How Will We Know?

How will we know how much time we have left?
to play, to wonder, to make mistakes.
My alarm rang at six, I turned to shut it off
out of instinct;  gloomy weather outside, misty with rain
I want to sleep more.
But no, I pinch my thigh, I can sleep when I am out of time.

*

We are approaching equinox, my husband tells me last night
The days are getting shorter, darkness extends
we spent most of the year looking forward to summer
then it is gone in a whiff, he snaps his finger.
A golden retriever enters the garden
Chai crouches down, Raven pops his ratty little head out of the backpack
Golden’s parent fastens his leash, tension defused.

*

One second, two seconds, three
I count how much time has passed that I, yet again, take breathing for granted.
All my parts are in good working condition,
I didn’t have to beg or plead to be born with them.
Sometimes we forget, how squishable our bodies are, by cars and scaffolds and air conditioners
like fruit flies to a finger
our bodies are delicate, flammable, easily bruised and scraped.

*

So why do we have the audacity to assume,
we have much time
to prioritize obligations and duties and responsibilities
over our interests and curiosities and idiosyncrasies.
It is not binary, is it?
I am living through you, a coworker told me jokingly
My heart sank, that’s a heavy weight for anyone to bear.

*

I was led to believe life follows a template:
birth, childhood, adolescence, adult, old age and death
that all lives are marked by a universal set of milestones:
school, work, retirement; punctuated by
graduation, getting married, having children, buying a house
But now I have seen enough, to know that people die out of turn all the time
and the template is just an illusion
People who are way more talented than me, creative and original,
ran out of time before they had a chance to bring out their art.

*

I wonder now where does the template come from?
Is it because that’s the reality of those closest to us
And by way of perspective, objects closer to us appear bigger
And overtime that becomes the uncontested expectation
and the only mold we thought was possible.
But how will we know what’s the right path for us?

*

We don’t. It can be frustrating,
but also be fascinating.
When I was planning my life, getting every step right seemed to be of vital importance;
a high-wire act
one foot in front of the other, checking for balance, facilitated by
agonizing fear that one missed step means falling ten thousand feet into the valley below
gruesome death.

*

But really it is no different than walking the curb,
a misstep is nothing more than that: a misstep.
I might lose balance and fall and scrape my knee
but I will not die from it. More likely, I will be just fine.
But the fear of falling to our death limit us only to safe choices,
And they turn out to be not so safe after all.

*

I wondered, would I have made a different decision,
regretting what I do for work, how I spent my time?
Would I make different choices if I know I have 40 years left, vs. 4 days
Obviously.
What if 40 years vs. 4 months, or 4 years?
The choices converge.

*

How will we know when our end arrives
so we can plan out our life differently to maximize
what we want out of life
this precious fraction of a millisecond in the history of time
That is a very hard thing to do, too many variables, and unknown unknowns
So then, best not to count on knowing when the end calls
what we want out of life changes, so does the bell
that rings when we are out of time.

August 2023
Toronto