eighty-six

13:20:35

I’m sleepless at the airport.

It’s almost the middle of September and every time my mind approximates in how little time this year will be over, I shun the estimate away.

How could a period of nine months, the passing of almost three seasons, prove to be so dull and uneventful? It is all I can think about – where did all the adventures go?

On which day did I miss the public broadcast that suspense and butterflies were going on an indefinite strike? At what point did I set up camp in Bluntville? At what hour were those precious little thrills and chills buried?

I don’t know, I really don’t know. It’s rather sad – I really thought this would be my year. The year where I would finally blossom into something I’d proudly pin on my chest. But, as obvious as it has always been, one cannot plan shit like that. Grand schemes are always at risk of falling to pieces, as is a house of cards or a sand castle or anything for that matter. We are too tiny to be the essential peg (for the optimists, I shall add: at least for the long term). We are essentially just mere physical reincarnations of split second moments in what is an immensely large journey from bang to collapse.

Naturally, from the moment we rise to the moment we fall back into our subconscious, we set aside our insignificance. Our ego, our sense of “me” and “I”, some claim, is our mind’s life raft. Without it as mediator, we would go insane. It is essential for our self-orientation in this world. It…

The Pope Benedict XVI landed ten minutes ago. Someone changed the television channel to MTV for the live broadcast. People gathered round to watch. As his little frail figure emerged from the inconspicuous Alitalia, somebody got up to take pictures of the TV screen with his iPad. Even I grew emotional. How can another human being arouse so much passion, be it love or hate, in millions of others? Half of this tiny country has been adorned like a little Mexican girl and will soon undergo total paralysis for the sake of this man. People will cry (the lady across from me is tearing), people will wave, people will cheer, and I even think, that people will die. Not in voluntary sacrifice, or because their time was due, but because this country is not equipped enough to have it’s main transportation hubs, veins and arteries frozen in immobility (the airport is closed between 13h and 15h, and that is why I came here abnormally early).

…is used as a sort of third satellite in order for us to locate ourselves with more precision, it is used as a language to make sense of the signals that make up reality. And so, just like the people are currently caught up with the Pope’s arrival and visit, I am caught up in my very own little internal soap opera of not living up to my own expectations.

A few days ago, my friend Key told me that I have a selective memory – I only remember the bad and tuck away the good. Nobody would want to own up to that! But I guess he has a point, this year was not a total waste. Great things have happened, great disasters were avoided, and I should instead be grateful that I have not hit lower bottom.

So without much further ado, sleepless nights shall be remembered, sleepless nights shall be revived, it’s time to wake up and write some memories down, because no time is time wasted if it has been wasted at the right time.