for once

July 28, 2017

for once, I wrote for myself

 

A few days ago, I sat myself in my room. I have moved in there a little less than a year ago and I had never found the moment to actually move in. I sat on the floor and looked around the bare walls and tiny accents of memories I once lived and shared. On the floor, against the walls, some objects laid sprawled all over. Objects with meaning and some yet to be filled with memories. Empty picture frames, a half-filled box with textbooks I once read for my classes, a dying plant and running shoes which have been used only a handful of times. I sat there and knew I had to begin moving in. At the same time, I had to move out certain objects and wrap them up, carefully for the day I can move again into another place. To be perfectly honest, this other place will not be unfamiliar. That is a thought that makes my restlessness and anxiety disappear for a moment.

I wake up from daydreaming about the future. I grab the nearest object next to me; a picture frame with a picture from last summer. Two young adults, smiling for the lens of the camera. Not only are they smiling, but in their smiles happiness can be seen. It’s everything but acting. I carefully take out the picture and place it in a big brown envelope with my name on it. I had recycled it from a gift I once received. In the envelope, a letter and a book. A Christmas gift from the past, at this moment taking part in the present and future. Along with some n’importe quoi’s the pictures from the remaining frames took careful harbor in this envelope. I placed it carefully inside my desk, only to realise I still had remaining objects to place in there.

I started rearranging tiny bits and things like unused post stamps, little cards with memories on them, a little drawing of a sheep inside a box with holes I carefully removed from my wallet, only to feel disgusted at the thought that it would ever leave me, for it contained a short message I would carry in my heart for the rest of my life. A simple reminder that I’m not alone in this large universe.

Ah, the universe. I quickly glanced at a textbook on my shelf from this time I had a course on exactly that. Inside a universe, you can find all kinds of projections and most of all lots of space. Along with this empty vastness you can find galaxies, consisting of stars which contain solar systems, some yet to be explored. In one of these galaxies, you can find us, revolving around a simple star, called the sun. The sun, along with other stars, is a large sphere that radiates particles in every single direction. Nothing escapes these particles. I remembered the introduction to one of my courses on the history of science. A few centuries ago, humans were convinced the earth was flat, and a few centuries after that humans thought that we were the center of our solar system. That the sun and the other planets all revolved around us. To this day, nothing has actually changed, and people still believe that they’re the center of the solar system. To some, the center of the universe. Which is beautiful in its own way, to make such a rookie mistake about claiming the center of the universe for yourself. It’s a bold statement to make, but if an individual claimed to have these billions of stars and galaxies moving away from himself, he would probably be considered crazy. A marvellous movie idea. A similar scenario to the movie about the man who invented the lie in a world of pure honesty.

To rearrange the universe in such way, to consider yourself the center of it, would require great mind power and dedication. Imagine all the people you would have to convince. Most importantly, convincing yourself would be the hardest. Why you? What makes me special? What brought me on this path, where I will be the actual center of everything. The beginning and end of anything that goes beyond humanities knowledge. Well, I believe that certain people do believe exactly that. And as I sat there on the floor in my room, I was the center of my universe. With a simple stretch of my long arm I could grab anything in my vicinity. I quickly tossed away this idea, and went on daydreaming even further. What if, instead of believing that you are the center, you are someone’s center of their universe. Wouldn’t that be romantic? Or what if you think you are someone’s center of their universe. And that’s where it hit me. The cold, the darkness, the feeling of fainting and falling away. A hard reset. I lowered my arms, and stopped grabbing everything around, simply rearranging items from one corner to another. My head dropped, as well as my mouth corners. I took the brown envelope and went searching for the past. A ticket down memory lane. All in this brown envelope with my name on it. I stopped rotating, on the floor in my room, and along with it everything stopped moving, revolving around me. If I was the sun, the planets would’ve collapsed from their trajectories around me, the sun, the center of my solar system. Just like that, I stopped attracting the planets and they simply drifted into the vast emptiness called space. Never to be seen again. All that remained were tiny lights, scattered around my horizon, each growing dimmer with time.

I tried rearranging the last items, but my arms were heavy and I was weak. It’s as if my arms were sleeping. I tried rearranging the universe for someone, placing myself in their center. With heavy arms, and heavy mouth I got up and moved to the corner, in which I briefly sat. And realised that life is way more beautiful when you have one way to look at. Life as a planet isn’t that bad, you’re just rotating around your axis, while orbiting the sun, feeling it’s rays on every side of your celestial body. You turn around and look around, feeling the presence of the sun, the burning rays. I know now, how I’ll rearrange my solar system.

I got up from the corner, wiped a tear and took the roll of bubble wrap. Carefully wrapping in the memories of yesterdays. I smiled, while doing that. I felt that this was only part one. The other parts are yet to come, and one day I’ll unwrap it again. And when I do, I’ll be on a stable course around my sun. I took a last glance at the two young smiling adults, with their lightly brown skin. The sunglasses protecting them from the sun right behind the lens.