“There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven.”
– Ecclesiastes 3:1
I WAS waiting again, just like these past eight years. I was expecting giant colorful flowers in the sky that evening despite an earlier rain shower. It was always like that every year. But this is probably my first time to drink with my mother while waiting for the year to clock out. One-liter bottle down.
“Have you found it yet?” she asked me.
Suddenly, the booming noises, the laughing children and the singing, out of sync neighbors outside seemed silent. She had known my uneasy feeling of purposelessness for two years now. My sober self replied that I haven’t. She nodded, smiled and we continued to drink the night away. Eventually, she retired early. While as for me, I watched a year ender movie with a beer in hand.
But my eyes were not really pinned to the television. Rather, I was reflecting deeply on my friend’s suggestion for me to read a certain best seller about purpose.
For the simple mind that I have, I just wanted to refuse the fact that something so grand, crucial and personal could be fit and read about a hundred pages of a book. I did not want an answer similar to everyone else, like saying their life mission is to have some kind of occupation. And still, I needed an uncomplicated explanation. It was this very contradicting situation that trapped and plagued me for eight years – and counting.
Two-liter bottles down. Just like that, I was waiting for giant lights to come and rule the night sky, undetermined if I would last that long after drinking too much beer. And I figured, this exact setting is telling me what I was doing with my life – I was searching for a meaning that I had no idea about but I was willing to seek for it anyway. It sounded foolish, ridiculous to be precise, like nail-searching in a hay stack with a blindfold on. How do I even start looking for it? I certainly do not want to be an epic failure. Three-liter bottles down. Then, a churchly friend of mine texted a greeting.
“Happy New Year! Remember that there is always a time for everything.”
It came with bible verses from Ecclesiastes three. My limited mind realized that if everything had a purpose, then everything had a proper time. And that the only thing left for me to do, like every seemingly enlightened friend had told me, was to live, have faith in God and believe that someday, time will come that I will fulfill my role here on this plane, whatever that is. I understood that I, as a human who can never comprehend a divine being, can only wait – and hope.
This is what my mind has perceived: it is better to believe that God created a purpose specifically for me then find out there wasn’t any rather than live so blindly then regrettably find out there was. The only difference then, I figured, would be how I used my time. After all, time is the stuff of life and it is the one thing I can be assured of using for what I think is right.
I knelt down to the nearest window, looked up at the hazy moon and recited a solemn prayer amid the booming noises outside. I asked Him to have mercy on me, a mere soul among the millions, who does not understand his reason to be. I called my friend and thanked her for the simple yet beautiful text.
After which, I reached my limit and unintentionally went to sleep. I woke up late in the morning, suddenly realizing that I entirely skipped the fireworks I was eagerly awaiting. I had a huge hangover but somehow, there was this deep, burning feeling of awe. I glimpsed at the window, looked up and saw the bright, blue sky illuminated by the sun. It was a new year and the first morning sunshine felt good.
