Along the Way

Never have I set a life goal to become a person who is known as extravagant and prone to curious, inexplicable behavior. But there is little denying, however, that there is a sort of charm to the idea. I believe that you’d agree with me that breaking out of the boundaries of the ordinary belongs to life’s little pleasures.
Maybe it is for this reason that I am unlikely to forget the few travels that I have had abroad. All the more, that one night last summer when two friends of mine and I were walking down a street in Kaunas, Lithuania.
One of them was Alina, a girl from my study programme. She was a gentle, albeit reserved person. The other was Ozan, a likable Turkish student with a silky, silent voice and a cheerful smile. It was 2 am and we were going back to the dormitory after a modest concluding party to a two week international project.
The night air was cool and refreshing, and I was overwhelmed by a sense of joy that I somehow could not express in words. Instead, I merely fidgeted and jumped from one foot to another until my companions inevitably noticed it.
“What’s wrong?” Ozan asked.
“Dunno.” I answered
“You wanna race?”- he had probably misread my mannerisms for some warm-up exercises. For a moment, I was confused.
“Sure.”
And so we raced.
He was fast as hell.
Needless to say, I was taken aback, especially seeing how Ozan was considerably shorter. While I had a slight head start, he was soon a good distance ahead. I managed to keep up only by pressing every inch of my body to give it all. In fact, I might have outrun him, but at the time I was too involved to say for sure. Neither could Ozan, nor Alina for that matter, as she had stayed at the starting line.
While there is no actual morale to this story, I believe that it nicely illustrates how a little change in pace can both lift one’s spirits and become a pleasant memory to recall.