed with sacrifices,
it's altogether a challenge and it really... really drains you...
You want to beat time because you think you are saving the most important thing you have...
but time has been so constant, and time has been so cruel... and time has been all she ever wanted.
and you can't seem to fight back...

I kept on texting. I kept on calling. I kept on telling her i miss her and i love her.
How would she realize if she feels the same for me?

I had to let go...
But why should I? I have to keep on trying...
I have to stop that ticking time bomb from exploding...

it's a vicious cycle... Like how the ferris wheel would be for those who were first in line... They have to wait til all the passenger carriers are filled, so they keep on hanging up there, they keep on that circle, they keep on seeing the same sights...

But what should I do about that vicious cycle? Sometimes I think the best way to actually survive it is to follow your guts... and heart... and mind... and right now, they all tell me try and try...
stop that ticking time bomb...

The only sad part there is... to stop it, both parties need to try...





And the other just gave up. BOOM.
:'(