Shortly after, wanting to make myself useful and to quickly escape the "crime scene", I went out to take out the trash. The sky was already dark, with the first signs of frost appearing on the plants. I decided to take the long way around, breathing in that crisp, biting air of a new year.

As I walk in the evening, my eyes are drawn to the lit houses. And in every house, I find myself thinking, there is an entire universe. The universe of the people living there. Their relationships, their pleasures, and their pains. Their affections - often jealously guarded in the warmth of their own homes. Just like their secrets, their valuables, and their memories.

Where do they put their socks? I wonder if they, too, sometimes just toss them in like I did earlier. Maybe someone there is laughing, like my wife. Or maybe someone is starting to yell, as many others would. Or maybe there is silence - a silence worse than laughter or shouting. Is this a season of joy or sadness for them? What are their problems right at this moment? Are they cooking their favorite dish or some tasteless broth? Perhaps they are dreaming of going out to a restaurant tonight. Or, perhaps, they have other things on their minds. Has the new year started well, or are they still carrying the weight of the past year? And I wonder if they will still be there at the end of this year. Or if they will simply still be there, behind those lights, doing the same things they are doing right now. Focused on the same old things - or free, in mind and body, moving toward something new. Maybe folding their socks, absent-mindedly, getting ready for a new workday.

Lost in my thoughts, I run into a neighbor, who tells me about the beautiful evening he had yesterday. He had a clear, bright, happy look in his eyes. His son had come to visit, and they had spent the evening together. He shared his contagious joy with me, and I started walking back home. I looked at those houses again, thinking that they probably do fold their socks - always - maybe while thinking of something else entirely, remembering happy moments or dreaming of running away.

Then I see my own windows, the light on. And I know that behind that light is my wife, listening to her favorite music. And behind the other light is my chair, the one I am about to return to. Behind those walls is the life I have built. My universe.

I close the windows now; it is dark. I wouldn’t want someone passing by to think that I actually tossed my laundry in like that.

My wife was listening to some music, singing softly, relaxed.

I was writing part of a new blog post about doing something with NetBSD, also relaxed.

This, to me, is the idea of a party.

Doing something that makes us feel good.

Something positive for ourselves and for the people around us.

Not social conventions.

Not obligations.

Otherwise, it all becomes just another big performance - one more stage where we wear masks and pretend to be someone we’re not.

And yet, one day, we’ll probably miss some of the people we’re sharing the present with.

So let’s try to find the good in every phase of life.

Let’s hold on to what’s positive, with a smile and a bit of lightness.

Because it will pass.

And it won’t come back.

A little while ago, while browsing a completely different site, an ad popped up. It was for a property for sale, and I immediately recognized what it was: a small house in the complex where I lived for seven years. And it brought back to me why, still today, I have never finished watching a TV series I was incredibly passionate about: The Big Bang Theory.

I moved into that house in 2008. New, rented at first (then bought with a mortgage a year later), completely unfurnished. Little money, little time, little desire: minimal furniture. Suffice it to say that when I left it, seven years later, I had only installed two lights in the living room, two plastic IKEA lampshades. In the other rooms, still just bare bulbs hanging from the sockets.

I lived in that house almost entirely alone. In a new place, initially knowing no one. And yet, that house was unforgettable for me. Those were intense years: the internet connection didn't even reach 1 Mbit/sec download, but I had exceptional neighbors who became friends.

In that house, I laughed, cried, rejoiced, licked my wounds. I cooked everything imaginable. I ran network cables at three in the morning, alone, from one floor to another, giving myself lactic acid from climbing the stairs so many times. I lived through a very strong earthquake. I experienced great wellness and terrible sickness, with a 40°C fever and having to get up anyway to cook and buy medicine. My friends/neighbors insisted on helping, but that's just how I am...

In that house, I lived through moments of joy and pain, extreme happiness and heartbreaking sadness. A sense of satisfaction, but also of total failure. Absolute freedom, and loneliness so strong it was frightening.

I packed and unpacked suitcases hundreds of times, leaving and returning at all hours of the day and night. I dreamed, and sometimes, I achieved those dreams. I felt free, totally free. And also caged.

I had to sell it, even though I never wanted to. The pain I felt closing that door for the last time was indescribable. Because only those who have had to, or chosen to, move away from familiar places and people can truly understand what it means. How it feels. That sense of freedom, but also of loneliness. Of being the master of your own life, yet a slave to fate.

I love the house I live in now, let me be clear. I like it, I feel good here, I appreciate it. But that house was part of me - of a phase in my life that was unique, irreplaceable. A phase that will never come back. And which I knew – and in many ways hoped – would eventually end.

I would have kept it; I wouldn't have sold it. But it wasn't possible. I could never have afforded the other house (with its mortgage) without selling that one.

Many years have passed, more than ten, but I still remember every detail. The last evening, similar to so many others spent there, I tried to live it normally. But I knew perfectly well that the next day everything would change. So I watched the episode of The Big Bang Theory I was up to, turned off the television, and went to sleep.

Ready for the changes that would begin the following day.

And I'm still stuck there. I've watched Young Sheldon, but I've never finished The Big Bang Theory. Because, somehow, it's part of that life, of that house. Of that phase.

Sooner or later, probably, I'll get unstuck.

But not today.

Not tonight.

Who knows, maybe tomorrow.

Or the day after.

Or...

That all started with the Big Bang.