I just finished eating one-thirds of my favorite ice cream tub. It’s been a long day, May 6, and I spent three hours stuck in a traffic jam in Beijing’s Central Business District. The last time I experienced this long commute to home was when I was home, in the Philippines, when I went to Quezon City for paperwork. Today’s commute was a regular back-to-work day for most Chinese who enjoyed a five-day Labor Day weekend. Regular, because the traffic jams were back. Regular because all of us still need to wear masks.
On the staff bus, I was killing time by reading Twitter, and occasionally opening WeChat groups to remove the annoying red circle notification icon. I had a hunch that I would be stuck for two hours, but wait, the intersection that was roughly one kilometer away from where I live had a terrible congestion — and it was impossible to alight from where I was. I could have walked my way home and shaved off 1.5 hours, but thanks to my non-existent Chinese, I remained where I was seated. Our driver was visibly pissed, but there was nothing that I could do.
My feeling was light and I sighed hard just minutes before I got off, only because I was unsure whether to grab dinner in the nearby mall or go straight home and eat ice cream. You know what I chose.
I passed by some bakeries to see if there’s a small cake I could bring home, but all the selections were full of sugar. C’mon, cakes have sugar. I ended up buying nothing but a packed bread with mung beans.
When I arrived home at 8.20pm, I immediately grabbed the ice cream tub with the thought, “Should I start today’s journal with this?” And I did, and words still flow freely at 9.05pm.
It’s less than three hours before I hit 30. Yesterday (May 5), I mused on doing something that would make the last day of my twenties memorable: perhaps, take a selfie video and talk about nonsense, or take photos, or write a journal. Well, I dressed up today so I could take a good picture of myself. I’m still writing this entry, and perhaps I will take a video later before midnight.
And speaking of wanting to look good, I had my hair colored on Sunday (May 3) so I would usher in my thirties feeling fresh. I like how natural it looks, but somehow I wish I chose a bolder hue – medium brown, maybe, for a change. My four-and-a-half years in Beijing have definitely made me appear more mature. I looked like an innocent boy when I arrived in China at 25. I had my hair curled–funny days–and did so many hairdos that made me a head-shifting weirdo every season. In the past two years, for example, I grew so many gray hair that I even considered dyeing my hair a la George Clooney, but I wasn’t sure if I could pull it off. I didn’t have the Clooney looks too. The self-isolation period also had distressed me so much that I joke to some friends that I aged a lot in the first three months of 2020 compared to the past year!
My feeling of anxiety, surprisingly, did not peak during the pandemic but in between the spring of 2018 to the mid-winter of early 2019. That was definitely a dark episode of my 20s, one that drained my mental energies and partly affected my happy disposition. I’m glad that it is over and I can now think of those days without frowning anymore.
Tomorrow (May 7) is a regular workday and it’s forecast to rain. This day in previous years had either been rainy or overcast – and I’d always thought it was a sign of blessing from God. May marks the end of the hot season in the Philippines and rains at the beginning of the month signal relief from the sweltering March and April, when there are usually no typhoons in the country. More than this explanation, I don’t remember when I began this belief – but I’m happy that there is a “meaning” behind this date.
Tomorrow is the start of my second “new year” in 2020 and I take it as another opportunity to recalibrate my clear vision to focus on the things that matter. I see it as a poignant reminder of the concept of time and how fast it can be when we relish in the moments that bring us happiness and joy, and how slow it can be when we are swept away by or try to face head-on the forces around us. By the time I reached this point, it’s 9.41pm, and had I not checked my clock, I would have thought it’s around 9.20pm. It is marvelously weird that I will be 30 in just two hours – I’m waiting for midnight, but I’m too sleepy to wait for it. But I’m enjoying writing this journal that time seems to move forward so quickly!
Featured photo shows the fairy lights in Viva Mall, taken accidentally while I was preparing for a selfie.
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