Still Life

My mother detests that I keep watching things that don't add any value to my life. She is concerned that I am wasting time on meaningless things like the movies and shows she keeps finding me watching. Her concern is only right but also unfair. She only finds me watching movies but never comes when I am doing something meaningful. That is still a mystery to me. 

As time goes on, I keep wondering about what is really meaningful that could make my mom let me be. But when I take time to study but there happens to be a piece of paper or banana peel, I postponed throwing later, I am nagged. It keeps on getting confusing. Are there priorities in what is meaningful? 

I am reminded of a time when a friend wanted me to help her with her blog and write about myself. I love writing so I got to it immediately. I racked my brain thinking about my life and what I would write about that could be entertaining only to be told that my story had no center. She couldn't understand anything about it. And there I thought we were friends. 

My story wasn't concrete enough, so she said. She wanted something deeper, something someone can relate to. I could only laugh. Was there a right answer to what someone could talk about their own life? I am not going to cultivate a life I haven't seen how the sun rises in it. There isn't much that has happened in my life that I wonder if I really have lived it well. Others have stories worth talking about. Meaningful stories that other people can relate to. 

I have lived a lot in my head and that's how I have come to write stories and poems. All emotions I have felt have only shown in words that haven't left my lips. I can't write a book on the things that I have done because even the cameras would tire out from my still life. Day in and day out it is still the same as though a picture in a frame. But I also have stories to laugh about that are more fun than yours. The only difference is that you have lived them while I have only dreamed them. Mine are bound by nothing while yours can't escape the borders of the world. In life, I would be like a project that tells other people's stories not its own. 

I'm still life, but I'm movin'
Just live now, goin' forward, yeah - Still Life by RM

My mother could be right that maybe this life of mine could be being wasted by this owner who seeks liberation. There are a lot of words here that you are reading. There is nothing else I have done since I woke up that could be deemed a step towards my future aside from what you are reading. By the way, good morning. The frames of this canvas are starting to shake as though to break. Have a good day.

Note:

The title Still Life is drawn from Still Life by RM. 

“Still life means an inanimate object. As a non native English speaker, I interpreted the words as ‘Life Still Goes On’. Even though the picture is stationery in frame, it is still alive. I wanted to talk about life ongoing, moving away from fixed canvas.” - Genius. 

In the case of my story, the song would be about a life that seems to not be moving yet it is moving. Even though there seems to be no progress, life still goes on.