It's a been a little over a year since I started this Blog chapter of my life. And not unlike most of the virtual friends I have met in this journey, there would be highly driven stages of writing where the inspiration oozes out of my soul; and there would be phases when I've all but given up writing altogether. You see here, whilst writing can be highly therapeutic, reading back your feelings in words sometimes feel like a surreal experience.
But why call an entire Blog "ALMOST BUT NOT QUITE"?
Well, the rest of my Blog Friends have taken up the courage to go for the A-Z Blog Challenge, meanwhile, back at the ranch, I will begin and end with A.
I used to fancy road trips with my parents; and typical of kids in long distance rides, I annoyed them with the only question I demanded an immediate response to: "Are we there yet?"
Sometimes, my Dad would patiently reply, "We're almost there but not there yet." I would go back to either sulking as I never really understood what that meant, or be more annoying and nag again, "How far is almost there?"
What kind of an English word is ALMOST, anyway?
References define "almost" as synonymous to nearly, practically, but not exactly, et. al.
Technically, it is a word in the grey area. It is neither hot or cold, but almost warm. It is neither black or white, but almost black or nearly white.
However, to my young mind, including my adult mind (that means now, I hope), I believe that almost carries a mystical meaning. It is a word that can never be wrongly used nor can it ever be politically incorrect. It is a safe word. Devoid of triggers and potential repulsive reactions contrary to other words that can be used in its stead. However arbitrary and vague, it is most descriptive in a peculiar sense. It carries a calming effect versus a straightforward, NO, NOT, YES, or TOTALLY.
I particularly chose this Blog Title as it generally signifies life experiences, my own and the sum total of the people I have met. It represents a continuous search for meaning and closure. Even at the point or peak of someone's achievement, they tend to always feel, there is more than where they are, or how far they've gone. Certainly, almost, but not there yet.
Whoa, had no intentions of making this post sound so darn philosophical!
I just really wanted to quietly celebrate my Blog's more than a year of existence; with a humble following, (whilst I quietly sip on my 1984 Chateau Margaux Giscours Cabernet Sauvignon and nibble on some walnuts, cheese and cherries) and since the molecular fibre of my being has not decided to join the rest of the universe where it originated from, I will always feel that life is a road trip, where every pit stop tells you that you're almost there, but not quite.
It has been almost a full year, roughly, by the end of this month, when by forces of nature or fate or whatever you prefer to call it, that I chanced upon Google forum's THE COFFEE SHOP. The experience has so much influenced me that it was the first post I ever wrote on this Blog: The Day I Joined The Coffee Shop
January 2011 was a critical turning point in my life. My mother had an accident that required a total hip replacement surgery. As a consequence of worry and anxiety, this period started my many days, weeks, of sleeplessness, coming face to face with insomnia and my long-term love affair with the Internet-verse, Blogging and loving it.
Perhaps most of you who read my Blog are part of this extended community in the Google-hood. And if you're not, damn shame, because whilst The Coffee Shop is still on its last stretch, how I wish you would catch it. This is where in this virtual landscape, that I met the most incredible, diverse, interesting, wonderful, obnoxious, intolerable and lovable people that ever banged upon a keyboard!
And then there's the Saturday Night Cafe' cum Bar cum Solace Nook. Where "souls" meet and sing and drink and dance or just pass through. Each soul carrying his own life stories; from the past, from the present and well into the future. A corner, practically a small dot in the Internet, where you get the chance to read about one's soul's search for meaning, relentless pursuit of true love, the start of a journey or the end of one, or simply, where one's soul speaks and another soul just listens.
Ay, there's the rub. You say goodbye, I say Hello. The thing about all good things and all bad things, they all come to pass. Pretty soon, if not right at this moment, the landscape will be changed. How things will turn out in the new landscape of virtual interaction is anybody's intelligent guess. Endings are commonplace, it's a given whenever there is a beginning. Some people would say it is the quality of the journey that counts not how it ended. Some people would say it is how you started your quest and why.
I prefer to keep whatever I have learned and built in the entire journey with me as I move on to the next, for very selfish reasons. I have met great friends and they will all be part of my life's treasures. And no one can take that away from me.
Someone did say something smart, sometime to somebody, "In the end we are all separate: our stories, no matter how similar, come to a fork and diverge. We are drawn to each other because of our similarities, but it is our differences that we must learn to respect." And this sums up my insightful experience in The Coffee Shop.
American film director Orson Welles has a most logical quote about story endings:
"If you want a happy ending, that depends of course, on where you stop your story."
