time, the teacher
My Mum often features in my dreams.
She passed over a year ago, and just because she appears in my dreams, I don’t believe she’s visiting me from the afterlife or trying to send me messages from the grave. More likely it’s fragments of memory accessed in deep sleep, but seeing her again is always welcome.
No matter the reality or what I believe, there’s one thing that’s constant; the dreams are extremely vivid. So vivid that I’ll often wake feeling immense sadness, and to be expected, it’s normal for me to lay there, quietly crying to myself, mourning the loss of a much loved parent. It’s an intense feeling of helplessness. I cannot change this reality, I couldn’t do anything to save her.
It’s interesting how she’ll appear at different ages from all the years I knew her. Sometimes she’s my older mum, the one that survived cancer temporarily, but accidentally became paraplegic, yet somehow managed to maintain that amazing positive attitude she had. Sometimes she appears as the bubbly, optimistic 30 something mum from the 80’s, with long dark curly hair, dancing like a dork in the kitchen or giving me a big squeeze after I’d arrived home from school. No matter what version she appears as, I feel in that moment she’s still alive. In a way she is, as cherished memories archived deep in my mind, accessed in the witching hour.
The grieving process takes the time it needs to take, but when I reflect on the life experience of losing a parent, I can’t help but acknowledge it as a good reminder to appreciate the time I have right now. It reminds me to actively take time to appreciate and admire the people I love, to tell them how special they are, to feel that intense love, thankful for the moments we share, because eventually it ends, for all of us. That's not morbid, it’s just reality. I firmly believe the more we remind ourselves of mortality, the more we activate empathy and compassion for others, and ourselves.
My daughters are teenagers now, and they’re not far from that point in life where they’ll soon leave home to embark on further learning, travel, have those first, no doubt, heart breaking relationships we all have. Soon they’ll learn to live without parents providing and like all of us, they’ll make mistakes, get hurt, feel passion and the confusion of being adult.
I’ll often look at them and be mind blown with how fast they’ve grown and freak out about how it really doesn’t feel that long ago that I too was starting uni, a fresh, cheeky high school graduate moving out of home and starting my first serious relationship. A time when the world was full of opportunity and mystery. Now it’s their turn, and I’m playing the role of my parents. It’s scary and wonderful all at once. The reality is, our lives happen so fast and if you’re not paying attention, the years fly by like a jet in a hurry.
As uncomfortable as it makes me feel, I think about my mortality a lot. It reminds me to not get caught up in the dumb things, to not aspire to work for things society defines as a measure of success, instead to invest in experiences, and have them right now, not later. It reminds me to appreciate the things I have experienced, both pleasant and horrible, and to accept the things I cannot change, because dwelling on them helps nobody.
It reminds me that time is precious, and that it’s just not worth investing in people that bring me toxicity. If you’re too much like hard work, not willing to change or grow and your actions make me doubt myself, we’re not going to spend much time together. My time is too precious. That’s not arrogant, that’s knowing the value of setting boundaries.
I prefer to invest in my growth, in experiences that make me feel joy, wonder, passion and love. I invest in people I can learn from, people that do things better than I ever will, but can teach me so much. I invest in people smarter than I, those with minds that tend to sit outside conventional thought, outsiders, doers and rule breakers. The people that get shit done with the time they have.
Reminded by mortality, I do my darndest to approach life with a level of empathy for others. I don’t always get it right, but I do know we’re all going through a similar journey in life. We’re born, we exist for a bit, then we die. What we do with our time is up to us.
Observation. Your time is finite, life is shorter than you think.
Reflection. Don’t waste it. Appreciate it. Not every moment will be one that needs to be celebrated, but be mindful to invest in the people and things that matter to you.
I think mum would agree.
Ro