It was a beautiful early summer evening. The air was gently warm and tenderly cool at the same time. The soft breeze from the Hudson Valley flowed through the wooden pavilion, kissing the bouncing hairs and flying skirts of those who were dancing and laughing. The chandeliers were waving in harmony with the summer wind and the DJ’s well-selected music.
I walked out of the pavilion, stepped onto the freshly cut grassland, and took a deep breath to inhale the sweetness of the surrounding forest. There were stars above the pavilion, at the tips of the silhouette of the maple trees.
Admiring the pavilion from afar in the darkness, under the starry night, and at the slope of the green meadow that oversees the Hudson Valley, I wanted to enjoy this one satisfying moment of my life alone.
This was an event of eighteen months of meticulous planning. In the end, everything went through smoothly and beautifully without a single glitch.
I was standing there, reflecting on many events in my life. I am among the luckiest human beings living at this moment of our borrowed time from this beautiful planet. I am deeply grateful.
Once again, a slight boredom sensation started to creep in. It was an old familiar feeling I momentarily processed ever since my childhood. It always occurred right after I handed over the summer or winter final exam test sheets to the teacher, stepped out of the classroom, and walked through the deadly quiet corridors where most kids were still trying hard to finish theirs.
I was almost always the one who was waiting for my friends to come out of the classrooms. We could then start to exchange the remorse or joy of the struggles for getting to the finishing lines.
Looking back in life, I have been playing that “I am done here, and let me wait outside” role in most of the significant life milestones among my friends.
I have had a good run in life so far, and there is not much left to do in terms of achievements set by my parents, grandparents, and relatives. They had always been very proud of me, and I am glad I seldom failed them of their great expectations, even after many of them were long gone.
I am now ready to go to Mars or be run over by a bus. I would not have any regrets.
The last was a joke I shared and met with a pair of rolled eyes and an angry “Mom, stop. That’s not funny.”
