The white soccer ball

Two days ago I received a message from a one time friend. I won't go into the details of how we sued to be close friends and how it all ended. Here's the thing though, he said he was sorry for reacting badly to something I should be sorry I did and he asked me if we could be friends again. Did I say yes? No!

Since last year or so, I've always wanted to go back and end things with him in a less bitter way. So that we both are happier and there are no ends left lose. So here was the perfect opportunity to do that. What stopped me was the sense of hope I felt when I saw his name. Not hope for love or some bright future with heart shaped clouds and candy rain. Those are silly dreams I didn't even have as a kid. But this hope that maybe I could go back to that time, when friendship, crushes and innocence existed in a less subtle or nonexistent way as it does now.

I'm not old enough to give up on something I haven't experienced. But I have, in many ways. Not given up in the real sense of the word, more like, I have no expectations. And while people look at me, shake their stupid heads and think I'm just being a typical teenager maybe I'm just being more real.

Today while going to work, I saw the florists I always see in the morning. Their customers are the living relatives of the freshly dead. There's a hospital nearby and a death would mean a small crowd in front of those shops. Today though, except for a shop or two, those funeral flowers were replaced by roses and hearts and soft toys. It's almost like today is solely for those lovers. As if the rest of the world stops turning today. People don't fall sick and they don't die.

I also saw a man, old, hair grayling. Clothes dirty. Unshaven for at least a month. He had most probably lost his sense following a tragic incident or just due to old age. But he had this white, perfect.y new soccer ball with him. It wasn't fully blown up, one side caving in. But he kept throwing it up and catching it while crossing the road and then kicked it up with his knee. Ad on this gloomy day, the rain clouds taking over, the sight just washed away the darkness. It reminded me that while I'm nineteen and battling the first steps into adulthood, he must be in his sixties and doing something the children of today rarely do.

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