An introspection, devoid of fancy trimmings.
A lot can happen over a weekend. Your dog may die. You may find out that you were adopted. That your partner cheated on you. That you’re expecting a child, or have one you never knew about. The dreams that you’ve carefully nurtured can come crashing down around your ears.
A lot can happen over a weekend. Your dog may die. You may find out that you were adopted. That your partner cheated on you. That you’re expecting a child, or have one you never knew about. The dreams that you’ve carefully nurtured can come crashing down around your ears.
A lot can happen over a weekend. A life painstakingly woven
over the years, strand by precious strand, can be ripped to shreds in a matter of hours.
It’s terrifying how little control we have over life. We convince
ourselves of our own authority by clinging to petty nothings – our choice of wall
paint, the model of our car, the style of our hair. We create a false cocoon of
little options to reinforce this delusion of control. Anything to avoid a brush
with reality, to sweep the shards of truth under our neatly-made beds.
Truth is, there are no guarantees in life. Everything is
destructible, nothing can escape annihilation.
This is what I discovered this weekend. That my life is
precariously balanced on a fragile plane of aspirations and the gentlest of
nudge from the universe can tip me over the edge into a bottomless precipice of
darkness.
To presume that we have a say in the nature of our existence
is human vanity. Life is nothing but uncertain and any speculation to the contrary
is an exercise in futility. Should we then crawl into fetal position and await
our inevitable end? Or fight the odds in a valiant if misdirected assertion of
independence? If a weekend can obliterate life as we know it, what chance do we
have against the tyranny of decades?
The answer is painfully clichéd.
Hope.
If you don’t know where your next meal will come from, hope
for the kindness of a stranger. If someone doesn’t return your love, hope to
meet a better man. If your chances of landing that coveted promotion appear
slim, hope to beat the odds. If you’ve been all but rejected by your dream
university, hope for a miracle, goddamn it.
If you can keep that hope alive, no misfortune in the world will hold you down.
A lot can happen over a weekend. That friend you’ve been mad
at for years may finally apologize. You may win the lottery. Your crush may ask
you out. You may perfect your great grandmother’s eggnog recipe. Life swings
both ways – if the worst may happen, so can the best.
Hope for that perfect weekend.
