“It’s only a three-hour hike. Come on, it’s going to be easy,” she mimicked his voice when they were already walking for two hours up a steep hill with fallen moist leaves making the path slippery.
“Well, if I had told you it would have been this adventurous, you wouldn’t have joined. Plus, what’s the fun in it all being smooth? Ordinary is boring.” This last line was sort of his mantra. But it was also what made him so lovable among groups. He would constantly find something extraordinary to engage it and, most of all, to never give up.
Pictures tell stories. That’s why we often take so many of them. Because we try to capture the sentiment of the moment with each click. The happiness, the wonder, the amazement, the company, the love.
Drawings demonstrate our inner feelings. What we usually hide even from ourselves. They’re an expression of what our mind does not speak. That’s why they are sometimes so abstract; they reflect the chaos in our hearts and heads.
Graffiti can be works of art too. They make even the ugliest of buildings seem beautiful. Because everything can have a pretty side if someone reveals it.
It’s enthralling to visit places of cultural value and learn their history. It’s as if you mentally travel back in time, to another era and delve into the lives of our ancestors. If you cherish your roots, where our world comes from, you relish in finding out stories of the old and anecdotes only locals know.
Most of the information you’re bombarded with as a tourist usually fades a few weeks after you return to your base.
But what remains is how all this made you feel. The emotions you gained and the people you shared them with are priceless.
It was during that first visit together to some ancient ruins that he felt she was changing his life. She had already known it when she randomly accepted to go on a trip with him without even knowing his last name.
But it’s the spontaneity that brings out the truest version of you; they both believed that.
It was one of the most memorable trips they had experienced.
It was what started it all.
And it was what he recalled months later when he finally understood her warning that what he wouldn’t appreciate, someone else would cherish and value more.
It’s not easy to force yourself to get out of bed at the break of dawn after having stayed out late the night before, with only a few hours of sleep, in order to go on a mountain trek under cloudy skies and light drizzle.
But it’s worth it.
You’ll only find it out if you convince yourself to go.
Whatever we do is a battle within ourselves, to persuade our own mind against our own thoughts. So, we’re tired; what if we talk ourselves out of it? Negotiate. We’ll do this or that and then reward ourselves with hours of sleep, food or relaxation.
We only regret the things we don’t do. And it’s a shame to waste away our days being lazy or making up excuses for not living up to our full potential. Our future self will be grateful we once pushed ourselves to the limit. Some experiences are simply worth the choices we make. We just have to dare things more.
It was among the things her psychotherapist proposed to help her find herself again. She had been down a very silent, dark and unnerving path for too long, she was now struggling to find the light. And she could use all the help she could get.
He had drifted away because it was too much to handle. But he could now see that she was trying her best.
He left her a note on the front door that prompted her to the backyard.
The violin was there: sitting majestically on the garden chair. Uniquely crafted. Just like her.
It was in that alley I realised I knew. And I told you too. When you asked me how I knew I loved you, I told you it was because I couldn’t remember what my life was like without you. Before you.
When you became a part of my world, you changed it intrinsically. I couldn’t recall what it was like without your long late-night calls, your random texts during the day to check up on me, our inside jokes, those silent looks that said everything, and so much more that made us ‘us’.
It was a dinner party I didn’t want to attend. But my friends pressed on. “Just put on a smile, as fake as it may be and come. At least you’ll eat well, it’s guaranteed,” they prompted.
I pushed myself to abide.
I had no expectations whatsoever.
And perhaps that was the best thing of all.
That was what made it so great.
Because he was there.
You don’t know it from the start, but all it takes is one person to change your life. To make you fall in love and to not remember how you lived without them.
“What’s this?” a little girl with chestnut pigtails inquisitively asked as her gaze fell eye level on a small table with an antique phone displayed on it.
“Well, that is a telephone,” her grandmother explained. “It is what we used to call each other at home before we had mobile phones.”
The young one looked perplexed.
“How?” she asked.
“You would pick up the receiver, place it by your ear and mouth, and then dial the number you wanted to call by using this,” the older woman demonstrated.
The little girl seemed amazed.
“Back then, when you didn’t want to speak to someone, you just told someone else to say you weren’t home. Now, with these phones constantly strapped to our hands, the first thing anyone asks when they call is not if you’re OK, but rather ‘where are you’?”, the woman ranted on a bit.
The problem with setting boundaries and lifting up walls is that people will get upset when you finally do. Some conveniently exploit your inability to often say ‘no’ and it startles them once you do. When you begin to demand more, you’ll meet resistance. We seek more because we give out more too. But fairness in this world doesn’t work that way. And it’s something we learn in pain.
We build walls to protect ourselves. Our values and our own well-being. And those who see that, who love us regardless, will climb them up or surpass them to find us.
MC's Whispers 