*Adapted from a personal journal entry* 🙂
There are some inevitabilities in life. Children are born. They grow into adults. They meet new people and travel to new places and have crazy experiences to later tell when they are aged and only have flighty memories left. People grow and change; sometimes they do not. Sometimes they allow themselves to remain constant because it is easier to do so than to face the realities of life that disturb them. People age. They develop illnesses of the body, or the mind, and decay like overripe cantelouppe at the beginning of August. It is a morbid thing –death. But, to think: for every one person dying that two more are being born, is a beautiful thing.
Growing up under the blanket of Hinduism, I always appreciated the concept of reincarnation. It is the notion of being limitless, cosmic. That you or I could be the equivalent of a celestial body or an unmoving sea. I value the idea that the ones in my life whom I love could someday come back to me. Still, I am incredibly lucky to never have yet lost someone distinctly near to me, never had to contemplate the gut-wrenching pain of not again being able to see and hug a parent, a best friend, or even a pet. And, truth be told, faced with that kind of pain — I am not sure what I would do.
I am an extremely vulnerable individual. Finally willing to admit it, the sort of child who cried when a part of her chocolate chip cookie crumbled into cold milk. I attach wholly and deeply to people, my dad dragging me out of the bed because I had to sleep in my own room. Today it translates into checking my messages numerous times in a day waiting for them to text, or writing letters that will remain unsent in their white paper dwellings glued to the back of an old journal. I occasionally wonder how many letters I will have to write to someone who has left for good, how long I will wait by the phone for their call when I know it is never coming.
Life comes in phases, rather like a pyramid. When we are young, it is about the buildup. How fast can I go? How many people can I meet? How much money can I make? How many plates can I bench? How many papers can I publish? Then at some point, we hit a peak and begin the descent. It is at this time that other facets of life become important. Someday, sooner than I think, I will yearn to call my parents from a faraway home. I will miss the way my legs could walk barefoot on warm grass for hours or how my hands would support the entire weight of my body. I will miss all the trivial details, only when they are gone.
Regardless of how it may seem, I am not writing about death — far from it. I am writing about life. The phrase is constantly repeated: you only live once, which I guess is technically correct, but also seems to be lacking. You actually live more than once. You live every single day, which is to say that you can live thousands of times. The catch is that you never know which life is the last. I have no clue who will be here tomorrow or which tomorrow will be my final opportunity, so I would like to live to enjoy each season for what it is. Swimming in the ocean during summer, reading by the fire in the winter, and in the fall, packing my biggest dreams and greatest fears in a suitcase to take me wherever that season may lead.
I am still in a very early stage of life; still navigating the way lush green leaves turn brown and whither away to fresh, clean snow. I understand that finding gratitude for the seasons of life does not equate to finding ease. The second I begin feeling comfortable, getting into a groove of relishing the sun on the back of my neck, the season will change and I will have the wind knocked out of me. Nonetheless, with the love and support of those around me, I have faith that I will learn how to wear boots in the frigid months along with the art of hot instant ramen. I will regain the air in my lungs again and again until, one day… I won’t. It is when that day comes, that I will look back on the calendar of months that blended into years and be at peace with all the seasons of life.
Happy Living xx
“There is a season for everything under the sun—even when we can’t see the sun.”
― Jared Brock
chocolate and politics 