COLUMNS

The Extraordinary Ordinary Moments in Time

Amelia Avent

By definition, to celebrate is to acknowledge an important day or event with a social or enjoyable activity. What do you reckon? Personally, I believe it’s the intangible and immeasurable moments that live within the reminiscent filing cabinet in your head, only to be revisited in times of loneliness, that you truly celebrate.

Ivana Cajina on UnsplashAlex Motoc on Unsplash

Time is a familiar concept to all of us. I like to think of it as a person of angelic omnipotence who will define your life with breath-taking moments. Like the Grim Reaper, they observe you and unconsciously we look over our shoulder to see if we can escape the clock and steal back a few unmeasured breaths for ourselves. I’m not talking about living or existing. To be alive is to have a moment consume you, to project out of your body and into the world, knowing that when you are sitting at eighty years old, you’ll talk of that moment with such grandeur and stature, that others will smile with you.

Let me tell you about the extraordinary people who made me feel most alive…

Early September 2019, the frosty sun glaring through the classroom window, a room full of strangers who had absolutely nothing in common apart from the daunting fear of university, started to chat.

There were four.

One boy, who dished out compliments like they were raffle tickets, became one of the strongest characters I had the pleasure of knowing. Throughout

the deadline struggles, to the switching of careers, to battling mental illness, he carried everyone with him on his journey. He never surrendered to the demons that hung above him like the stars in the night sky. He instead used his pain to decorate the lives of others with joy, appreciation and kindness, a real artist. I hope you, in time, see yourself how we see you.

One girl, consumed with determination and desire for life, love, and success, but who was also intensely shy, became one of the most hardworking and loved girls of our year. She loved deeply; platonically and romantically, never crumbling from the heartache of those who left, but used it to rebuild her confidence and make known those who were important to her. She created hours in the day to make sure they’d get through. I hope time rewards you for your humility.

Alex Motoc on Unsplash

Another girl, who could create a comedy show from nothingness, had one of the most intelligent minds our generation had ever seen, and came to be one of the most successful and genuine women I’d ever known. Loneliness and defeat stuck to her for a while like a magnet, but she always

And then there was me; an outspoken girl with a funny accent who turned those beautiful strangers to best friends. Late September 2021, sitting on the green, feeling the last of the sun on our skin, a group of friends with nothing but each other, started to laugh. That was a moment I knew I was utterly alive. We had the world in front of us, but we didn’t want it, we just wanted that feeling of unapologetic acceptance to last for a little while longer.

And I imagine late June 2022, that group of friends will start to cry. Knowing our time was as extraordinarily ordina__ry as the people you see in the street. But it was ours, however short-lived it may have been.

I dream that, when we grow old either gracefully or disgracefully, we will talk so fondly of those moments with the knowledge that those strangers saved each other.

So, this is what I celebrate. And I will continue to celebrate those people who made me feel the most alive and where we stole back a flicker of time from time itself.

Dedicated to the people that saved me.