Today is my mum's birthday but, don't worry, I am not going to write another post about how my relationship with my Mom has transformed over the past year. Today is a special day for another reason. Fourteen years ago today, I got a second lease at life. That is quite a dramatic statement and I was in two minds whether to put it down, but since my blog is not widely read, why not? On 25th June, 2004,--which was my Mum's 50th birthday--a friend and I who had got separated from our trekking group the previous evening found our way back to civilization. We had spent the night shivering violently in a gorge, with a waterfall thundering next to us. It was the first time that I was truly scared for my life.
After we made it back I wrote an essay describing the night. Reading the essay excavated many significant details that had been buried in my memory. If I had been a better writer, I would have been transported back in time to that night.
At the end of the essay, I reflected on what I had taken away from it. Someone--I can't remember who--told me that such experiences can teach one a lot about life.
The first lesson was very carpe diem-esque. I realized that I desperately wanted to live and grab life by the balls even though the previous year had been miserable. I also resolved to "take myself less seriously, and take my life more seriously"--whatever that meant. That might have been my adolescent angst talking, but that angst lasted through my early twenties. While my life, especially my career, stabilized thereafter, it was not until last year that I got the full measure of my angst and started to do something about it.
After we made it back I wrote an essay describing the night. Reading the essay excavated many significant details that had been buried in my memory. If I had been a better writer, I would have been transported back in time to that night.
At the end of the essay, I reflected on what I had taken away from it. Someone--I can't remember who--told me that such experiences can teach one a lot about life.
The first lesson was very carpe diem-esque. I realized that I desperately wanted to live and grab life by the balls even though the previous year had been miserable. I also resolved to "take myself less seriously, and take my life more seriously"--whatever that meant. That might have been my adolescent angst talking, but that angst lasted through my early twenties. While my life, especially my career, stabilized thereafter, it was not until last year that I got the full measure of my angst and started to do something about it.
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