I had an epistolary conversation with one of my fellow linguists who after a few years of collaboration I now consider my friend. We were discussing his father’s situation. Unfortunately, his dad has cancer in a very advanced stage and he is currently investing his time traveling, visiting relatives and old friends, sort of going on his “Farewell tour.” I thought that idea was rather interesting, but my friend said if he were in a similar situation, he would love to go quickly, instead of knowing he was living on borrowed time.
I think I disagree there. If we think about it, we are all living on borrowed time in one way or another. I once fell asleep for a few seconds while driving, because exhaustion is a very dangerous thing we very frequently overlook. Fortunately, I woke up quite quickly and realized I was ok and I had been lucky enough not to die or kill anyone inadvertently – my car was intact and traffic accidents are a messy business. I had dodged a bullet there. Or, had I?
I often ask myself… what if I died in any of the many occasions I could have died, I didn’t realize it and this is all a simulation of my brain? He he he, we could get even more philosophical and get in the uncomfortable realm of the “Lost” conclusion [spoiler alert, everything is basically just a dream, although a true fan will have a lot to argument otherwise because it is not strictly “a dream”]. Everything could as well just be a dream. We are just products of the mind of a dreamer. Insert a couple more common places for when you want to get someone’s mind blown. Not a difficult feat to achieve when one is under the influence. Hope you are and enjoy my blabbering.
Well, this whole speech I just wrote is basically to establish that I believe we could all be living borrowed time. I once told my ex husband if I were a woman living in the middle ages, by now I would already look like an old lady, because I have undergone knee and back surgery, without which I am sure I would walk with a limp, and unfortunately I have lost three of my teeth, but my wonderful, wonderful dentist has worked wonders on me and you couldn’t even tell because my implants fit seamlessly in my mouth – ask me about my dentist, I will gladly give you her contact information in case you need a good prosthetic job in your mouth. He nodded and simply said “if you were a woman living in he middle ages, you would have died giving birth to our first daughter, before any of that you just mentioned ever happened.” And he reminded me of how traumatic that experience had been. He’s right. I would have very probably died there. Or if I hadn’t been so lucky, in any of the previous situations in which my life had been in danger.
Back to the conversation I was having via email with my friend, I told him about that one time when I was 21 and traveling with my family through Guatemala when we got briefly kidnapped. I remember back then believing we were going to be executed when they put us down on our tummies on the floor and then covered our heads with a blanket. Right in that moment I thought I was ready to go, and I was at peace with that idea. I have lived, learned, and had fun. It was a good life. This is it.
Luckily we were spared and I have been able to live 20 extra years. 20 years of borrowed time, if you think about it, and now when I think of dying, I think of my kids and I want to stick around for a long time to get to see their firsts now, I’m not sure I would be so calm as I was back then if I came to be face to face with the risk of getting killed. When my moment comes, I hope I can have the same peace I felt at 21 and reflect in my last few seconds “I had a nice life, a wonderful family, I got to go to bed almost every night after hugging and kissing the two most important persons in the world to me and there were a lot of things I didn’t get to learn, but who gets to do it anyway?”
Well, I have always been worried about the things one regrets. If you have read any of my previous entries, you have probably noticed this is not the first time I mention it. I am afraid when I get to be older I will regret I didn’t hug my kids enough; or that I didn’t tell them enough bedtime stories when they wanted me to talk to them, before they became teenage monsters and chose to ignore me; when I was younger I feared getting to be 40 and regretting not traveling when I had the chance to do it, before I had kids, responsibilities, a job and when I would be too busy adulting; I know I would have regretted that. So, although the ‘mindfulness’ thingy is so popular these days and one should definitely focus on the present instead of dwelling in the past or avoid living in the hopes of the future, I quite frequently ask myself “what will I regret doing or not doing when I get to be 45, 50, 55, 60…?” Oh, boy. The list is long.
A few months ago I started taking therapy, and as any new experience, I was skeptical and willing to stop the minute things got absurd. But I haven’t felt they have reached that point, and I am glad it hasn’t, because seeing a psychologist is not something terrible or for sick people, as it is often stigmatized in my country. It is a quite healthy and guided reflection process that helps you be aware of your actions and the effects they have. One of the current tendencies in psychology I have been able to observe, is the suggestion to encourage people to “let go off what doesn’t add anything positive to your life” or “let go those things that weigh you down and tie you to the past”, especially when the past is something you would like to change. The past doesn’t change. We do. If we want to, that’s it.
I have fucked up a lot in my life. I don’t know if I have fucked up more or less than other people. I don’t know if my mistakes are graver or stupider than the mistakes of other people. I don’t believe I should care or worry about the mistakes or life stories of other people, not even if they are in my closest inner circle. Right now, I believe in movement. Learning. Letting go. I believe in losing the extra emotional weight that, for a while, has kept me from being myself and had me acting as the fearful, darker, less confident version of myself that I definitely didn’t like. I believe I would have regretted not going to therapy at some point of my life without even knowing it. I don’t know if I am a better person – in comparison to my own self, that is – for doing this, or simply just a different version. Either way, I am not the same person. I am older, I am more experienced, more aware of how flawed I am, more confident of my mistakes, not because I am willing to repeat them, but because I know what they meant and what I have learnt from them, especially how not to make them again.
Many years ago I read somewhere this wonderful piece of information that said that the human body completely changes the number of cells in it every 7 years. I don’t know how that works, if that means every cell gets to be replaced, or only some are replaced and other remain, and the piece of information only referred to the amount of cells being replaced and not to their specific nature and function in our body. In any case, I was fascinated by that piece of information and loved the concept that, by then, I had already been 3.4 different Yitses. If our personalities had cells and cycles, I wonder how that would work and how often we could afford to admit we are different people from who we were 4 or 5 years ago. Our essences might endure, but I dare say the average person does not remain the same. That isn’t necessarily good – or bad. It just is. We are just human beings in constant evolution if we are lucky enough to choose to move, overcome and take advantage of our borrowed time on this earth, whether we’ve ever been in a life-threatening situation or not. We are nothing but the dream of a philosopher, we are all made of stars… insert any other common place you might think of right now.
