Let It Burn

Two days before I left on this trip, a good friend of mine called me in a frantic panic, warning that between the dates of April 28th and May 7th, I would meet someone that would either make this the best or the worst experience of my life. Now I’m not one for superstition, but for those 9 days, I restrained myself to redundant routine in deliberate avoidance of meeting anyone new.

“Safe”, I thought to myself as the miniature black border outlined the 8th of May on my electronic calendar. What I didn’t foresee was for her to get the dates wrong. I also didn’t expect that it would be someone I vaguely knew from my past. But most of all, I didn’t anticipate that the determination of my experience would be in my own hands. I guess what they say is true. You do create your own destiny.

It ended up sparking an intense reflection of my entire life, from my past and present career choices to the many buffoonish fumblings with the opposite sex. It became an agonizing circular comparison of what my life could have been and what it is. At times the regret paralyzed me in a state of stagnant contemplation. At times it was downright painful.

I helplessly clung onto the few memories of ecstatic happiness I had retained; yet I still found a way to reduce them to times of just getting caught up in the moment, paltry instances of misinterpretation, or an oversimplification of happiness. I somehow manage to ruin everything for myself, even the times that have already passed.

But I still contest that what I felt during those times were real. That smile, that revival of hope that the world is still a decent place, were in fact sincere. What I’ve come to realize is that genuine passion expels so feverishly that it burns. For me, it's has just been so infrequent that instead of learning from it, I let it engulf me. Hence the product of my life: unstable occurrences of the extreme ups and downs. I still haven’t learned to control or bring them out from within. I am still reliant on external factors. I am petty, just like everyone I said I wasn’t like.

I’ve foolishly extended this trip multiple times, despite the fact that I’ve been longing to go home since almost the beginning. One part of me says the pain will always make you stronger, but realistically, the other, much more trivial part of me, is just waiting in vain hope that maybe some stroke of burning passion will present itself again and this time, I won’t be foolish enough to let it pass me by.

Sometimes I think too much. Sometimes I dwell too long in those dark corners of regret and remorse and I fretfully scurry over what parts of my potential I can still salvage. But fuck it. I’ve decided that should that moment present itself again, should I be lucky enough to recognize it, and most importantly, should I be brave enough to embrace it, I’m putting on my shoes and dancing my way right into that fire, even if it burns me up in the process.