Chasing a heartbeat
At work, as I am sitting at a desk in one of the rows of white tables with monitors you can connect your computer to, I catch myself staring out the window. It's a big window, spanning from the ceiling to the ground. The rhythmic click-clacking of the keys on the keyboards around me remind me I'm still being paid to do a job here. And yet I can't help but stare outside longingly. I hear a sigh coming from somewhere behind me, I picture a colleague bent over their computer staring at excel rows. Somehow they are always bald. How did you picture them?
Suddenly I see movement and before I can blink, a white wagtail lands on the window frame. Well, 'window frame' is too generous since the building is just a concrete box and the windows are simply cut-out squares. The bird hops around on the window ledge and its tail bobs up and down and up again at a hectic pace. The sassy bird tilts its head a little, looking inside. I feel a smile pull on the corners of my mouth. Before I even have the time to take a good look at them, they flew off.
In that moment I felt my heart do a little jump, a bit like this;
˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗
…ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ
I remember when I first started my job I felt that little badunk-badunk quite often. When everything was so very new and I had to travel to the biggest city in my country, every little moment made my heartbeat rise.
I started thinking about the last time I had felt like that. Was it when I traveled to another continent? Was it really already five months ago? But I can't go to another continent every year... and do I really need to wait a whole year to feel like that again?
Where was that ˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗ in my daily life? What used to make my heart jump in joy?
It's an uncomfortable question and one that I have often evaded with an "but now I am older I don't have the time anymore to...". But as you get older, it even more important to hold onto that little badunk-badunk. Your blood vessels could use a healthy amount of shake-up now and then.
…ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ
I looked outside once again where that white wagtail was flying free, a stark difference with the the bare grey walls that surrounded me. I opened up my notebook and I wrote the following list:
▫ Learn skateboarding (or maybe just learn to not fall off a skateboard)
▫ See an old school japanese movie
▫ Go winter swimming
▫ Do something spontaneous
▫ Say yes to something you always say no to
▫ Go storm hunting (I do love a good storm)
▫ Walk through the rain and get soaked to the bone
▫ Sing karaoke
A lot of these seem daunting, as I am no longer in shape or as err youthful as I used to be. Now that I look back at this list, half the ideas seem more of a torment than a pleasure. My goal is to try get them all done by the end of this year. Wish me luck in the chase of that ˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗!
…ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ