It Only Took a Minute

A lot can happen in sixty seconds.

In a minute, the cells of an oxygen-deprived brain will gradually disintegrate and die. A significant unit in the human brain, lost forever.

In a minute, three hundred babies are born around the world. Every minute, fetuses are also being aborted.

It takes roughly a minute for your glands to secrete hormones that could trigger orgasm.

But one minute is like a drop of water in the sea, compared to a year.

One year in our lives is made up of 525,600 minutes of experience.

But you only need one minute for a whole year of your life to flash before your eyes.

June 19, 2007
11:59:00 PM

One minute before I turn twenty-two.

I step outside in the front lawn carrying a mug of hot cocoa, a stick of cigarette and a lighter. I stand near the gate and look around, trying to see if anyone else is awake at our house, wary should anyone catch me smoking. I can faintly hear the television in my mom's room, but I know she's already asleep and had probably forgotten to turn it off.

In a minute, another chapter in my life will begin. I'm still me, still in the same old house that we moved in when I was in high school. Yet, in that same year, a lot of me has changed. In a year, I've seen the highs and lows of humanity. I hung out with a crowd who could afford to never work a day in their life. I marched with throngs of people, shouting for equality and deliverance of the stigma that has been unjustly put on our heads.

I felt a rollercoaster of emotions. I felt the tension of having to prove my mettle in an exam that would determine my future. The elation of finally proving my worth and seeing the proud look on my parents faces. The utter despair of having my dreams yanked out of my grasp and held dangling, just out of my reach, by the very people who swore to uphold the tenets of my profession.

Thrice have I loved. Feeling the exhilaration of a new love, the pursuit of a meaningful relationship, the joy of finally belonging to someone. And the feeling of being lost in a sea of bliss and overwhelming emotions. But houses built on sand come crashing as the tide rolls in. thrice have I love in the year that passed in my life. Thrice have I also lost.

In one year, I've weathered conflicts, losses, intrigues and loneliness.

In one year, I've also found hope, family, courage and belongingness.

June 20, 2007
12:00:00 AM

I lit my cigarette, taking in a lungful of nicotine. I feel it travelling down my throat, and the usual lightheadedness that accompanies a drag of cigarette smoke. I look at it, the cherry glowing brightly, reminding me of the temporary escape that it offers to someone who has only to keep it burning. I realize it has been a year since I first inhaled my first smoke. A year of saying that it hasn't gotten into me, of hiding it from my family as if it's the one thing that I would never be old enough to do. I drop it to the ground and promptly crush the cherry against the sole of my slippers. I pick up the remains, still fresh and looking as if it has never been lit at all, and threw it as hard as I could outside in the street.

My next 525,600 minutes begin.