do you want sweet and sour popcorn?

There comes a time when clothes do not determine your age.

When the age shows on the face.

Not just wrinkles. Not just the lack of adolescent zits.

It’s that look in the eyes.

I was walking back to the classroom with my classmates when I turned, and I saw that picture.

It was a picture taken by this National Geographic photographer; a picture of a young girl with such haunting eyes. He went back years later to take a picture of her again.

Sure, there were extra lines on the face. Expected.

But the eyes, the eyes! they stay the same.

It’s not the lack of excitement in them. It also isn’t the weary resignation of the world.

It was calm acceptance.

Do you understand what I’m driving at?

Acceptance isn’t resignation.

Acceptance isn’t a poker face.

One day the clothes you wear will not determine your age.

One day.

The world seems Bigger than both of us.

I went running just now.

There wasn’t any particular reason. I was walking home with my colleague, and we cut through the park.  It was windy. It was cold. It was relatively early – about ten plus.

So I walked home, then went back to the park.

There wasn’t any eureka moment. I didn’t feel very clear minded. It didn’t feel particular inviorgating.

I ended the rounds, walked around before sitting on a metal railing.

I figured I ended sitting there for a long time.

The picture of an onion came to mind. I remember I once tried to put on goggles while helping my gran peel the onions. That was silly.

We tear when we peel the first layer. We tear. We continue tearing. We tear more.

What happens when the onion is all peeled finished, to the core?

I wonder if we’d continue tearing.

I go through the same test again and again. I guess I have grown rather indifferent. Cynical.

I want to tear.

On a medical note, I got ill – rather spectacularly.

I don’t know the reason for this phenomena, especially when I never do so in other aspects of my life.

Right now, I feel brave only when I have a pack of tissue in hand as my sword and shield against the world.

The air hates me.