(For this ramble, which was hastily done – so forgive the errors in grammar or spelling, I just mindlessly placed one word after another. Once I pressed enter for the word, I would not press backspace once more. I don’t know why I did it.)
I’m currently typing this as I sit on the kitchen top of the bare condo unit I’m renting. It’s half past 4, this condo has no furniture (or electricity), and I can’t help but shake off the feeling that the little girl who saw me enter the unit might think of me as a thief (although seeing as how I entered at around 2 AM, I don’t really blame her for thinking so).
I’m still up because I’m trying my best to keep vigilant for whoever’s planning to enter the condo unit. I metaphorically (and almost quite literally) have one foot out the door, because the door’s open a peep to let the light in. I can’t sleep because my laptop sleeps if I don’t use it, and I’m afraid of the dark.
I’m afraid of other things, too, I suppose.
I wasn’t supposed to stay here for the night. I was supposed to sleep at my friend’s pad, but my phone died and no one’s opening the door, so I feel that he had to retire early. I don’t blame him at all, though, last I heard, he was sick. You can’t expect a sick boy to stay up and wait for you to arrive, especially since you didn’t tell him ’til what time he should wait up.
Before this, though, I had dinner with friends, then I went to this bar because a friend of a friend from another province was playing. I didn’t go in at first, though. I stalled along the sidewalk for a bit before I hauled my ass on a cab and made for the ride home. Halfway through the ride, I realized I was being such a loser for not even trying to go in, so once the cabbie dropped me off, I did a little turnaround and hailed a new cab to drive me back to where I was 20 minutes prior.
I make spur-of-the-moment decisions.
The gig was nice. No, more than nice. The intimate crowd, three-quarters inebriated from a selection of beers and other spirits, were lolling their heads and moving their bodies from side to side in time to the rhythm of the songs played. It didn’t matter if they knew the song; what mattered was that they wouldn’t stay rooted in one spot. They will transfer their weight from one foot to the other, hoping that they will give justice to the creators of the song by giving it life through their personal movements.
Sitting from the leather couch – cracked, of course – over on the far end of the bar, I smile.
Sitting on the countertop of this condo with my feet dangling off the floor and my brow glistening with the sweat that is produced by endless minutes of staring into space, I smile.
This is growing up.
You think – or you’d like to think – that growing up is all about knowing the shortcuts and the conveniences; that it involves people who have everything figured out – from how to properly tie shoelaces to not acting flustered when caught sneaking in; that it’s about page after page of endless encounters; that it’s continuously interesting, completely forgetting that the quiet moments are as important as the noisy ones in the confusion that is life.
I think this is growing up.
It’s stepping back and looking at things from a different perspective. It’s typing at 5 AM about the events of the day because you have to keep up and because writing is a lot more dignified than throwing a fit at the misfortunes – if you could call it that – of the day. It’s realizing that there are much better things to be done with a Saturday morning, like sleeping in, but also that it’s not so bad to find yourself in such a circumstance after all. Why, when did you last see the sunrise?
The sun creeping in as is shown – but not made justice – by this photo from my photobooth
I think growing up is experiencing on both a deeply profound but also completely shallow way that things don’t always go as planned, but even if that’s so, that things don’t necessarily have to suck so much. It’s about the quiet moments, too. The ones where you realize that it’s not too bad to not be doing too much all at once. The ones where you allow yourself to look back and see the good in the ugly, the extraordinary in the mundane, the fun in the boring, even if initially you think there’s nothing to be seen.
I think growing up means making the effort.
Of perpetual finds 