It is so easy to ignore that it is finite, until tragedy strikes your world closer than what it’s shared in the daily news with the constant shootings, stabbings, and killings that get reported every single day. The war in Ukraine and Palestine simply have become numbness in the heart
In recent months a couple of friends were diagnosed with cancer. Two different types that can only affect women. They both had chemotherapy, radiation, surgery. Their odds seem to be in their favor and so far we think they still have time, time with us.
Most of the time when we are young , we don't even think of time as a commodity, as a luxury. We go through life ignoring danger, run risks that don’t seem that large, and waste our precious time over sleeping, over complaining, obsessing about work, thinking there will be another chance to do what we postpone, ignoring the signals that tell us not to waste opportunities; we may not have, after all, another chance.
I use to think that my time in this country I chose to live was never going to be so long. I used to wish I could go back to my country, live near my parents, my sisters, my friends.
When life gave me this cards to play, I could only see the near future. I have never presumed to know that I would have a long life, but it wasn’t even because of that. My objectives were only short term, not because I thought I would die young, but because I was very naive about consequences. I wanted to find happiness, and every chance I had to take it, I did.
First I wanted to love, with all my heart, and I did. Loving someone does not translate into happiness though, and so, I learned that I needed to be loved the way I liked to be loved. So I found a man that seem to love me beyond anything, that kissed me and held me just in the most perfect way. All we wanted was to be together, breath the same air, feel the same sun caressing our bodies. So I jumped into his life. I was in his country, and did not care about time, because I knew in my heart, that in time, I would go back home. But consequences are consequences, decisions made carry them and I just never went back.
Time gave me also the amazing gift of becoming a mother, and my two daughters were born and filled my time with the most incredible experiences. I was again only looking short term, thinking soon, I will be able to go back. Though I started to realize there was nothing to go back as I remembered it. Friends had move on, families dissolved, my parents divorced, some of my sisters too, people grew in different directions and environments were I had become a stranger.
Time changes you, and others, and slowly we stop having connections, we drift apart. Silence grows between humans, unless we use time to maintain the bridge, but our busy lives make us blind, and we put it off, for when we have more time. But time keeps running.
My mother then started to forget things, repeated same questions right after we just answer her, and soon what seem to be a problem with depression, became a larger monster, Alzheimer. And then I knew there was no more time, she only would walk deeper and deeper into the invented world she had created to survive her divorce and her loneliness.
I had time to get angry, to wish different outcomes, for me, for her, for my sisters, for all the people I loved. Time was gracious enough to allow me to go through this period of depression and rage, without bigger consequences, and when my mother died ten years later, I had reconnected with most of my family and the few good friends I had, but most importantly, I had reconnected with my husband, who had never gave up on me, even when I was lost in my own world of regrets, wishing I had more time to spend with my mom, my sisters, my dad, my friends back in my city where I grew up, that now I could hardly navigate with all its changes.
At that point, I had to think what to do with the time I still had left (since now it was evident that it was very much finite), how to make sure I did not waste it, I did not fall for the mirage that I still have plenty ahead of me.
It was time to repair my relationship with my self, with my decisions, with my life. Restore the bridge of communication with my daughters that were grown ups, and as all humans that grow, had also drifted apart to start their own lives,
I apparently had bad habits, wanting what I know I could not have, and rejecting what was there in my reach. So I discovered yoga, and begin a new journey, where balancing, flexibility, acceptance, patience, and trust became my new focus.
My mother died in the city where I finally decided to buy a small house, where I could go home for the winters. Not the city I grew up, not in the mountains or near the forest but near the sea. Nothing I imagine or wanted to happen has come to be on my older years. But I am not complaining, I am happy with this decisions because I finally accept my reality, and I have no regrets.
One thing is for sure: Time keeps running
