A Beautiful Night

Yesterday was hectic and tiring. Work wasn’t stressful but I had some things on my mind, which means I stressed my self out about nothing. Then the tiring journey back started and I was reading Perks of Being a Wallflower on the iPad while chatting with someone who people should pay me for being friends with. No, he’s not some difficult person you want to punch every time you see him. He’s an amazing person and we talk about the lamest things on Earth. Yesterday we were arguing about How I Met Your Mother and how it could be compared to the oh so sappy love stories by Nicholas Sparks. Needless to say, I won the challenge. Anyway, swiping through facebook and twitter and iBooks, I was slightly depressed. Rereading Perks, I was now at the last few pages. Where Charlie is depressed and it’s so difficult to read about another’s depression and not feel sad about it. Then I realized it’s been ages since I left work, it was dark out side and I look outside to realize we are still in Wellawatte!

So by the time we got to the New Galle Road, which meant the sea, the night sky and ten more minutes before I reach home, I was exhausted. My eyes were aching since I read for more than 1 hour, with terrible lighting, and I was ready for bed. I was also extremely hungry, and needed to answer a call of nature. I opened the van window just a bit because I love that salty smell of the sea and loved the feel of the wind on my face. It was just the sea and I and it was pretty amazing. The sea was dark and there were ships in the distance. But then I noticed the sky, and God! The sky was perfect. It really was. It was really dark and cloudless and there were so many stars everywhere. It was perfect.

And I hope you won’t judge my taste in music based on this but the song, “it’s a beautiful night, we are looking for something dumb to do, hey baby! I think I wanna marry you” started playing in my head. Because it was the kind of night to do dumb things. But while I kept ‘playing’ those four lines in my head, over and over again, I didn’t think of a certain someone. I didn’t think of just one person I would want to share the night with, to count the stars. There were many I wanted to share the night with; I wanted to share it with everyone I knew.

And that’s the beauty of such nights. You want it to be about everyone, not just one person. And in Perks, Charlie says, at one point, they all felt infinite. Such nights do make you feel infinite. So I enjoyed the night sky until the trees got in the way and the buildings got in the way and the clouds finally got in the way. Then I got home, and heard bad news after bad news. And I watched HIMYM S9E2 which made me sad again, and I made the HIMYM v Nicholas Sparks picture for the dumdum and finally my grandmother got back home and I had ice cream so I was happy. But I couldn’t stop thinking about those stars.

I sent the Bumbles a message not because I was sad, but because I hoped I could somehow share the night with them. All of us, in our different corners, going on with our lives, but the sky was beautiful that night, for all of us.

And today I heard a bit more bad news and my head aches a bit and my body too and I have so much of work, but yesterday’s sky just won’t leave my mind.

Which led me to realize something else or rather remember what I realized before. I was reading Perks and I can’t remember which paragraph it was, but it said something which made me realize something. You know how we always have these things we regret or wish we had never done? And it keeps bothering us because it proves we are useless or worthless or whatever? So there were a few for me, such moments, things I wish I never did. And those memories kept making me feel guilty. Then I read that paragraph and realized it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered because life was beautiful and didn’t deserve to go unnoticed. Why let memories haunt you when you can instead make new memories?

So that night, I went to bed tired and feeling a bit queasy. And I was worried and sad. But that sky! Ah! That was enough.