I wonder if we ever come back to the little things we leave for later.
By little things, I mean important things.
Like visiting your maternal hometown, like you promised your nani you would that last summer break before you stepped out for college.
Like visiting your guitar teacher to resume lessons after six years, having promised him it was only a three-month break for board exams.
Like visiting your childhood town in your late forties to say sorry to your childhood lover. The other day, I was watching the Netflix film Three of Us, which follows a middle-aged woman through her trip to her childhood town, where she confronts her past traumas and makes amends to her old lover for abandoning him.
It got me thinking – it took her an early onset of dementia to do so.
What happens of things we leave for later, then? What happens of things that are always important, but never become urgent enough?
We think we have forever
Raise your hand if you have a friend you owe a sorry to.
Maybe you wronged them. Maybe circumstances wronged you, and they were collateral damage. You kept thinking of calling them and giving them that apology, that alibi they deserved, but the perfect opportunity never arrived. You thought of calling them two days later, but you were still reeling from the distaste of falling out with them. You choked. You would have called for sure the coming weekend, but something came up.
In two weeks, after exams…
Next week, after going back to the hostel…
Or the coming weekend, in the comfort of my home…
And just like that, a month passed, then two…
You would call, you said to yourself, but you did not. Just like that, a month passed. Two. Three. Their absence started settling in, and it became even tougher to dial their number. So, you started giving yourself explanations.
If they were to forgive you, they would have called.
It’s too late anyway, and there is no point.
Maybe it is best for both of you to move on.
Every loss is redirection, after all.
Six months have passed now. You still think of them, but you have left it to fate now. Life is long, and if destiny wishes, you will cross paths again. Until then, you wish them well. Well, not just well – you wish it rains flowers upon them. A guilty conscience appeases with the most dramatic prayers.
And secretly, you also imagine them calling you. Oh god, how easy it would be for you to say sorry if that happened!
We never say never. We say someday.
The idea that our time is limited does not come very naturally to us, especially for things that do not impact our survival or standing in society. Like our personal aspirations. We keep them for later until they become a pile of regrets.
But why?
Maybe pursuing them will make you:
Awkward or uncomfortable – like visiting your maternal hometown to meet your nani after having promised her to return soon
or
your old guitar teacher who held you in very high regard as a student after having abandoned practice for years.
Vulnerable and uncertain – like the woman in the movie who visits her hometown to confront her childhood traumas and meet her childhood lover.
Run a risk – that you might fail, and you do not want to find out. So, you never start. Just like you haven’t published your first YouTube video, despite wanting to do it for years now.
Or worse. Maybe putting in effort to pursue it might not be as charming as the thought. And you do not want to kill a happy one.
The inertia against it is so much that we never push through. We get entangled in life instead and dream of them in leisure or vulnerable moments. We also do not admit that they might never happen, for these things are very dear to us.
So, we never say never. We say someday instead.
I do not have answers to present, and maybe there are no answers to be had here, no radical changes to be effected. We spend most of our lives chasing things that are important for:
- Our survival
- Our standing in the society.
Maybe we just need to tailor our lives to factor in one more metric – what’s important for our soul.
Image Credits: Film Companion
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