So much time has passed. I am so aware of time. I am aware of death. Death with a capital D. Scared is what I feel. Rushed. Feeling like I have to fit all my freedom into the upcoming 5 years. Then I will probably have children and need to be this outstanding parent who is great at regulating her emotions and is always available and has enough money and has her own purpose and her own career, does the cooking and the cleaning and the cooking needs to be outstanding every time and I’ll need to make it somehow and vegetarian and with meat and I need to somehow show my children the way. The way of life. While, do I have an idea?

Maybe it comes down to what a friend of mine said. My philosopher friend who is 20 years older than me. Your parents did what they could with the tools they had. Forgive them. Maybe that is what is going to be like for my children. I will make mistakes. I just hope they won’t hate me.

I hated my parents. All of them. All four of them. I was done with them. So mad at them. I wished for more attention, more time with them, I wished they could hold space for me, I wished they were able to say they loved me, I wish they had enough money to buy me clothes that I didn’t have to wear in 4 consecutive days. I wish they were just there and would still be today. I still have two. That’s something. I wish they would call more often. I wish they wouldn’t push me about subjects like politics or pollution but they do. They get to be who they are and so do I. This will be the same for my children and I.

I will never be good enough. Because that is just simply not the human experience. We make mistakes. We say sorry and learn from it, which would be the best outcome and sometimes we make mistakes or others make mistakes and we hold on to it. My god, I’ve been doing a lot of holding on to it. It might be time to let a lot go. Just to let it go.

Let the idea go of growing older and fearing death. Letting go that I am losing my mother all over again since so much time has passed and I am longer alive than that I have lived with her. Letting go of comments, letting go of moments of being too late or choosing a boyfriend that did not suit me or deciding I wanted children with a partner that didn’t feel like love.

Letting go of a horrible choice that I didn’t want to make but did. Actually starting to free my mind for other thoughts. Thoughts of love, understanding, compassion. Thoughts of hope.

Let me just think of hope. Hope looks like building the family life I have always wanted to live. But I will never have it. Plus, holding on to one thing to make me happy that is in the future won’t make me happy mindfulness said. Probably. It might enrich my life but my happiness is not depended on it.

I keep feeling very very strongly about it. It feels even a bit suffocating. I am losing sleep over it and I am planning for it. But it is also good for me to let it go. Let the goals go. Let it be. Let it rest. Enjoy what is here. Because as the song says is: ‘Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it is later than you think’.

I guess that is what I am feeling right now. In 12 years I will have lived as long as my mother got to live. 12 years is also the exact amount of years I got to spend with my mother. Time passes so fast. Since I have already spent 18 of my years without her. I say ‘spent’ them as if I am responsible for them. I mean I wake up every day whether I want to or not and I am very happy I do. It’s just I breathe and I eat, I sleep and I do try to take care of myself and I do take responsibility for my own life I suppose. I just feel like there are so many factors to your life and I really am utterly convinced that you are not in control over your life. There is a bit of luck involved, others are involved, the butterfly effect is involved, bad things happen, sickness happens, job loss, memory loss, accidents… So many things can happen. You can bump into a stranger and they can become your friend. Someone can give you good advice, something might happen, the snowball might start rolling… Life is full of opportunities.

Movies don’t make the bad character just bad any more. The character has a back story. And yes, it makes the movie so much better. Why you say? Because it is much closer to reality. A person is not just delightful, neither just deceitful. A person is not only jealous nor always completely welcoming. I don’t think they are. People must have their cranky days, must have their wicked ways.

We’re are all human and unfortunately not all at peace all of the time. Maybe there are exceptions but I don’t think there are. Even the buddhist practice patience. There you have it. They practice which means they must have their worries, their struggles. But they train the mind. Which is exceptional.

I am so lucky to be able to train my mind. I am lucky to be part of this life. I am lucky to speak two languages. I am lucky to live in this little city in Europe. I am lucky to own a bike. I am happy where I am. No need to move to the big city, no need to move across the sea. It’s just me and everything around me. And I am not even at the centre of it. My experience is. But I am just part of nature. Of everything around me. This earth and this universe. How lucky I am to be able to spend some time here. Soon it will be over.

Nobody else will have my experience. Other generations will have had different experiences and new generations will have other experiences to come. But for now I am here. And I am happy to be here.

It brings me to tears.

I hope you are happy to be here.

Take care. I hope you are doing well wherever you are and until next time! X