My First

Come to think of it, there are a million firsts that can happen to us as individuals. We can disregard the first kick in our mama's womb and our first wail when we came out of it.

Our mothers can count the first firsts for us, because we care only for the first love, the first kiss, the first time. (Not necessarily in that order.)

After that, the next series of firsts become secondary. The first job, the first pay, the first heartache, the first seething pain you never thought humanly possible.

Then we partake of the petty firsts. The first virgin, the first beer bottle, the first cigarette, the first car drive alone, the first plane ride to the moon.

For the (un)lucky ones, the first wedding, the first child, the first annulment.

Then we meet our first vehicular accident. Mine happened this morning at 6 AM with a jeepney. The old but pretty Civic suffered badly. I suffered numbness. Not of the body but of emotions. I felt nothing. It was nothing. I have waited all these months to shout vindictively at someone, to curse someone with the creative genius of a writer who curses in written color but curses auto-mute in person. But I let Mamang driver go unscathed in words and in deed.

The insignificance of this incident defies the word petty. There are bigger issues in my life that deserve this blog space for introspection. But here I am writing big about a non-issue too small for verbal assault.

Life has gone beyond meaningless I'm using chopsticks to eat cake. Literally now.