This morning the heat was full blast in Shanghai. I slept until around noon, sporadically tumbling out of bed to gulp mouthfuls of water in a preemptive strike against the evil forces of Hangover. Through the small seam under the curtain I could see the powerful rays of China sun, and I knew that it would be wise to spend the day inside.
Now it is 4 pm, and the sky is gray and filled with rumbling noises. About an hour ago, it opened up and literally hurled down torrents of rain. In a span of 20 minutes, the walkways in my complex were filled with small ponds of rainwater. The droplets attacked my window in a rough, pounding staccato. The trees danced in a rhythmic fury, and suddenly the day had taken a dramatic tumble in tone and feel.
Such are these little metaphors of life: nakedly conspicuous when necessary.
Never before have I felt that the moment in which I presently existed was this much of an inflection point. The next couple of months promises to serve up a healthy amount of change and evolution in not only my personal life, but for all those around me as well. I’ve humored before on many a previous post about how old I’m getting, but these past few days I’ve realized how very young I still am. I had likened myself to someone who had seen and experienced enough to take that next step forward; now I am aware that with that next step forward comes a host of new lessons to be learnt. Inevitably, they will be more complex and daunting in nature than those that have come before, or those with which I currently grapple and are seemingly so filled with pain. And at this moment, all of these realizations only make me want to escape as far away as possible, to remain in some cocoon of blissful detachment. I know this is not the manly thing to do, but can I still get an extension on my man-child days?
All I want for Christmas is that flying skateboard that Michael J. Fox had in Back to the Future II. Something like that would solve all my problems.
