Calm Before the Storm - a fragment

It’s Halloween today, well, not exactly Halloween, but for all intents and purposes it is, since tonight is our Superhero Deviants Halloween extravaganza. I’m sitting on my bed at home right now, enjoying the few hours of calm before the storm. The weather is absolutely beautiful today, despite slightly overcast skies. Fall has taken Hong Kong into its arms and the city feels still, almost as if she is holding her breath in anticipation of tonight’s revelries. Through the gossamer curtains I can see building upon building bathed in gentle light, basking in the quiet of a cool afternoon. These few precious hours, after the noon sun has given its utmost and right before dusk smoothes away the last creases of light, are my favorite time of day. In this balancing point between extremes, anything seems possible.

My phone rings and it’s the co-organizer of the party, letting me know that alas, the last detail to my ensemble tonight is still MIA: a stuffed animal teddy-bear backpack. Hmm…may have to rouse myself from my window-side reverie and descend into the city to complete the mission myself. Maybe just a few minutes more.

Today’s a day for introspection. My pensive mood is muddying all my features and the one release I can think of is channeling my million and one thoughts through these fingertips onto this glowing screen, where my thoughts can reside in peace, stripped from the dangerous alleyways of my mind. For some reason lately my rearview mirror has been taking me back not a day or a week or even a month, but across the past months and years that have made up my “mid-to-late” twenties. Does 27 count as “late” twenties, or could I still pass for “mid”? Leafing through my ‘at a glance’ planners of 2003, 2004 and 2005, sometimes the events marking the coffee-stained pages seem fictitious, notes of a make believe reality that I conjured up to make my past seem more interesting and melodramatic.

But no, these things actually did happen to me. Nice try, though. The ironic twists and turns that have made up the past few years were not figments of my ever-active imagination. Time and time again I’ve exclaimed to my friends and to myself, “you can’t WRITE sh*t better than this!” and it’s true. People who first meet me may think, ah, she’s just a drama queen, but after having known me for awhile, they too realize that sh*t just happens to me, good sh*t and bad sh*t, yes, but sh*t happens at a hypernormal rate. A week goes by and my whole life may have switched course because of some event of another, but the thing is, another week goes by and sure enough, another curveball whizzes my way and another tangent has formed, another pathway has opened up, or another lesson’s been learned. At least I can’t complain that life is boring. ;)

Sometimes I look back and I feel like I’ve traipsed through decades in the span of three years. I wonder if my Dorian Gray portrait is out there somewhere, showing the truth of who I am inside: not a girl in her MID-twenties but a middle-aged woman, shoulders slightly hunched forward, streaks of grey running through her hair, forehead creased and the stamp of crow’s feet at the corners of her rather small eyes. All in all a noticeably weathered countenance. But as you move down past the rounded cheeks and bulbous nose you find lips curved in an easy smile, and then you realize that the depth of the crow’s feet may have something to do with the fact that she’s grinning like an idiot despite it all. Because that’s exactly how I feel. Weathered, but still smiling. It’s like the base of me is happy, no matter what curveballs life decides to throw at me, despite the pain and hurt that runs through me from time to time. When it all comes down to it, the face in the portrait is a happy one. Content despite life’s discontents.

Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t mean I don’t have my fair share of complaints, tears of anguish, and fits of frustration, but, somehow, I know deep down that it is all okay. The up’s and down’s, the freak incidents and freak-outs, they are all okay. They’re just manifestations of life in all its grandeur. Let’s face it, sh*t happens and it’s up to us to either wallow around in it or scrape it off the bottom of our shoes. Okay, let’s move away from this analogy because it’s getting kinda gross.

And how it all affects me, well, that’s just a result of the way I choose to live. I let emotions run through me that some wiser than myself may choose to avoid or suppress. If I am happy, I am over the moon, and if I am sad, the melancholy roots deep into my soul. If I feel some intuition, I go with it, despite the fear of consequences. And sometimes that leads me into the wrong path, but in the end, are there any “wrong” paths to begin with? It’s the ability to have these feelings and emotions that makes me who I am. It may leave me weathered and stooped, but most importantly, it leaves me to be who I am. For that, I am content. For that, I grin like an idiot.

But now another minute more has turned into half an hour and my teddy-bear is still out there somewhere waiting to be found. The Warm and Fuzzy Lara Croft won’t be the same without a teddy-bear backpack full of Halloween treats. Better get on it then.