It was late. He just got home. Day after day, he’s feels so guilty of feeling tired. Guilty that he felt like he didn’t do anything. The lights from the streets smeared all over his room, casting the shape of the windows onto the walls. Just in that moment, he heard music faintly playing.

Met you by surprise,
I didn't realize
That my life would change forever
Tell me that it's true,
Feelings that are cue
I feel something special about you
Dreams are my reality,
A wonderous world where I like to be
Illusions are a common thing
I try to live in dreams
Although it's only fantasy

He thought his tired mind started playing tricks with his ears. He took a deep breath and tried to figure out where the music was coming from. Later he found out, the music came from the earphones that were plugged into his phone.

As he reached out for it, the music suddenly stopped. He got a call from a longtime friend. A friend from far away. He picked up. The both of them just had their meals but they were on opposite sides of the world, in different time zones. There was a lot of silence between them. They were tired, but they understood. One was in a place where he felt trapped, wanting to feel free. The other was in a place valued “freedom”, yet he only knew the feeling of being trapped. It was strange. They spoke as if they envied people who could be proud of what they were doing, people who would actually fight for something they believed in. It wasn’t that they weren’t proud of what they were doing, but rather that they weren’t sure what they could be proud of.

“I guess we were just brought up like this.”

They knew they needed to do something about it, and maybe they did, but they still found themselves asking, “Why does it feel like I didn’t do anything at all?” There was no guilt anymore. No disappointment. No sadness. Just a feeling somewhere between frustration and a longing for change. Maybe they had to become someone they were not.

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