A Love Letter

My dearest,

The road of love is filled with colorful flowers and rainbow in the bright blue sky, with birds humming their joyful melodies and eyes resenting the perfect relationship. Candles are lit, songs are sung, wishes are made and beautifully scattered on this road are those red rose petals shredding their happy tears for the couple. On that road, two people met. It was just one normal day, a normal day that was exaggerated and condensed into one word: faith. On that day, they passed through each other, and they simply fell in love. During their love, they fought and they cried. But however bad the situation could become, they would live happily forever after.

—

The first page of our love (or however you call it) wasn’t different from which of others’. Those days in us remained the excitement of the two young lone wolves seeing each other in real life. For us, it was a honeymoon period, for flirts turned into weariness, weirdness and obsession. Our phones would be bombarded by unnecessary night and morning wishes or constant check on each others’ life. When one stopped texting; another got worried and stalking operation would be commenced. We could not have enough of each other.

Love to us was just like a song. Days by days, we would sing the same melodies, would dance on this same rose garden, eschew people’s words. It was as if without you, life would no longer make any more sense and that without you, this melody of mine would have lacked harmony, surely. Every sweet moment we shared brought us closer together. Every challenges we overcame bonded us tighter. We got drunk in love. We were hazy, we were nuts. Though knowing that we were just a little too excited for the first time, doubts and uncertainties certainly didn’t stop us.

—

New year came. In this very spot of San Diego stood a couple excitingly waiting for firework after a long work shift. I gave you 5 of my lucky $2 bills, neatly folded into the hearts with wishes carefully written inside each. Sweet little words were for silence. Young little heart was for love. If there was romance at all, it must have been the time for it, mustn’t it? We must have then sat on the grass by this quiet river, feeding each other dark chocolate and sipping champagne. We must have then lit up the bonfire while lying peacefully in each other’s arms. We must have then teased while laughing at each other’s lame jokes and non-sense lines… We must have!

Yet all I remember are just the two of us. There was no chocolate and no champagne, no bonfire and no lying. The young couple was just hands in hands, standing and waiting for the fireworks. If we had been in the movie, there would have been meteors falling from the sky, and wishes would have been made. There was none, however. The firework wasn’t even there. We should have expected the timezone difference, but we hadn’t. We waited, and we laughed on our stupidity. We stared at the blank sky waiting for stars to appear shyly and slowly by the river, listening to the wind silently whispered. There was moonlight, and there were stars. There was you, and there was me. It was our dream night, wasn’t it? It was quiet, yet it was probably the most meaningful quiet that we had ever experienced. Two hours passed, we went home, not forgetting to wish each other a good night.

Then those nights on the beach wandering, feeling each other’s warmth comfortably working its way to every single beat of our hearts. My heart skipped, yours would follow. You would then look at me, and it was a glimpse of heaven. Your dark hair caught the wind, unveiling the sight of a your cold lonely world. The moon lit up your soft white skin while we were praying and handing over our hearts, hoping that we could make it, or at least make it out alive. I was scattered in pieces, thawed in a dream from which I wished I wouldn’t have had to wake up. Days and weeks would blend happily. Sense of time didn’t seem to exist in our own world. Would it last? We wouldn’t know. What we knew was that when we fell, we fell hard, not worrying about parachutes, or if the height was really worth the pain.

We could dream while not sleeping, couldn’t we?

—

When two people love, they would talk about things in common, be it common music, common food, or what have they.  We, however, don’t share that much in common interests. While I’m more of a Richard Marx and West Life kind of guy, you listen to traditional folk songs, those with constant pitch shift, lifts and falls. As much as I can’t keep you awake listening to my favorite song, you can’t seem to be able to get me listen to those of yours, either. One’s music is just too weird for the other. We don’t have have common in music, it would seem.

But who needs music? We turn off the lights, cover ourselves in the blanket watching the new season of Next Top Model after work. We gave ourselves privileges to judge and predict the result of the contest. We debate on contestants’ outfits, argue over which one is hotter, and never forget to occasionally feed each other random hugs and glances.

Then we would watch Master Chef, The Voice, Odd Ones or anything that came out of your mind. The debates on accuracy of the tests or even hypothesis on political affairs behind each game show is limitless. Each time we see a show, there are things to argue over. Do we share any taste in shows? Probably not, but what matters was the time we spent, the desire for each other’s company. Share or not in our interests, we share our love.

But it’s not true that we don’t share music in our lives. We do. We do sing to each other sometimes – in the car, on your bed, or those times I could hear your voice behind the shower a wall apart. And I just started to sing along. There were also times when we just looked up songs in Yokee and started singing and acting as if we were stars. Two big heads trying to look at the small phone screen for lyric, stealing each other turns with spontaneous laughs when one’s voice was out of tones just made us start the same song over and over again. Accomplishing one song completely with both voices was painful, but the happiness to have that song played in our car while singing along again was just purely beautiful. I made compliments on your voice, you made fun of mine, and our hands held.

And yes, it’s true. Despite not having the same taste or enjoying the same songs, there is always music when we have each other. Who needs music? We can make our own music!

—

Love isn’t about being all happy; sometimes, it’s about seeing rainbow after the rain.

There was an occasion when we did argue, seriously, with each other. The quarrel reached its climax with tears rolling down your cheek and with confusion appearing on my face. Whose fault was it? It didn’t matter. That moment we realized our hearts scare easily, and however big the problem was, it was our fault letting those drops falling down. That moment we realized our reasons for being each other’s company was to keep you, and I, happy; and that without putting our pride aside, the more we tried, the more it backfired on us. We both knew that any of us could just win this fight, yet we also knew that winning this fight would just make us lose this war. Were you scared? I was. But it was easier to be scared together, wasn’t it?

We shrugged it off, ended the argument with my apology and smile on your face. We couldn’t see love in pink every second, but as long as we’re trying, we’re staying. Moral of the story? We couldn’t help but realize that one’s happiness had become an essential component for the other’s.

—

Often, people question themselves what love is. For some, it is a fairy tale filled with candle light, roses and laughter. For others, it can be a daily journey of new obstacles and challenges await to be overcome; a journey of triumphant ending, every day.

But for us, what is it? Like all the shadows in this city that are thirsty to understand themselves, are we too looking for the definition of love? Could it be those days when I waited outside your door waiting for you coming home from work, just to say that I miss you? Could it be those days when you had to drive more than 15 miles just to meet me with a smile that lit up this little corner of my heart? Or just those days when we stayed at home wondering what the other was doing, and couldn’t resist a smile when our screens lit up with each other’s name? What could it be?

Words and sugarcoated lines can’t replace the feeling of me for you. As many as a hundred times I have tried to show you, words merely can do what they do. But my dear, let one of my favorite songs tell you this:

♪ … Well, for me it’s waking up beside you

To watch the sun rise on your face

To know that I can say I love you

At any given time or place

All the little things that only I know

Those are the things that make you mine

And it’s like flying without wings,

You’re my special thing

I’m flying without wings… ♪

And just that, I find myself living in the happiest place on earth. More and more I have realized how you have changed my inner-self. More and more I have realized that I haven’t loved the most beautiful and meaningful person in the world, but rather, the person that gives my world its meaning and turn it to the most beautiful dream I’ve ever had. More and more, I love you.

—

But my dearest,

Rose garden is filled with thorn, and as any other desirable things in the world, falling off does have its own price when we reach the ground. We were standing on the edge of love, but would we be brave enough to make it a serious relationship? You and I, both have had sad memories and endless suffers that weren’t yet to be healed completely. We both have walked that wire. Scars remained. Tears in the rain hasn’t yet stopped falling. We all had that pain hidden in our pride as we looked through each other…

But as we were holding our hands looking down that valley of love; a place that neither of us could tell if it was going to be pretty or deviously devastating; would you jump?

Because I did. And as much as an idiot I am, I’d rather hurt than feel nothing at all.

“A heart isn’t something revolving door where a bunch of people can go in and out,” the saying goes, yet I knew, the key to my heart had been given.

You’re the place where my life begins, will you be where it ends? The final chapter of our book would be left open, but for whichever path is chosen, I was, and am happy for having you in my life. “The first day of love never comes back,” they say; but my dearest, for anything our future awaits, the nights and the memories, the feeling and the view of us that we are holding on now will forever be treasured in my heart…