So What's Next?

Exactly one month ago today I decided to follow my whim and decided to take a 2 days adventure to Jakarta. Eat a lot, talk a lot, wandered a lot, those were my 2 days adventure plan. Little that I know that God decided to extend that adventure to an unknown period and to a much higher level. I fell in love.

It does sound like a plot from a cheap Hollywood flick or a lousy paperback novel, doesn't it? A man meet an exotic island girl, they fall in love at the first sight, and live happily ever after. You can insert jealous lover, doomsday thingy, or even alien attack to spice up the plot, all happened within a 48 hours time frame and voila, an instant box office or a B-type movies at the very least. If it were made into a book it can either get into bestselling list or become a book that was so bad you will never admit you read it. However it's real life, and things can be stranger than fiction. There definitely won't be any "happily ever after in the ending" because baby, things are just getting started. And Love just have no ending.

Thus my (or should I say our) new adventure started, in a 24 hours fast food joint in Jakarta (move over Elizabeth Gilbert, this is "tha new thang"!). Love to some would be as beautiful and as romantic as a picnic in the prairie during the spring bloom, it would be as devastating as joining a free-style boxing club (and even with the same physical effect) for others, or even as fancy as showing off your new Louboutin. To us, it's a river rafting adventure. Neck-breaking speed, plenty of combined efforts, everyone got dirty and wet, totally fun and richly rewarding. There will be time when all we can do is focus on how to overcome and get safely passed through a dangerous rapid as a team, but there will be time when all is calm and we get to marveled on how beautiful the nature is and how lovely it is just to be together. And then another rapid will ensue and so on, all that brings us even closer to each other. An adventure of a life time.



If you are somewhat inspired with what I wrote, don't. I wouldn't sanely suggest falling in love and be committed with a man or a woman you known and met just for 48 hours without thinking straight. First because Hollywood celebs been doing that for years and it hardly works. Second because it would be like advising someone to do a rope-less bungee jump or a shark-swimming experience: can be fatal and somewhat useless. What I do suggest is to open your mind and embark in your own adventure.

Too often we become a victim of the rules that society have build for us in the name of protection: be wary, thread your way carefully, patience is a virtue, and all that jazz. They can very much protect you indeed, but they can also rob you of what the world can offer, what life can offer. We are too busy becoming a prominent adult (with all the complications that follow) we sometimes forget how liberating it is to be a child: to do things simply because you are curious, and to do it (and liking it!) without any restraint from the society (children are pure enough to know none). Yes, one would argue because children don't know what's best for them. Well, do you [know]? It's not a matter of know or do not know, it's simply because children are more open to pain, they believe it wont last. And the fact is, it wont. Pain can't stay forever unless you nurture them, and time heals what reason cannot. It's like taking a plunge in an icy cold water: it's painfully cold, but the cold will ebbed away and you'd be so proud of yourself for daring to take the plunge. Congratulations, you've just experience life.

That night in Jakarta, as I look into his eyes and his into mine we put all reasons and notes of wisdom aside, and we found faith in each other. We decided to take the plunge, or the raft to be exact. And the trip has been both life changing for me and no less than wonderful: the childlike wonder prevail, and the adult perseverance keep us in track. One day when we finally hit our goal, finally arrive in our destination, we'd be walking hand in hand, all dirty and drenching wet and aching from the excursion. We'd smile and look into each other and say, "So what's next?". Life is too grand for just one adventure.