SPRING

Dear Wanderer, 

I sometimes wish I could turn off my consciousness. Life would have been so much easier to survive. Experiencing every moment feels heavy. Each emotion bursts open in my mind and swirls in my nervous system. 

Have my nerves weakened? Or has my brain burnt out? To be human is to feel. That’s the point of living! Yet I keep running from it anyways. 

This emotional fatigue is recent. Perhaps, emotional fatigue is the wrong word. 
 
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The dawn of spring — this dawn especially — brought something unusual for me. A realization that I have been living in airplane mode. Gliding through obstacles, gliding through happiness, gliding through every possible moment. And I almost forgot my life. 

Almost, until the spring made me realize I had hay fever. 

My nose tingles and I can’t help but sneeze. Sneezing is a break in the continuity of life. A momentary rupture in awareness, as if time had stopped, pulling me out of reality. My heart jumps a beat, and my mind loses its attention. 

It seems like you’ve been sneezing for a while now. 
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Sometimes I randomly wonder how life could have been if I didn’t choose this path. Or my mind plays tricks at 2 a.m., giving me alternatives for a conversation I had years ago. The past engulfs me every moment, because it has shaped my ideals, morals, experiences, and thoughts. 

And when I get  tired of venturing through the known forest, I step into a new one. 

New adventures, new people, new wildlife. 

The unknown scares me, but it opens the possibility of change. ‘Could have’ changes into ‘can do’. After I accidentally discovered we can imagine entire scenarios — me having friends, going out on a world tour, sitting on clouds etc. — it didn’t immediately seem like a threat. Maladaptive daydreaming, as it is called, is unsettlingly comforting. More appropriately, it’s helpful – A boring period in the day? No worries! Let’s imagine you on a motorcycle running straight through the waters. 

Until I realized I had come too far on a train that only goes forward. 
 
✿　.　˚　. 　 ˚　✿.
 
One fine day, when the flowers in my garden eventually bloomed, something very strange happened. Suddenly, I could feel even the slightest sensation, every second stretched infinitely, and my mind could sense every emotion, every feeling, every movement around me. 
 
I ran out to the fields, and suddenly my skin felt the tiniest dewdrops. The lush green air tingled on my skin, the sky filled my eyes with light, and the golden sun lit my face. 
 
And that’s when I understood. 
 
Spring has arrived. 
 
Spring doesn’t have a grand entry. It comes quietly instead. The present is ironically neglected, when it’s the only treasure we have. Neither the past holds you, nor the future speaks. The present fades away slowly, unnoticed. 
 
Contrary to popular belief, spring is far deeper than just rejuvenation or a reset. With the soft blowing wind, spring whispers the simplest secret to happiness – be present. 
 
Isn’t it time you catch the string before it slips? 
 
To the beautiful season of presence, 
Curiosity Genes