Yesterday was December 7th

Like every Sunday, I began the day with the same ritual: a quiet cup of coffee in a corner. It is not the taste I love the most. It is the short pause it creates, a small opening in my mind, a moment where I step out of life’s noise and return to myself.

After finishing my coffee, I walked toward the restroom and noticed a long row of tables in the distance. Dozens of people were sitting across from one another, each holding cards with a strangely serious look on their faces.

At first, I thought it was tarot. The colors of the cards, the way the tables were arranged, the way people stared at each other made it look like someone was reading a fortune while someone else waited quietly for their future. I even wondered if it was some sort of group tarot event. They were playing with such focus and precision that nothing else felt possible.

But then I saw curious children leaning over the tables, and I realized something did not fit. Children do not gather around fortune telling. They gather around games.

I stepped closer.

And then I saw it. They were playing Pokémon cards.

Most of them were adults. Not kids. People who had carried the weight of many years, yet with a few pieces of cardboard they were opening the door to a completely different world.

As I watched them, I began to notice something beautiful. The excitement of placing a card on the table, the small calculations running in their minds while they waited for the opponent’s move, the creatures they imagined so vividly felt like a bridge between childhood and real life.

And at that moment I asked myself: When was the last time I played a game?

How long had life pressed down on me like an endless list of tasks? How long had it been since I allowed myself to feel the lightness of play?

Those adults reminded me of something important. Age, seriousness, work and responsibility do not erase the human need for play. If anything, the heavier real life becomes, the more the mind seeks a quiet refuge of imagination.

Maybe play does not belong only to childhood. Maybe it belongs to survival.

The imaginary creatures on those cards were fully alive in their minds, and seeing that made me smile. Even as someone who was only watching, I felt a little lighter.

And I thought to myself:

Sometimes we need play in order to carry the weight of reality. Play is not an escape. It is the way the soul repairs itself.

When I got home in the evening, I opened my history notebook. On the page, one line stood out: