There was a morning, back when I was in middle school. The bus was turning up the school’s little hill of a driveway, and I was lying back, tired, trying to squeeze just another minute or two of rest out of the morning before I had to face an entire day at school. It was a typical morning, similar to hundreds of others before it, and probably after it. A completely unexceptional, worthless moment of transition between the parts of the day that actually mattered.

And somehow, for some reason, I realized all of that in that moment.

I realized I was living through the most mundane, unremarkable moment in time. A moment that would soon be forgotten by everyone on the bus, including myself, because what reason was there to remember it? A moment so defined by its insignificance that, in just a few more days, or hours, or maybe even minutes, it would be like that moment never happened at all.

So I decided to remember it.

I didn’t want that moment to not matter. I didn’t want that moment to be as insignificant as it was destined to be. I didn’t want it to be forgotten and therefore die, losing every effect it ever had on anyone who lived through it.

I couldn’t rescue every moment in eternity from its inevitable oblivion, but I could rescue that moment, on that one day, on that one morning, on that utterly insignificant bus ride before school.

And so I remember it. I remember all the silly things that were going through my head as I made that vow of remembrance, which I’ve now shared here (without too much extra dramatization—I was a dramatic child, inside my own head).

I remember the feeling of defiance that went into the act, the feeling of struggle against an impossible enemy—eternity itself. The feeling of borrowed/mutual insignificance, because I too was just screaming against the void of Forever. Someday I would be forgotten too, and the world would move on as if I never existed.

But for now at least, for just one lifetime, I could remember—and therefore keep alive—that one insignificant moment.

I’ve just about finished playing Tears of the Kingdom, and the current state of my life leaves me wanting to write an introspective blog post. Specifically, a follow-up to my Sprint System Retrospective. (Which itself was a follow-up post, so I guess this is an entire series now. Mark it, it’s canon. Let’s get an official label on this thing.)

Sometimes, very rarely, when I wake up in the middle of the night to pee, or if I get out of bed immediately after waking up in the morning—for the first minute or so of being awake, my brain won’t think in words.