Unpolished

spineless

Sometimes I wonder whether I really want (to be in) a relationship, or I simply hope to experience it so I can write about it. Someone like me who is so terribly naïve when it comes to many crucial components of life would easily desire things, and would be motivated to do things, for the sake of experience, for the sake of having something to write about. It doesn’t sound problematic but to be compelled to live just to have fodder for writing is flawed. People are supposed to live not out of any ulterior motive. People plan out their lives not because they’re supposed to make a journal at the end of the day. Doing so renders the life manufactured: a brief opportunity on earth deliberately tested for its functions so one can write about it. It doesn’t sound appealing, does it? No, it doesn’t sound right.

But then again, the past couple of weeks I’ve really begin to slip into the joys the single life affords me. Not to mention, certain people have strongly reinforced the seeds of aversion towards being in a relationship. Of course, it would be easy to dismiss my notions because I have never been in a relationship, so one can swiftly accuse me of being jealous, or bitter, or once again, naive. It might be true. Being on your own, relying on insufficient claims over people, brings about little jealousies, tiny pains, passing sorrows, and a lot of stupidity. One cannot know what he does not know.

What I do know, however, is that I am not ready to relinquish any control over my life that being in a relationship would inevitably demand. I know for a fact – based from observations of my parents’ marriage, and of countless relationships of friends and their friends – that having someone in your life figure prominently means that in some measure, you’re giving up specific liberties. Obviously, if you’re in love, it may not seem like much. I might even eat my words when I do, god forbid, fall in love, and say no freedom was lost in the process.

But I’m much too young and too free to be grounded to anyone. I am not interested in owing someone a response when he or she messages me, or feeling obligated to explain my plans for the day when he or she asks me about it. It’s a nuisance to constantly worry about something you cannot control. On a personal level, I feel like my privacy is being encroached whenever someone persistently mulls over my daily life, and asks me about the most trivial of matters.

There are simply days when I do not want to talk to anyone, nor do I have to feel particularly remorseful when I decide not to respond to an invitation to a date, a party, or any social gathering. Every now and then I just like to be on my own – whether it’s having lunch, or going home, or spending some time at the mall. I’d like to chew my food in silence, enjoy the walk from the office to the train station with my music, and do my shopping with no one having to wait for me to purchase anything. I do not want to depend on anyone’s presence and let it define if I should feel good or not.

Is this newfound appreciation for the single life a response to having no one special, and thus, nothing to write about? Once again, one can conclude so. Over the years, perhaps after having grown tired of waiting, I’ve become a lot more comfortable with having no one anyway. Yes, I still occasionally have a self-pity binge, especially when I see a friend being picked up by his boyfriend, or when I find myself seated in a couple, next to some good looking man, or when I see a happy family strolling around the mall. I wonder when my own unbruised lips will enjoy company that’s worth sacrificing my freedom for, regardless of how minor the liberty. I wonder how nice it would be to have someone pick me up instead of taking the grueling commute home. I wonder whether I will find myself letting the actions write my life rather then pursuing things in life that are “write-able”.

I’m not begging for a convenient epiphany to reveal to me the colours and arbitrariness which accessorize my life. The answers are not demanded. I understand I may not have the experience to put some credibility behind my writing, but I still do have myself to trust. I understand reading books, and observing other lives can only get you so far in creative endeavors, for creative endeavors can only last so long on a supply of vicarious living. But what can I do?

I cannot ask from what life what it cannot give. I can only do what I have always been so good at: which is doing my best with what I have, and making the most of this elbow room. Tomorrow remains the most interesting aspect of my life, and tonight the most promising. I do not plan on pinning my hopes on experience anyway because from what I have seen, the best of love and life renders most of us speechless anyway, leaving language obsolete, turning the written form into nothing more but a sloppy attempt at describing what can never be described tangibly.