Lifetimes
For all the lifetimes I thought would last a lifetime, but ended up lasting their lifetime. For all the chapters I thought would end my book, realizing I’d never passed the Preface, the Forward, the Introduction, the Table of Contents. The linearity of life has become a house of mirrors. The woman looking forward, backward, wearily bewildered sees only glimpses of her original somewhere beneath all that evolution, disillusion, in-conclusion.
I walk the streets, passing by the lifetimes I’ve once lived, smiling as others immerse in all their firsts; first loves, first homes, first marriages, little ones unloading from the family car, holding mom’s hand, faces dripping with chocolate ice cream. First day of daycare, kindergarten, high school, graduation. Waving their sons and daughters off as they embark on their next lifetime. New homes, new loves, new adventures. I’ve done it all and grieve those beautiful days gone by, realizing many of those firsts were also lasts, but thankful to have experienced good lifetimes even though they are no longer this lifetime.
As I wave good morning to passersby, I’m hoping their lives are long, colourful, progressive and abundant, but that their lifetimes are few; that tasting life fully will not involve loss, pain, change and struggle. We know the cliches and wise old sayings: That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, from struggle comes strength, no pain-no gain. While I and so many around me are living, breathing examples, there is a saturation point and we get tired. Sometimes, we need the universe to take a timeout with the lessons.
Change is inevitable, so I am growing wise enough to realize the impermanence of it all. I’ve removed the romanticized lens’ in my rose-coloured glasses to refute the possibility of for-ever. There is only for-now, bitter as it tastes on my tongue to acknowledge it, but with any luck, I will have more lifetimes. Bloom, I will, but inevitably, layers of lifetimes must wither and fall away to usher in the new and tender. I’ve lived each lifetime, with their abrasions, soft corners and frayed edges, and each time, completely engorged with love.
Uncertainty chasing me, coaxing me to love the uncomfortable, the anticipation of unknowns, the formidable unease. The journey of shedding my skin and becoming once again, a tired but necessary one. Too many days of late, others’ lives around me painfully stripped of anymore lifetimes and I reflect on my own gluttony; the worst kind, where you believe you have time. It is all I have to remind me of the gift of new lifetimes; to add another stroke of colour to the canvas of my life, to nurture a velvety new curl forming at the centre of this flower’s corolla, to share the first words of this book’s next chapter. They require being alive, being a life, full of lifetimes.
Parting the soil, nails thick with black, clawing deep in the cold, damp earth, I sprinkle the rich ashes of lifetimes passed. It is there in the quiet and calm of release that I will rest, reflect, rediscover, and create my next journey to joy.
