Countdown to Forever | ✓

Time. Time is such a funny thing. How long until it will rain again? How long until I meet my best friend? Or, when are we going to say our last goodbye to our loved ones? No one has the answer to these questions, what I know is how long until I meet my soulmate. Strange, I know, but when a person turns 15, somehow everything starts making sense.

A few years back, I had my 15th birthday and like everyone else, on the same day, I went to get my timer implanted on my left wrist. Let me tell you, it hurts like hell! I was in pain for about 2 days because of the implantation. At first, it was just a piece of plastic, but after 24 hours or so, it wasn't just a piece of plastic attached on my left hand any more. That piece of plastic turned out to be one of the most important thing to anyone including me. It tells you when you're going to meet your soulmate by counting down the years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds.

It takes around 24 hours to get it "installed" into your system and starts functioning properly. A lot of people tend to forget that quite easily. In fact, I did too. The first time I glanced at my new timer, I started panicking because I had thought that something was either wrong with me or my soulmate, or that the timer was malfunctioning. Thank God the doctor was still there in the room otherwise I would have had a panic attack. But when she explained to me that it needs time to settle and get "installed", I calmed down just a tiny bit. I mean I was still scared that something could go wrong with the timer, you know?

Let's fast forward to a few hours later shall we? I woke up in the middle of the night by a beeping sound coming from my wrist. I thought I had fallen asleep wearing a wristwatch or something, but it didn't take me long to figure out that it was coming from the timer. Turns out that when it gets "installed" to your body and it starts to work properly, it informs you by making annoying beeping noises for 2 minutes straight. Something which the doctor forgot to tell me.

545: 4: 57: 19

I had over a year to meet him and I knew it was not going to be easy for the fact that I had started wondering about him a lot. What colour are his eyes and hair? Is he tall and handsome? How old is he? What's his name? I had a feeling that he was blonde, and had green eyes for some reason. I also had a feeling that he's older than me at least a year or two. Whether he would be tall - taller than me for sure since I am relatively short.

The day after, I told my dad about how long I had before I met the one. Before I finished talking, he was already tearing up because according to him, I was "growing up too fast" and also because he started reminiscing about all the little things he and my mum did and how it started all out.

Mom and Dad met when they were around the age of 15 and 17, in a park around noon. When mom was still alive - almost 10 years ago, she used to tell me the story of how they met before going to bed, I used to love it as it was - well, still is, even nicer than a fairy tale. She used to tell me that my dad was such a charmer when she first laid eyes on him.

My dad's timer has mom's name on it now. Only because when I was only a five year old, mom was giving birth to my brother, but unfortunately, there were some complications and none of them made it.

After mom and Danny died, all I've had left was my dad, my first love which did not come with a timer. He decided that it was more convenient if we moved to Vancouver, near my grandparents - his parents. He found a job as a plumber and tried to move on. But let's face it, it's very tough to lose someone you love, but it's even tougher if you lose your soulmate. My dad was strong enough not to lose his mind during the process of moving on like many others have. He stayed grounded because of me.

153: 3: 06: 51

Time was passing by. I lost my dad about a year after I got my timer due to a heart attack. It was one of the hardest moments in my life, not only did I loose my mom and my little brother when I was only 5, I had to loose also my dad. He didn't get the chance to meet my soulmate, or walk me down the aisle like most fathers do.