I’m gonna start this with the usual narrative, guess that is my way of opening a writing.
I was having a rather normal day, finishing a translation job, devouring Jack London’s book, meeting friends, out to finish a task, having dinner with a friend, visiting a friend, then just when I wanted to go home, I suddenly felt like reading somewhere else, so I went to this 24 hour internet café to spend a night. I then read Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, I probably read this book for the hundredth times already, I first read in junior high and been loving it since then.
At one point, I decided to take some rest, so I stopped reading, and that made me a little more focus on the music playing in my ears, which turned out to be “falling slowly”, a simply beautiful yet mind evoking song from a movie I love. As I focused more on the song, suddenly a package of memories flashed before me. I missed people I spent most of my time with, in this city. The people whom I shared my youth with. I reminisced those time when we shared the same feeling of longing for dreams coming true and understanding the romance in living. All of a sudden the air felt thin and something heavy was bearing down on my chest. There’s this familiar feeling inside me, but when I tried to reach out, all I found was a void. It’s a strange feeling.
I then started thinking and writing as my own way to bear with that strange emotion.
I thought of all the moments we had together. I couldn’t recall when exactly we became close friends and how we became one, but all those silly and moving things we did together were still fresh in my head. I remembered those times, in the meantime of waiting for class to start, we’d have breakfast or lunch together. I was okay up to that part, but then the next part got me suffocated. I remembered those times when we used to study together either for an exam or another, or randomly got together, hanging out, group study most of the time changed to group jajan, ahhh, it had been so long yet it felt like only yesterday. Maybe I just missrd those times. Since most got a girlfriend, we rarely talk much lately.
They say people come and go, no point of being sad over a separation as it is an inevitable thing, and I know that. I just hate the word “separation”. That’s just the thing about me. I don’t have many people around me, but once I get attached or even just knowing someone quite well, I won’t ever let go. So just like I remember people, I want to be remembered, would be even better to put a smile on one’s face as they recall memories with me in there.
You know, this is just who I am. Leave alone people whom I’m close to for years, even to those I get to know and become close for days during a random meeting at say it a competition, I feel a strong bond and the time we spent together stays with me as precious memories I treasure. For the kind of human as odd as me, who’s now in the middle of compromising with life, those memories of us, simple things that automatically put a smile on my face are precious beyond words. It saves me in a way greater than you could ever imagine. So, I owe a lot of things to you, and grateful beyond words for every moment we went through together.
Oh God, I feel like crying already…
Well, enough about recalling the good not-so-old-but-still-considered-old times. Then comes the 2nd topic after friendship, the story of a journey with all the ups and downs.
In this journey called life, a struggle is an inseparable part of the cliché. We met as we are in the process to understand, what does it mean, and what does it take to be a human, not just any human, but a decent human being. Our fates happened to cross each other when we are living the peak of our age, the youth. What is youth anyway? I tried to give it a serious thought. But I couldn’t come up with something better than this. Youth is the time in your life when you learn how to let go of things. To tell yourself that it’s okay not to have it all. But also to tell yourself that you have all the rights in this world to dream about everything and to believe that there are unlimited ways to pursue a dream. No one should tell us not to be ambitious the same way nobody could really console us when a loss is inevitable.
I used to despise the concept of space and time. It allows us to experience all kind of thing but that itself only goes forward. “Understanding after experienced”, which we normal human being are bound to get frustrated (at least for some amount of time) for the lack of understanding about some sequence of unhappy events in our life. Sometimes we won’t understand why things happen in a way we don’t desire, but we’ll get to know why when the time is right. And sometimes, you don’t need to understand, you just have to believe. We got too small of a head to try to understand everything life pours into our way. There are many things we only see clearly in retrospect.
I sometimes think, what actually makes us lost in deep thought when the term “future” gets involved. And I think I know at least one definitive reason, that is we hold a high expectation of what future might have in stock for us, and we know our selves well enough to then think highly of our own selves. That part alone is okay, but the thing is, we live in a kind of system that mostly doesn’t allow one to choose decision for himself. We are a bunch of players that are under control of those more powerful than us. We have our portion of trial and effort, but then many other things are involved, so our part alone is not enough to make a complete piece of the journey we’re trying to go through. Well, we can do nothing much for now about that part. All we can do is to tag along and follow what already been the mechanism of a system. But then, to lose yourself in the process is unjustifiable. Call me conceited, but I believe someone should be given a full right to rate his own self-quality. Apart from what other people have in authorities to determine what we could do or be of ourselves, we should have a private space to think of ourselves as we wish.
For me, life is a journal centered on our own story about the pursuit of happiness. So, no matter what we seek, more than anything, I believe that happiness, inner peace, and self-satisfaction should be ones we put as top priority.
Especially to you three dear friends of mine, we really did go a long way. I want us all to have a happy ending in our own respective journey. And I hope we’ll never get tired of the night sky, the fresh air offered by the peaceful morning, the sight of random birds flock together, the romantic sound of raindrops or the aroma of past-afternoon coffee. I hope we never grow to be someone who can no longer see and appreciate the small beautiful things in life.
Enjoy every single moment with the ones you love. Make your short trip in this world a worthwhile one. And I want to say that, I love you very much. Let’s plan a good chatting over coffee in the near future. Let’s all have strength, and support each other, play our part as a friend in the best way we could. You know, sometimes, a single hand that reaches out can console all your sorrow. Well, how exactly you offer a hand is to be defined later, but the most important is the intention to give meaning to each other and become a random reason for a little smile on each other’s face.
Gotta be happy, gotta be grateful.
e y e s a n d f i n g e r s 