There is only one phrase that reverberates through the corners of coffee shops and bars: same old, same old. And I used to think this was a flaw, and perhaps, it still is: to not tell others how you are in earnest is the cause of all fights between lovers, all schisms between friends, and all feuds, in general. It used to baffle me because if I remembered someone to be out of sorts and met them a year later, they repeated the same beat. How does nothing happen in an entire year? It did not make any sense to me then. And now, it makes perfect sense. Now, there is so much new that I could keep writing about it for years. Only, there is just not anything to tell anyone about, for no matter how good or bad something is, telling someone makes it worse. The good wanes quickly when shared. The bad goes to worse in just about a quick moment or a quick, audacious question.
And from this point on, I understand all those who told me nothing had changed. If I were observant enough, I would know it, and if I could not, well, what is the use of giving me an opportunity to take it away? So, let us rejoice, talking about nothing in particular. This banality is our happiness. The coffee is coffee, always warm and necessary, and the weather is the weather, always changing, always glorious, always beautiful. We do not need to talk about anything if there is just so much to experience. Let us first go through life, and when we’re old and we’re tired, maybe just then, we will be able to talk about what we remember. And what of everything we forget? It shall forever belong to us. I do not want to tell anyone about anything anymore. I do not want to share who I am and what I am. There is little other people can do about anything. That is all they are good for: to run into on the street years after months and years have passed. Those who know what is new will know it already.
My days are my own, in my hands, safe and secure, and the trouble that keeps coming now and then, keeps leaving now and then, too. There really is no use in talking about it, so I add to the echo. “Same old,” I chuckle along, “same old.”