How many Easters do you have left?
And when did you start counting?
Note: this is a quick transcript of an unedited thought process that I frantically scribbled down in my notebook the other day as the ideas rained down on me like shooting stars. I hope that you enjoy reading and that you find it somewhat relatable, even in its imperfection. ❤️
It will soon be Easter in Spain. Colourful decorations and shop displays are up to remind us all of the imminence of the event as well as the urge to go purchase the traditional chocolate cake with humongous chocolate eggs and plentiful children’s TV characters walking across the slippery sugary surface. As I walk around aimlessly — I am early for my appointment so I have some time to kill, the question autonomously flashes between the walls of my brain, like lightning trapped in a jar, ‘How many Easters do I have left to live?’.
It is a strange motion, really, when you properly think about it. We accumulate Birthdays, yes. We all let our inner drama queen come out then, driving a melodramatic hand to the forehead. Head slightly tilted upwards and lower back expanding the head’s motion by gently bending backwards. An ‘Oh, dear, my life is slipping away from me!’ escapes the mouth. We are then aware of time and rave in existential discomfort. To then go back to live our lives on autopilot, missing our best and most transcendent moments because the structures of our day-to-day and days-to-come are too rigid and present. So much so that they pretty much take care of the present moment with a vigorous kick in the butt and a ‘we don’t want your kind here!’. To the street with you.
But what happens when you look at your life in these terms?
‘How many Easters do you have left?’
Think about it. Really. Do properly think about it. We could consider ourselves lucky if we reach 80 Easters. Wouldn’t we. And 80 Birthdays, 80 Christmases, 80 Beach weather seasons, 80 Thanksgiving Days, if you are from that part of the world (I am not, and I am not totally convinced this specific holiday is ethically correct so my total number of Thanksgivings are a round 0). Some select ones reach 90, maybe 100, maybe even 110 Easters. But this is a very small percentage of incredibly healthy individuals, properly located somewhere on a Mediterranean island in the blue zones.
Most of us will get maybe 70, maybe 80, maybe 90 Easters if we milk our luck dry—
some might have 60 or 50
or 20
or even 10 or less than 10
think about it darling — how lucky are most of us
even if our number is only 60 or 70
And the trickiest part of this motion is not even the amount of Easters that we might have. It is that we don’t know our number. And also that it does take us a while to understand that fact — That we don’t actually know how long we have left to live, and even if we did, it is not a whole lot of time. It takes time for us to create the awareness of what time really is, and what life and death actually mean to us. We may understand it theoretically, but once you see the depths of it, its true meaning, everything starts to shift. Your perception of how you spend your precious moments shifts. But it doesn’t happen immediately. So, even if I had, say, and being optimistic, 80 Easters in total in my life, it might have taken me 30 or so Easters to understand that Easters and time are finite.
Specifically, it has taken me 32 Easters to realise that one day Easters will no longer be, because I will no longer be. So, let’s do the math. Assuming that I have 80 Easters in total in my life. And it has taken me 32 Easters to develop this awareness. Now, 80 minus 32 is 48.
I might, if I am, VERY lucky, have 48 Easters left.
Let this sink in. Because even if for whatever reason you happen to be one of these individuals who hate Easter (oh, you, you little sourpuss, you!), there are not that many of them for you to hate because
time
flies
And everything changes constantly. Which also means that this year’s Easter will feel nothing like last year’s Easter.
That smile that you were gifted from a friend last year because you gave them a small Kinder Bueno egg as a joke ‘haha I am not a child anymore what are you doing hehe’ might not be here this year. And even if it is here, it will be a completely different smile.
We don’t have a whole lot of time walking this Earth. And every moment and every smile and every frown is unique and unrepeatable. And same as Easters, we have a limited number of these available to us too.
Yet we get stuck in the earlier and the later, fully disregarding the now. The precious now. These precious moments with our precious people — And that includes ourselves, because we are also precious, unrepeatable, and very much not infinite.
It is Easter in Spain soon. And 5 minutes ago it seems, was Easter in Spain last year, and in another 4 minutes, it will be Easter in Spain next year. So, I don’t know what Easter number are you on, but enjoy it like it is your last — Because you don’t actually know when it will be your last and neither do I. And even if we are some of the lucky ones and have another hundred Easters left, let’s just
be
here
now
We can choose to be here and embrace every last smidgen of it, good or bad, live these precious moments and fully own the totality of them. We can choose to be here now together, like fellow human beings, accomplices brought together in the intricacies of being alive. We can choose to be alive here now even if we are together in the distance. Sharing the conjointed experience of being the very bounds of collective existence, tying it together like atoms knitting the Cosmos.
You, precious human being, wherever and whoever you are, let’s navigate the quicksands of coming to terms with our own existence as if it were a class project. With naivité, presence and curiosity, with the student’s mindset — let’s just be, eyes open wide. Let’s revindicate our own existence, our who-knows-how-many Easters by being here beyond any marketing plan. Let’s manifest the now. Let’s make a difference in a world where we are sold a future never to come. A world where our past is capitalised on us. Our flaws and dreams and worries comercialised. Let’s rave in the non-striving, no matter how many amazing plans and projects we might have going on, all at once — the important ones, you will make them happen, I promise, don’t fret. Let’s strike the right balance by simply being, by sharing this perfect moment of simplicity, non-transcendence and average normality that has no importance in the great scheme of things but that we will probably remember as we exhale our last breath one day. Because the most memorable moments don’t have any real weight in the cosmos, being the smallest ones that prevail, a turning point for our own inner world.
32 Easters that have gone unaccounted for. But this year, I am making a point of enjoying all of the colourful decorations, no matter how kitsch, tacky or gourdy they might be. Children loud and annoying and enthusiastic over some cheap chocolate cake, making my ears wish for an early visit to the grave. The fresh smells of the bakeries making my belly rumble. The festivities and the parades waking me up at 8AM on a Sunday, because Spain. All of it.
And I will do so the Easter after that. And the next one. And the next one.
As many Easters as I may have left.
***
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