turtles

I have this fascination for turtles.

Without knowing why I liked them in the first place, I would find myself just accumulating turtle stuff: plush animals, keychains, paperweights, wood carvings. My grade 4-Matimtiman class even gave me a pet turtle, naming him Squirt. Even Mark searches for these turtles, I'm sure. He's just always hesitating because turtles are, well, turtles. For most people, they're not cute. My Dad told me that Squirt (God bless his turtle soul) stinks. So that say it all..

I wanted to find a deeper meaning to my affinity to turtles. So I asked my brother, who is my consultant on all useful and useless infomation, "What's so good about turtles"? He told me, matter-of-factly, "They have long lives. That's about it."

Ok. That's a start.

I think I like turtles because they're slow. And despite this pace, they get to where they're supposed to be, be it at the beach where they'll lay eggs or out to sea, where they'll spend hundreds of years. Being slow was never a bad thing for me, specially if it meant that you were more certain of your decisions and actions. As I read in Contact, "Slow and steady, Ellie."

Much of my life has been, well, slow. I was never the bright student at the beginning, or the friendly one at the first meeting. But after sometime, when I've become more comfortable, I've also become more of myself, too.

Now, I'm in sort of slow motion again because I want to discover my life's passion. The way I'm going, I'm not really sure if my "beach" or my "sea" is in the horizon anytime soon. What's important though is that I'm moving, no matter how slow, and not frozen or worse, stuck.

Besides, if turtles can live hundreds of years, I've got a lot of time :)