Mirrors

 (Photo credit)

When we met each other, I realized we had the same humor, the same taste in music, the same amount of ego, the same addiction to intellectual talks, and best of all, we had the same tenacity to hold on to each other.

We matched. We were… mirrors. And we liked that. I liked that. It felt… special.
I felt like it’ll make things easy. It felt like it’ll make things last.

But now, after 5 years knowing you, I have to say, we never had anything in common, really. As I talked to you over morning tea, as I walked by your side when we head home, as I stared into your eyes across the kitchen table, I notice that we weren’t really what we thought we were.
We weren’t really… mirrors.

We weren’t really… soul-mates; we weren’t really that singular soul separated at birth, blessed into two different vessels, and destined to reunite after traversing the tangled corridors of life.

No. We were nothing like that.
As we grew together, you grew to love sitcoms, I grew to love memes. I thought sitcoms were cheesy, you had no idea what a meme is.
Your taste of music progressed; Plain White T’s, The Script. And mine regressed; John Denver, Billy Joel.

You dream of kids, and how our house would, eventually, be filled with them; our kids, our grand-kids, our grand-kids’ kids, the whole lot.
Me? I dread children. My sister got hit by a truck right in front of my eyes when she was 3; now every toddler looks like her, and I can’t stand if I had to see my dead sister’s face every single day if we ever ever decided to raise one.

I believe that people are, at heart, good. I give people the benefit of the doubt.
Human beings aren’t made to kill others, they aren’t made to take advantage on the suffering of society.
Ever since your dad got blackmailed to “donate” all his saving accounts, followed by the “shrugs” of the police, you believe in the supremacy of human nature. People are animals; they can laugh, joke, be kind, or even give, as long as it helps them survives. In the end, it’s about survival. Their own survival. And if it takes a little backstabbing and dirty work, that’s a small price that humans simply need to pay for good living. 

We’d quarrel when I lend my money over to the couple across the hall, and I’d storm out whenever I see you holding a baby. 

In the end, we are… ordinary.

There were times when we stopped talking to each other, there were times when we despised each other, hell, there were even times where we stopped seeing each other. We’re not mirrors. We’re not mirrors at all.

In all these times I talked to you over morning tea, all these times I walked by your side when we head home, and in all these times I stared into your eyes across the kitchen table, I’ve come to acknowledge, that, just like any other relationship, the only thing left that glues us together, the only thing left that we share, is our tenacity to hold on to each other. 

No, we’re not all that special. We’re not destined for each other. I know, this makes things a lot more difficult now. 

But I assure you, it’s okay.

It’s okay that we have nothing else in common. It’s okay that the only thing we have is tenacity.

Because Jules, my dear, it's the only thing we need.


Credit to: Alif Satria