This afternoon while I was reading, I suddenly remembered two very small discs and wondered about their whereabouts. So I went through a few cabinets and the least attended drawers, but the two little monsters still refused to show up, making a mockery of my messy lifestyle. Soon the casual whimsical search turned into a sick “disc obsession” and then a search mania which began to take on a life of its own and went totally out of control.

The drawers were so full that they seemed like they were going to puke, owing to my habit of tossing absent-mindedly into the closest drawer something I no longer need but still haven’t decided to throw away. Thirty minutes later the two discs were still nowhere to be found but I was lost in the process. Every once in a while, I stopped to take a long look at the pieces of paper, weathered and shabby, and though I could only vaguely remember why I kept them, I could vividly recall how much I treasured them.

And then, stacked at the bottom of the drawer, the old letters were excavated. These weren’t just letters; they were the carrier of the unbearable memories. The memories they carry were always lurking in a certain corner of my heart for sure, but meeting face-to-face with them gave a sting to my senses. As I slowly unfolded the letters, eyes following those familiar hand-writings, I was dragged all the way back to the past, to a time when the pains in my heart were inflicted and the scars still make me flinch and wince to this day.

Time. Four letters, one big word. So big that it can wrinkle your love-letters as well as your forehead; yet ironically it can also alleviate the pain in your life which used to seem so intensive that it can hinder your heart from functioning normally. It also makes it a whole lot easier to let go of things you so stubbornly hold on to and keep using them to punish yourself. But there are things that are so scrappy that they can survive both time and numerous cleaning-ups of the drawers. The broken pencil-sharpener or the chocolate wrappers (yes, I was crazy about keeping useless stuff) may finally be hurtling down the garbage chute, but my memories never.

One and a half hours later, I finally threw in the towel and sat myself down at the table. Wandering inadvertently down the memory lane seemed painful indeed, but at the very least, there was more room in my drawers now, waiting to be filled up by new memories.

My girl friend finally took the step and broke up with the man known as a scumbag. I understand that no matter how tough she may seem and how casual and relieved she may sound telling the story, it is never easy to face the end of an era, even when it may well have been the end of an error.

Relationship. It’s hard enough for two people not even remotely related to communicate with each other and with all the strings attached, the delicate shift of power, the uncertain and sometimes gloomy prospect, one can only imagine how many times harder it is to be in a relationship. If one is supposed to meet only one other person in the boundless continuum of time and space, if one is destined to be with only one soul mate throughout one’s entire course of life, then how can you tell if it is only a skirmish or a full-scale war a.k.a the end of the relationship when you two go into a fight? While we admit that the onlookers always know better, we still hear only what we what to hear and believe what we want to believe, screening anything that doesn’t fit in our pretty little fantasy relationship. When a tiff occurs, do you write it off as your partner’s characteristic flaw or do you secretly harbor the idea that maybe it is the foreboder of the ultimate doomsday of your relationship?

Human beings are obsessed with weighing the pros and cons, hence the sadistic questions such as “is it better to marry someone who loves you more than you love him/her?” But it has now dawned on me that human beings have this craving for danger, beauty and mystery, which simply defies any attempt to suppress it. One need look no further than the very corny, cliché-ized love affair between the moth and the fire to see a case in point. The same is also true with beautiful slim girls’ tug-of-war with fattening yet alluring disserts and the wandering eyes of man on a beautiful mysterious woman, the latter being so commonplace that it has almost been deemed normal of a man.

The sad truth is that one has only got one shot in this big drama called life: no audition, no rehearsal, and definitely no start-over-yet-again. You trip on the stage and your pain is out in the open right then, right there with everybody else to witness. You are very careful with your steps and sometimes you wonder if other moves or twirling might look more fabulous but hell, how can you tell if you haven’t tried? And even if you have, how do you know they are actually better than the original moves you have had in mind? Just like the two roads in the wood: even if the one we pick is flanked with hawthorns and monsters whilst we hear heart-felt laughter from the other one and see rosy canopy over it, we can only march on with our faith in the choice we make and in the future we are about to encounter.

A little poem to share with you, my friends.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.