Getting older has its bane. These days, I forget easily. There are much to think, but there are less time to commit everything to memory. And in the process I threw away what is essential and kept what is irrelevant instead. Long gone are those times when we stop and ponder and marvel at the banality of our lives. But I am trying.
I know that in the eve of your 27th birthday you wanted to celebrate it in your own way – in solitude, trying to recover some quiet moments. So this time, in your absence, I try to mythologize all the strange roads that we once walked – supplanting the half-remembered nostalgia with an allegory of my own making.
I remember the walk we walked on one night on that alley where we found a kitten, lost and alone in the darkness of the bushes. You told be to throw a cat food that I bring in my pocket. You were worried despite my insistence that it would be fine.
Sometimes I think of us as the kitten. Astray, wailing for its mom. We think it won't survive. But help did come. It survived. The kitten turned out strong despite its apparent helplessness. And so as it survived, we survive.
You survive.
Because you are strong.
Sometimes stubbornly so.
I also remember that time when you once walked for a couple miles, under the scorching sun and the heat waves. Few hours later you were still able to dance it all away, with multitudes of strangers, on the dancefloor in the night market.
I once likened you to the bristlecone pine. A tree that thrives under the cold, harsh gale, yet lives longer than many civilizations. I still think that you are.
A bristlecone pine won't die at 27. 27 is the age when rockstars often die. I think I kinda know why. 27 is the forking path where you can no longer using youthfulness as an excuse. It's a prelude for a full-fledged, well-functioning adulthood. Things are getting more pressing. Societies are more demanding. New expectations are coming. The road that we walk will be harder, perhaps even more punishing. Some people try to resist this, and they crash themselves so hard they destroy themselves in the process.
But I know you are strong, strong enough to walk any road.
That's why I want to walk with you, to watch your figure from behind.
It does not have to be in a faraway land, or places that we dream to walk. I don't care if it's Coburg, or Shimogyo-Ku, or Ubud, or Santorini, or Setiabudi, or Gang Gloria, or Pasar Klewer. I don't care if blisters and cramps come as they may. As long as I walk with you. As long as I walk with you forever. As long as you are happy walking with me.
So, happy 27th birthday, N. May you always be happy on your every journey. I promise I will remember this.
The world gets older, N, and so must we. But if the world gets colder, we must not.
