Impermanence

 August 4th, 2024

The tan lines left when you forgot to remove your watch in the scorching sun, 
The stamp of your seltzer can in the sand before the wave has won.
The imprint of the textured chair on your legs folded under your weight, 
The feeling of fullness that lasts just a brief while perhaps after the last thing you ate.

Short-lived, transient, reversible.

The bus ride to school, the excitement of new notebooks and pencils, the anxiety of who to sit beside this year -- elementary.

The communal locker in the other wing, the half-days before the holidays, the stress of finals every summer.

The mornings spent at the library cafe, the hours between classes pondering what to spend your dining points on, the community you begin to become a part of -- college.

The all-nighters before every exam, the post-exam festivities of a tight-knit class, the waffling over what we felt were big Life decisions.

The first Cardiology rotation, the goal to just keep your patients alive through the night, the persistent effort to support and lead your team well -- residency.

A pandemic, a vaccine, a work family that began to take shape.
A first job.

Deeper relationships in every phase and stage though when reflected upon, impermanent still. Impressions longer-lasting, perhaps easier to erase, though with time all fade.

The obligations we have to one another that are borne of time spent with each other, of closeness established - a guilt that takes hold that may actually hold you back from progress.  The pull of nostalgia when mistaken for what should always be but what keeps you from what could.  The tug of the past that elicits a stubbornness in you - an inertia, the unwillingness to change. The tendency to stagnate, to resist uncertainty.

But beyond this, on the other side, perhaps a happiness you keep yourself from.  Shackled by what was, blinded to what else may be in store for you.

At the end of the day, it's always you.
Those who wish for you to succeed will let you go - but you must have the courage to let them.

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