A Friday Night Story
This is just an ordinary Friday!
I decided to take the evening off from the laboratory and spend some time for myself. Not only I couldn't do this for the last couple of months but also my supervisor was out of town (surprisingly on a Friday eve) and my research progress is on my precise timeline. Since it is Covid and the university is too strict on protocols these days I decided I’d spend some quality time in the dormitory.
I decided to watch a movie marathon starting with Wonder Woman 1984 and added a couple of other favorite DC films to the list. After a long discussion with myself, I decided to order food where I was stuck between fried chicken and pizza. somehow ended up choosing pizza and ordered it. The app said it will take 35 minutes to deliver. I shut down the computer. My labmate looked at me surprisingly.
“You are done?” he asked.
“Yeah! I thought to have an evening for me”, I replied with a smile.
“Well! Good for you. Going out?”
“No. I am just heading to the dormitory”. I waved him good night and headed out of the building.
The weather was fine. Just a chilly breeze. It was cold enough to take a stroll by the breakwater. I looked at the phone screen and 20 minutes left for the delivery. I exhaled deeply and walked towards the breakwater behind our building.
Usually, it is a bit crowded with smokers, endearing couples, workout peeps, and loners like me. Either the pandemics or the winter vacation has kept them afar. I see no people and I liked the sense of stealing the moment only for me.
Thousands of thoughts trembling inside the head; not linear not messy but somewhere in between; shapeless.
This place has a deeply endowed nostalgia. I never got much time in recent days to come out here because it was cold (like hell; coming to the ocean in winter would be a suicide mission in South Korea) plus I had work to be done. But today I figure out the I had chosen not to come here.
Long before, during the beginnings of South Korean shenanigans, I’ve come here so many times and tried to figure out the so-many things that happened in a blink of an eye. There were rough nights, good nights, and better evenings that I’ve spent here. Most of the nights I spent here were to deal with hundreds of ‘what-ifs’ which I cannot seek an answer to. Or deep-down I was aware finding answers wouldn't change what has happened. I must be aware that this was meant to happen and there is no going back.
There is a place I used to sit by the breakwater every time I get there. A cement block behind a power generator. When I got there I saw that it has been rebuilt for some reason. It gave me a plain smile.
I stood there still and stared back at the ocean; like it is gonna talk to me in a way. It did. Trust me! It does. Every single time I’ve been to this place I feel the ocean telling me stories I never heard of. I don't feel the cold winter night, I’ve started to feel the chill in it. Maybe my heart has become colder?
I know looking back at the past is not a wise thing to do. But standing there looking back at the days that were entwined into the lacerating scars of my gut, I’d say it is okay to look back. Because it’s what I have inside me. These thoughts and pain that eats me alive every night and turns me into darkness. They haunt me like a devil.
And now, when I am here, standing in the middle of a cold winter night; abandoned, betrayed and wounded… I feel my blood getting cold that the thoughts cannot hurt me anymore.
Sometimes, it’s better to just let things be, let people go, don't fight for closure, don't ask for explanations don't chase people to understand or don't beg for people to stay in your life.
At this point in my life, for a moment or two, I think about what has been bothering me at times; drowning myself in the ocean of repentance. I think of what blunders I had been making in the past and what wrongs I had been doing myself. The people, the things, the matters, the incidents; all that had been meant so much at some point in my life, now mean nothing to me.
Standing at this place I’ve wondered countless times how it’d be better if I could go back and change the past. But it gets worse than you ever imagine. You cannot reverse back time. You cannot change what has happened. The only thing you could do is to accept and move on.
Things get better with time. Time humbles you. It humbles you in a way that teaches you to escape from the absurdity that is tormenting you and it builds you to accept reality. It teaches you to see… to see what’s important and what’s not.
Time reveals that an end could be just an end or a beginning…
My phone started buzzing, and my delivery guy is here. I go the pizza, paid him, and prepared myself to get back to the dorm. On the way, I took a glance at the calm ocean one more time.
The past is worth cherishing in every possible way. But we can’t live in it. The moment it passes away it becomes nothing but a memory. The closer you wanna get to it, the more you see darkness simmering within.
Letting go is an absolute tribute to healing your heart. I’ve learned this the hard way.
And now…
I’ll never be the same :)
