Just a few nights ago, I was doing some work in the middle of the night. Felt super lethargic and stressed so decided to take a breather and naturally, looked out the window. I know I always mention how I prefer studying at night because I love listening to the quietness the night brings along with it. That night, I spotted a plane in the sky, taking off to wherever it was destined to land a couple hours later. Instinctively, as the plane ascended higher and higher up into the clouds, so did my thoughts fly along with it.
The imagery of planes really stirs this compelling urge somewhere deep within me to just leave everything, pack a bag, and go hop on one just so I can get out of Singapore and start an adventure, myself. Out in the world somewhere is a whole different population of people. Different timezone, different season, different culture, different sights and places to appreciate and admire. I'm stuck in this tiny small room with a mountain pile of books and papers in front of me, but compared to all this, there's something more. Life goes on right? As I'm typing down these words, one by one, someone is waking up and drinking coffee, reading newspapers and preparing himself for a brand new day. Someone else shares an umbrella with the person she loves, both squealing with laughter as they race through the empty streets illuminated by nothing other than tall lampposts, immersed in no one else but each other (It's raining now so I just got this thought hehe). Someone has just been born, someone's fulfilling life may just have ended blissfully.
I want to climb mountains, sit in small cozy cafes the whole day drinking cup after cup of coffee and people-watching, walk through crowds of people at the junctions of the busiest road in another town, explore hidden tiny street lanes, be able to smell the fragrance of flowers every morning that I wake up, be excited over snowflakes leaving their imprints on my window, wear a winter jacket and beanies and still feel the chill of the air, eat ice creams in winter just to see how long they take to melt (never), and just be somewhere where I don't have to care what I do because no one knows me at all.
Sometimes, or most of the time actually, we're so immersed in our own small little lives we forget that there's actually a whole gigantic large system that's happening beyond our immediate line of vision. I can see the expressway just next to my house, but this very single expressway leads to a whole transportation network of other expressways, linking all the obscure Singaporean roads to each other. The causeway leads to a new country that is Malaysia even, and from there we can always hop on a boat or aeroplane to pretty much wherever. Southeast Asia. Asia. Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, even as far as Europe and Greenland and Antarctica. The world. Even the universe and the entire galaxy, how small are we all as mere people?
Back to that particular night, as my eyes traced the plane, I wanted to be somewhere else, doing something else, creating new memories in a completely new place.
Wanderlust strikes again. And back to the books.
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