28

My 27th year of life.

Thinking back on how I thought it would unfold, it has had little to nothing to do with the way it actually turned out. There were lots of flight tickets involved, many rooms and trips booked, quite a few international weddings to attends, my family visiting as a whole for the first time in years. What seemed like the perfect year for outward exploration turned more into a chance to take a gradual journey inwards –I had many adventures planned, but I ended up embarking on many others I wasn't expecting.

Restriction of external freedoms and reduction of social opportunities enabled for a change to dig deeper into the own capacity for generating excitement, especially about the mundane, as a long moment of calmness and introspection spread out over months, only quietly disrupted by scheduled duties and routine. I have discovered a hobby that –based on the amount of brain space it has conquered– qualifies as a new passion. Exploring some new friendships that I have had the time and space to grant an opportunity, have developed in the most organic way possible, with increasing understanding and slowly unfolding appreciation and bonding. Additionally, I seem to have one the lottery with someone who is so wonderful in so many ways that I'd undoubtedly need a whole separate novel-length blog entry to accurately describe him. Transitioning from having practically zero idea to developing an acceptable basic level of understanding about this whole other exciting and promising medical field that I had never really seriously considered during my time as a student, I have felt satisfaction, which, in retrospective, signifies validation for taking this unexpected turn in my life. At this point, there is nothing I feel like I am not brave enough to be willing to try, any big change that I wouldn't be willing to face, if I felt like it was worth it. Last night at the bowling alley my system was overflooded with joy and gratitude and pride. I have a whole bunch of wonderful human beings in my life, they are all different and unique in their own ways, so they touch my heart in truly diverse manners. Still, they all share a whole lot of qualities that not only earn my affection, but my respect and my admiration as well, which makes me want to keep them close: hard-working, transparent, honorable, good-hearted.

I look back to October 2010. I arrived in Germany alone. I had no idea how my life –how I would turn out. But I remember being excited about it. Through a long process of maturation, self-discovery, mixed social experiences, good and bad choices and consecutive consequences, feedback, trial and error… I interpret my life to this day as the result of what I've ended up deliberately or inadvertently building, and I like it.

Happiness is the ability to appreciate the present. But some presents are louder than others, e.g. important occasions, which through their significance and transience grab your awareness and attention begging you to look at them through the lens of transcendence and enlightened consciousness. This has been one of them. I do not know what my 28th year of life has in store for me, but if it's anything like this last, I know I will have no regrets.

Popcorn

It was February. Days were still cold and dark. I was not enjoying work. I did not feel fulfilled, I did not feel like what I was spending so much time in doing mattered or was appreciated, or that I was living up to my potential. My heart was still bruised, struggling between moving on and longing for a past I'd only but with much effort and self-imposed resolution managed to finally put behind me. Loneliness was in check, but nonetheless constantly lurking behind the corners of my mind. The day I defended my doctoral thesis came with a furry ray of sunshine. Already the presence of both my parents and my best friend and their reassuring smiles and gestures constituted yet another reminder of my fortune. And then, as a congratulatory gift, came Popcorn.

She did not have to do much to win me over. She was beautiful, soft, delicate, and very much alive. Shy at first, she broke my heart running away from me, shrieking and shaking, to hide behind the trash can the first time I tried to end an out-cage excursion. She was terrified. I remember feeling helpless at what seemed to me an unconquerable barrier ―her and I both living in opposite worlds of cognition and size―, keeping me from making her understand how harm was the last of my intentions. Despite the initial terror, time and trust allowed her to become a bundle of the purest confident gentleness and innocence, not once biting in fear or aggression. Stared at with the appropriate sharpness, her at first glance homogenously black eyes rewarded me with the endearing delineation between pupil and iris. Nibbling passionately at her food, always held firmly between her front paws in an almost anthropomorphic fashion, she never failed to charm my friends as well. I often found myself smiling broadly or even laughing out loud in the quietude of my small apartment at the sight of her unraveling, never-satisfied bold curiosity. I learned to appreciate the sound of her little feet frantically tapping on the wooden floor, as she was on a perpetual, determined mission whose aim only she knew. Reckless, relentless. There was not a piece of furniture high enough to scare her from performing her back-to-wall climbing technique. She conquered everything, from the windowsill, to the top of the wardrobe, to my heart. She left no uncharted territory.

My life has changed in the last year and a half ―subtly externally, but quite significatively on the inside. I am happy at work, I have found joy in new behaviors and habits, new hobbies, wonderful new friends. The ache my heart was enduring is now but a memory. Days have been cold and dark. But at some point along the road, they have gradually started becoming warmer and brighter. At the end of each of them, she was the one beating heart waiting for me at home, and the responsibility of taking care of her ―keeping her alive and healthy― was invariably present. Through the course of one and a half years, every change I have been through, all bridges crossed to get here, Popcorn has been my sweet little companion.

My eyes have intermittently been swelling up with tears today. I cannot talk about her without my voice breaking. I know already I will miss her ―her nightly frenzy featuring the tapping, scratching, squeaking and gnawing noises that drove me crazy at first, but ended up becoming the most familiar soundtrack to my evenings and to the journey into my dreams every night. It is amazing how much you can love something so tiny. Illustratively speaking, even my heart is bigger than her. But maybe that is why she fits there so perfectly.

AphROADisiac

I think I am falling in love.

It happened unexpectedly. I wasn't looking for it.

Bittersweet goodbyes after time spent together. Excited anticipation before the next encounter increasing proportionally to the unfolding potential of experience. And then, butterflies. An unsolicited smile that can't help but to unfailingly show up on my face.

I am talking about road cycling. 

If it weren't for "corona", I would have gone to the gym that day, as usual, instead of attempting to reach a far up high village on my 30 kg city bike, failing miserably. I wouldn't have brought it up to a friend who happens to own a billion road bikes. She wouldn't have offered to lend me one to try again together that weekend. I wouldn't have done it, I wouldn't have had the experience. I wouldn't have loved it. And I wouldn't have bought my now beloved gravel bike —an undeniably gorgeous, miraculously light piece of wonderful German engineering. 

I remember looking at cyclists overtaking me with skepticism. The complicated gear, the aggressive position, the intimidating speed. I didn't get it at first. Now I might be turning into one of them.

Just in the last couple of days I have witnessed some beautiful, heart melting sunsets I would have otherwise missed. I have set foot (or tires) on exuberant fields and peaceful hills that, up until now, I had just looked at from city windows or bridges. I have witnessed flocks of different kinds of birds taking off ahead of on lonely roads as a startled reaction to my approach. For once, I have been the one taking over dozens of city bikes. A route that took me half a day to complete two years ago, I have been able to cover in just two hours today. The steepness of it felt like a stimulating challenge to be mastered, instead of an enemy that couldn’t be defeated. All the while having my muscles grind, my heart race, and my sweaty skin melt with the wind in exchange for a cooling sense of freedom.

What’s not to love?