The Past and The Future
12.12.19 | 12.27.19 | 01.02.2020
I am attempting to write something, or anything. I wanted to give tribute to 2019 or for the past 19 years since I started recognizing that the future is indeed real. It was around the year 2000 or the most commonly known as Y2K when the reality of the future started to sink in. Not until the craze for the new millennium, and probably because I was just in my early teens, I never imagined what the future held for me. Life was so simple then. I think, like every kid/pre-teenager at that time, we were all just concerned about the little stuff, mostly school and friends.
Then came the year 2000. There was something about welcoming the millennium that gave me a sense of seeing myself in the bigger picture. Y2K was such a big deal, and a milestone that I saw not only this world has a future but also that time is really passing by, and so then I realized I have a future too that I needed to think about. I can still vividly remember the overwhelming feeling I was having while welcoming the 2000, watching Regine singing at the top of the hotel. It was surely a defining moment, and I can say once-in-a-lifetime experience. It’s epic to be able to experience welcoming the new millennium.
Anyway, I cannot say I started to plan right after; I don’t think I ever plan my life very well in the long term aspect, it was just a symbol of all possibilities for me - that time really does exist. And now, 19 years after, I don’t know what to feel. I cannot believe that such a long time has really passed by; I wish I wouldn't feel time has passed me by. In the TV series, they call it like an end of the season. And as I look back, I don’t really know what I am seeing, or if I am seeing anything, whether it is the past or about the future. It is too surreal for me. My brain does not have the ability to process what the future holds for me. Or my heart, it is somewhat in denial and too scared to confront what I have done in the past years. I guess I fear the realization of (again) having this discontentment over the things I feel like I am not and should be doing. I don’t know. So where does this leave me? Where am I going? What do I make of this 2020 coming? 35 years. I have lived half (almost) the years of the standard lifespan of a human being. And then what?
I guess I am just wondering how we cope with all of this. Is life really this complicated, or is it the changing ways, our ways, that have caused complications to what used to be a simple life for us? Or maybe it is just me, trying to complicate things by overthinking. It could also be that I am bored. Well, all I wanted was just to commemorate the past 19 years, and this stress is caused by the fact that I can’t seem to come up with that. And why is that so?
I have my list, and it may look short, yet I believe in the quality and value of each of the things I have there. They are just exactly what I needed in this life. Proud of my ability to keep things simplified and minimal, despite the challenge to keep it as such in this ever-changing and grandiose way of life that everyone seems to be into for the past years. And I can only hope that I can keep it this way. And just like everybody else, it is only my hope that this new decade will be better than the first half of my so-called lifespan. Yes, I am giving myself a timeline.