It's hard to live each day when you don't know when they will come for you.

It's hard to appreciate each moment when you have to keep watching your own back.

Like a prisoner on death row, the end could come at any time.

I don't want this dream to end, but the inevitable has to come to pass as all dreams have to come to an end.

It's just a matter of whether or not the nightmare will take its place.

The clock is ticking, it always does.

Sometimes the only thing you can do is pray, which is the hardest thing to do when you hold no allegiances to any religion whatsoever.

And when your entire life is based on objectifying and cataloging every moment of every experience, you know you've hit the deepest end when the only solution you can turn to is an abstract of human faith.

I now lie in the hard, deep end.

I don't know how I'm going to get out of this one.

I recently came across an article about a couple that's been married for 54 years and choosing to die together by assisted suicide. While what's known of the circumstances that prompted their choice makes sense to someone like me (he was becoming almost blind and deaf while she was diagnosed with terminal cancer), pro-life critics would argue otherwise.

Somehow, I find this final act between two people, who have been together for so long, hands held until the very end, emotionally touching. It's different from young people like us who have make suicide pacts for reasons that often include disagreement with parents and a troublesome life. As opposed to those that would end their lives early for the sake of their youthful love, this couple lived their lives through the years, together, before choosing to end it together for reasons, which I can only assume, are because they are so intertwined in each others lives that they cannot bear to be apart from one another especially in their physical condition. If they were going to go anyway, why not make it together rather than without the person you have lived and loved throughout the years.

While critics would say that relationships that lead to choices like this are unhealthy, I don't see how choosing to die together after living for so long, an unhealthy relationship. Maybe if people did a Romeo and Juliet in terms of age and circumstance, then even I would agree that there is something amiss there. Yet at the core of this passing exists the simple idea that in life, you can find someone you connect with so much who shares the same sentiment, in all its eccentricities and quirks. Someone who complements and completes you in ways that would give both of you decades of endless surprise and discovery and never for once, tire of it. If I were to lose Mel after spending decades together, sharing the moments throughout as we always do even now, I wouldn't know how life could ever be as wonderful and beautiful again.

Maybe, it is understandable that acts like this which contradict the norm will always be labeled as inappropriate, but when it comes to relationships and what we do for it, maybe "normal" has never been the answer for one that works so beautifully. If you consider how most normal relationships chance upon breaking up so often, then what's there to lose by being unconventional when you know it is who you both are and it works best for both of you?

As long as you enjoyed your company for as long as you lived, for as much as you lived, then that is all there is to it regardless of how it was lived…or ended. I understand that now. Sometimes, I wish that the rest of the world can share in that understanding too.

If there was ever the most desperate time of my life, it would be now.

If there was ever the bleakest moment of my life, it would be this.

If there was ever a realisation that even mistakes in the naivety and curiosity of youth can't escape, it would be this moment.

If there was ever a chance that everything you've worked hard for could be destroyed in an instant, it would be this throw.

Everything comes full circle, secrets will come to pass. Nothing will escape judgment, and forever will never last.

At least my tradition of birthdays has never changed. It will always be a nightmare of trouble, one I know I cannot wake from.

A nightmare I know I cannot resolve.

A nightmare I know will probably kill me in the end.

It's been 5 years since I first stepped into Australia. Despite going back every once in a while, it's hard to deny that this immensely huge country, south of the equator, which houses pretty much most of the deadliest animals in the world, has become my permanent home. I know I said before that I'm not going to celebrate milestones like this anymore, but I'm a sucker for multiples of 5's and that's the best excuse I can come up with that makes sense to me.

It shouldn't be said anymore that I am leading a new life. After all, 5 years is a long time to do a lot of things. A lot has changed within the 5 years that I have been here even if the rest of the world feels like it is the same. I've gone from the insecure, scared, university student with a rocky relationship to a confidant, tough scientist with a secure job and a life long partner. Transformations like that don't happen everytime. If anything, every time I look back at the last 5 years, I can feel nothing but awe and pride for every single one of my accomplishments no matter how small they are or insignificant they may be to other people.

Of course, realising that to means that every time I look at the next 5 years, I realise that I have a world of things to prepare and commit to raise the bar of accomplishments a little higher. Let it not be said that this half a decade milestone is spent wondering where the time went and how I miss the good ol' days, but because the next 1826 days will eventually be filled with a sense of transformation that rivals or even surpasses what I have become as a person in this foreign, yet homely country.

I want better things to come in time. For that, there is a world of work to commit to and a future I know I have to earn the right to live.

How's that for being optimistic?