A Weekend.

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. 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.