As I was driving back home one day, I got lost. (It sounds bizarre, I know, but I can assure you it is very possible.) Luckily for me, the path I took had no junctions or turns so I didn’t have to decide anything. In other words, there was nothing much I could do but to drive down that road (except for making a U-turn, something I rarely do in a situation like this). It was a long road and I didn’t want to worry too much about the way so my mind pondered many thoughts. Then at one point, it felt as if I hit some spot in my mind – so hard that my eyes almost got tearful. It was the feeling of sudden realization. It was the feeling when you finally figure something out. It was the feeling when all the scattered pieces come together.
It was the feeling of joy.
It would be difficult to elaborate exactly what I was thinking or what I took in at that moment, but I will try to put it in a manner that anyone reading this can imagine what it should be like. Here goes:
Have you ever questioned everything that happens around you? Why you do certain things or what you do them for? Sometimes those questions pull you back and it feels as though you have to drag them along your entire journey. And it gets even worse if you don’t know where you’re heading with that journey! So, simply put, you may have to drag them along endlessly.
I’d felt that. A lot. And when something new came into my life I would feel that, maybe, this is what my life is about. But then it would pass. And these sorts of things would occur repeatedly – they would come and eventually would go. What was left with me was another batch of hollowness. Then I always had a new hope that the next thing coming into my life would be the real thing, that it would be all the answers I had looked for. That it would be, in the word of sport journalists, “it”. In truth, nothing ever became “it”.
Then one thing happened.
It was one thing that I hadn’t planned to do, much less to still be doing now. When it got into my life back then I had a very difficult time handling it and every other series of hardship it brought along. It exhausted me to the point that I saw no reason to keep doing it. I saw no hope, no meaning and no sense in doing it. It tired me out to the point that I wanted to break it off. The only thing kept me going was firm belief. I believed, and very much still do, that this would turn out well – not only for me, but for everyone. I had to endure this and keep believing.
A somewhat long time has passed since and it’s still around me. Many early hardships had faded away. The path seems to be opening and I somehow think that things are going my way. It is a good reward for me to go through all the difficulties. I now feel like a man on a mission. More importantly I now know the purpose of the mission. When I reflected back to the beginning of it, to all problems I had encountered, and to be realizing where I am now, I’m happy. This is big for me because I never much buy the hype of happiness. For all that I had had to go through, this feeling now really worth it.
All because of it.
To be frank, I never had thought that this is “it”. I didn’t feel that this could be the “it” I had looked for. Maybe this is just another one of those things waiting to pass and create yet another void in me. Maybe it is here to stay. I don’t know and don’t even care. For now, I would relish this joy for as long as I could. For now, this is my “it”.
As I got to that point in my mind, I also got to see a familiar sight again. The road took me back to my way home. I was glad. I smiled. And the drive home was as pleasant as ever.
Thank you, whoever read through this entire entry. You have my appreciation.
... and thank “it”, more so than anything else.
