Three days 46 years ago, I was born. If we are lucky to live up to 80 years old, I will only have 34 years left to enjoy this journey of life being human. My own father left this earth at 64, too young for my comfort. I wish he had the chance to see me get married, and played with his grandkids. There has been a lot of realisations and awakenings this year. From knowing exactly what I cannot stand, to setting my boundaries with relationships around me, to knowing how deep a trauma my own Mother had actually instilled in my childhood due to unconscious parenting. In her eyes, I was never good enough, constantly being compared to so and so. I defied her wishes just because I did not stand for her beliefs and never wanted to conform to what she wanted me to become. For that, I was never good enough, because I was always disappointing her, letting her down on her desires of me. That gradual imprint has left its mark on me, so much so that I now question everything that I do, if it is good enough. Not even to please her, but I can’t even please myself. I even found myself questioning, am I worth it to have a birthday party just one week before deciding to just do it, because I am worth it. I am slowly reclaiming the lost bits of myself over time.
I cannot remember the last time I had threw myself a birthday party. Yes, it’s that long ago. Since becoming Mum, parties are all about the kids, and my own birthdays are just plainly forgotten and immersing myself into solemn solitude. Given that my own partner is not a fan of parties, and way too shy to get out of his comfort zone, I let myself slide into oblivion, forgetting that I actually do like parties! This is also a stark reminder of how one can easily lose oneself in a relationship that got too comfortable with each other, and then forget about the rest of the world, which is really not healthy. I find myself in a rut in my marriage these days, because life has just become serving the kids, getting them what they need, and time has become such a luxurious commodity that we cannot afford to remember anything about romance. Like a neglected pot of plant, we have both diminished into weeds, that seems bleak that we can even be weeded to flourish again. Remembering how little years I have left, I am left pondering, how do I want to move on from here. Do we try to rekindle that spark, or do we just move on with acceptance that this is just how life is right now, and perhaps it’s better to focus on loving my self more furiously.
On the evening of my birthday, which I had wanted to spend the day doing nothing in solitude, and failed because I always ended up doing something anyway, a tragedy struck one of our sheep in the paddocks. I saw 6 of the herd staring downhill, and felt my gut wrenched knowing something bad had happened. I found Aroha the grey speckled Valais Blacknose lying upside down, with her neck in an awkward position. I tried to turn her back on her feet, but she couldn’t stand up. We had to wheelbarrow her to the shed, fed her food and water, and found that her mouth was in an uncontrollable nibbling motion even when she stopped eating. She didn’t make it through the night. Even though we had not spent too much time together, as she was a shy one that does not come up to be hand fed, I still felt a deep pang of loss. I found myself thinking if there was more I could have done, or did I do something to hurt her further when I turn her around. All the questions that triggers guilt, and that made me remember what it was like when my father passed. I held on to so much guilt within me that I could have done something different, that might have saved his life. Digging a burial hole for the first time was a strange process. Putting her dead body into the hole, I found another dead bird on the property and buried them together. My daughter Luna and I then did a goodbye ritual to mark her grave with flowers, and sent her off, a ritual more for us to have closure than it has any meaning for Aroha.
Experiencing death on a birthday is always a good reminder of my own mortality, because we never know when our last day will be. Some just die too young to have a full life, and some people never got to live a full life even if they died of old age. With the limited time we have left on hand, I find it so crucial to really just carpe diem and live the life I wanna live, hold every relationship close to my heart with the people who are worth it, and meant something. I don’t mean behaving in a way that is a complete letting go of everything, and just start eating all the crap foods and binge on drugs and alcohol, but I mean really looking at our life choices of who we keep in our lives, and what we choose to do with our limited time each day. Are you doing what makes you happy? Are you being with someone who sees you, hears you, acknowledges you and truly care about you? Life is too short to waste it on people who don’t care, or issues that don’t matter, but too long if you’re not living it right by your soul. How can we live more in alignment to what our souls actually came here for? All these questions are left pondering in my mind after another year around the Sun, not knowing how many more is left. The best way forward is to live each moment in its own sacredness. “Om Tat Sat”, a mantra that means ‘All Is That Truth’, a reminder that this very moment, just as it is, is sacred.
