The Word of Your Life

Once a friend proposed me a game to imagine and say without thinking the first word that came to mind and defined what life is for me and I said … «swing«.

Yes, life was like a swing for me, it pushed me forward, it flew high, it took up space, and then it returned to get more momentum and climb even higher. In the game of coming and going I noticed butterflies in my stomach, those tickles that are felt when going from one side to the other when traveling, that air of fresh news, those dreams that we imagine when we close our eyes and that smile that wakes us up when we started to live

At first it took me a while to learn how to swing, but as the years went by each time I swung more and I got better.

From the swing I got off when I wanted to, when I decided that I had had enough.

…

Now that I am older I notice that my perception of life has changed and playing the same game the word that has come out of my mind has been … «pendulum«.

They have something in common, it is true, that wobble, that coming and going, but they are not the same.

The pendulum goes from one place to another taking you from good to bad times, in a rhythmic way. There is a moment when the pendulum passes through the center, through equilibrium, at that point in which nothing bad and nothing good happens, but it is an ephemeral, almost imperceptible moment, of which we barely notice. Yes we are able to perceive how it is going towards one of the sides, we are on a good run, everything is going your way… and also when the tables turn and it seems that nothing works.

It never stays long in a state, then it returns, he returns and inevitably from our part, it goes to the other side, with cadence, whether we want it or not.

While it lasts that movement is a good sign, it tells us that we still have time, time to live, to enjoy, to suffer but also to love.

At a certain moment, one day, fortunately we do not know what it is before, it stops, either autonomously, little by little, because the initial impulse that started its movement ceases harmoniously, smoothly, rhythmic, or, on the contrary, abruptly because something external has stopped it.

Between my perception of my swing life and my pendulum life a few years have simply passed, the circumstances have happened and I have made some decisions although I do not remember the exact moment when I decided to get off of the swing or when I started to look with apprehension to the pendulum. I am not aware of it, of when I went from being the active protagonist to the passive observer, of hanging from the tree of life to which it hung by a thread.

…

I propose you a game

This week I propose you this game. Probably, although perhaps with different words you also have a noun for you today. Right now I’m going to ask you to stop reading this post, close your eyes, and quickly say the first word that defines your life and comes to mind without thinking …

Do you already have it? Then, there are two possibilities:

• If you have come up with one and it’s good, I invite you to repeat it to her every morning, to remember her so she does not run away without realizing when or at what time you missed her
• If your word is not pretty, then I also invite you to remember it so that when circumstances change, be aware that you can say goodbye and start enjoying a new one that is better
  A word that defines our life is very useful to simplify and place us in the wave that your beautiful message gives us acting as anchor, or, to realize that we are in a bad season and that this will have happened when we can replace it with another better to tell us that the time has finally come to release moorings.

With the permission of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer:

For a glance a world

for a smile, a sky

for a beautiful word … I don’t know

what would I give for a beautiful word …

my whole life for!