Olēka

Today will slip into nothingness. It's just another day. Another moment in time. It is likely to become meaningless. A blink in time. As that blink goes by, it may seem important or meaningful. It may feel like your entire life depends on that blink, but it doesn’t. You‘ll likely lose it as the seconds in a minute. After all, there’s 86400 of them in a day, and no one can recall them all. Then something happens. While we forget nearly all of those seconds, a few will stand out. Some will even last a lifetime. Those moments feel so far apart, but those moments are what we live for. Those moments remind us to treasure life. To live in the now, and to learn from all the other seconds. After all, without the meaningless seconds, we could never truly have the meaningful ones.

Without Edison’s seconds, we’d never have the bulb.

Trial and error. Ticks on a clock. Life seems to be slipping through our fingers, but then it doesn’t. You graduate. You meet your spouse. You get married. Your first child comes home. You get that lifelong career you’ve been wanting. These moments show us that while most of life slips away, it is worth it. Worth it to teach you. To guide you through the darkness. To help you gain wisdom. To teach you after making a mistake.

So with the blink of an eye, the light of a bulb, and the tick of a second, remember; Remember that life is in moments. Moments you may not realize. Moments that scar. Moments that teach. Maybe today will be one of those moments. Or maybe it won’t. Even if you think it will.

My life has been full of moments lately. And many of them I thought would mark me for life: Turning 21, getting a new job, the birth of a niece, meeting some special people, and loosing some too, and moments leading to the unknown. All moments. What scares me is the fact that some of these could become meaningless. Lost as the seconds on a clock. The pain this causes scares me. As if I’m wasting time. But then it doesn’t. The hug of a sister, a conversation with a parent, the tears of a friend. These moments teach me that we are all progressing. Attempting to move forward. To achieve. To succeed. To win. To love. To give.

Lately, I’ve been saddened by the other moments. The moment I fear will slip away. The moments that will slip away. the moments I wrote down for the books, but will instead collect dust. These moments are just a part of reality. They show us that we try. And fail. And try again. They help us. They guide us. And we will forget them. And that is the flaw of humanity. We forget the meaningless seconds that turn us into who we are. They help us to be aware of how few days are memorable - Olēka*. If you can remember that fact, that Olēka, then you can remember that this very second, while meaningless, is worth it. I blinked right there

and could’ve made a friend

I blinked right here

and made one too

I drove to work

and drove on home

I made a meal

and washed the dishes

I cleaned the house

and went to bed

I woke up early

and went to the store

I blinked right there

and met the one

I bought my food

and went back home

I called them up

and we went out

I drove to work

and drove on home

I made a meal

and washed the dishes

I cleaned the house

and went to bed

I lived my life

and missed the moments

I lived my life

and had my moments

*Olēka is one of many intense concepts I look forward to writing about in the future. The dictionary of Obscure Sorrows defines words like Olēka, and I am grateful for the perception words like this bring into life. I did not come up with this term, but simply decided to add my own experience to this word.