U.

I like isolation. I don't think there is anything wrong with staying away from people intentionally. In fact, I enjoy the totality of it. Quiet moments allow us to view things from different perspectives. I feel most comfortable when thrown into singleness. We all need our own space sometimes.

Don't get me wrong. I don't get into this whole self-sustainability shit all the time.

Sometimes, just sometimes, I allow people to step into my world. I surprise myself by actually engaging in a good conversation with a stranger. I say yes to dinner. A movie. A walk to my doorstep where we bid goodbye like adolescents. I surprise myself by introducing this person to my vulnerabilities. My fascination with morning dew, light pouring in from the cracks of random structures. I allow this person to see how human I really am, how it is okay to admit your weakness in the presence of someone other than your own shadow. I am passive when it comes to love. I hate fights and avoid them at all costs. I wear my heart on my sleeve.

I take pictures. Reading, walking, answering a business phone call, on road trips across the causeway, dancing in the supermarket aisles, working, driving and the list goes on. I liked taking pictures of him. Maybe because he didn't like them. He didn't fancy the attention. It triggered this rebel inside me, a quest to take good pictures without him knowing. I wanted to document everything. Start to end, as if I saw an end to these documentations.

I was just browsing through some pictures on my computer and came across an album. Just so you know, this isn't just an album. It is an album full of pictures taken in the span of months, albeit short-lived but heavy with emotions. This is the first time I created an album specially for a particular someone, with a total of 17 folders embedded within its corners. Events ranging from how we met at Starbucks (yes this dude hit on me at good ol' Starbucks) to the many things that made us, us.

This would be a world that no one will hear of, a connection that I sincerely thought would be my future. It seemed like only yesterday when I clicked the shutter to create those pictures. If these pictures could materialize on the palms of my hands, it would still be warm from familiarity.

And as much as I hate to admit this, it hurt.

At the end when the dust settles, all we have is a series of memories to hold on to. Be it with the people we cross paths with, the people we love, the people we used to love. For me, it would be this album snugly tucked between the letters T and V. Pictures of a stranger who has tossed our memories aside like a worthless nothing. This person, the one who turned out to be everything he promised he wouldn't be.

The thing about this stranger is that, he was not just a stranger to me. He was a special phase in my life.
And this is for him, one final documentation I can muster before it all fades away.