Life in your years
Three things in life are unavoidable they say — pain, uncertainty and hard work. Hard work brings fulfilment so I’ve grown to love it. Uncertainty, I’ve learned to manage and even reframe as excitement about bright possibilities.
What about pain tho? When there’s no one to blame, nowhere to run or hide, no way to numb. When it’s about losing someone, or a loved one getting sick. When it’s just pain and I, locked in a vacuum bag. Pain is all I got and the rest is void. The world can still see me. I’m in a see-through bag. Just the air has been sucked out of it and I’m deflated to a bare minimum. They might look at me and wonder. They might even poke me. But I’m in the vacuum with pain only.
So what’s there to do? How can I escape the void? I know the theory, I’ve read all the books. Just sit with it they say. Embrace it. Don’t run, don’t avoid, don’t distract yourself. Just feel it, face it. So there — it’s pain and vacuum and me. How does the sun touch the earth if there’s only the void of space in between? What if I rub into the pain? Touch it and let it touch me?
Maybe electric charge builds up — static electricity? Maybe pain and I start emitting radiation and the bag pops and the air comes through?! Then I can go out and make a life with this new energy…
It’s not the amount of years in your life that count, but rather the amount of life in your years
Maybe the amount of life is proportional to the fulfilment of hard work, the courage of embracing uncertainty, and the transformation after feeling pain…Who knows. I guess no need to know, better make the most out of the life we get.
P.S. Trying to make sense of the pain of losing a close person. “Life is better in the sky!” he used to say. I think he had a good amount of life in his years. You are deeply missed, Toma!
