Life is a feeling process

Besides the fact that one is born and the fact that one will eventually die, there is no such thing as certainty in this whirlwind called life. As I was reading through my journal, I came across an entry which reminded me about a conversation I had with my driving instructor late last year. She explained to me that no matter how much one plans, we simply cannot expect things to follow through accordingly every time. This is obviously true, because here I am, still without my licence.

“There are no guarantees in life, you have to take everything head on”, she said to me, and “You need to remember that no-one is permanent in your life”. This is a wonderful, but terrible thing at the same time and I don’t think we ever view people in that light. I don’t think we ever see them as temporary -unless of course they enter your life with a contract stating how long they’ll be staying. If not, it doesn’t really dawn on you that perhaps some people are just there to fulfil a certain phase of your life and not the whole journey, to teach you certain lessons. As the saying goes -

“nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know"- Pema Chödrön

It took me a while to understand this after my grandmother’s passing. I felt as if I had been robbed of someone so dear to me, my best friend. I always imagined all the things we would do together as soon as I made something out of myself. Not even for one second did I ever think that perhaps, her time on this earth was to help me become the person that I am and help shape the lives of her children, that as soon as she had done that she would return to be with us in spirit.

But imagine if we knew... just imagine if we knew how long each person we encountered, would be a part of our lives. I’d assume that we would try to plan everything around the duration of their stay and we’d avoid all the relationships that wouldn’t last. But we’d also miss out on the positive things that came with those relationships and one would never truly enjoy the moments with someone while mentally counting down the number of days before they no longer were.

I’m not trying to say that it’s a bad thing to plan; however, we cannot guarantee the outcome. More so , even if the outcome is not what we expected and it stings the heart, let it not stop us from living because it is not “living” unless you can feel it.

#DiarySession