My friend reflected on the circularity of time, and how in certain moments of life things repeat themselves again, the past comes back to you. It may be the same situation, but now you see things in a different way. And, linking it with reincarnation, she compared it with that instant in which you remember who you really are, which is more than your present self. We always talk of past lives, and especially at the beginning we tend to separate our past selves from our current self. People around doesn’t help either, because they don’t understand what reincarnation consists of, and least of all know what remembering past lives entails. The first thing anyone will tell you is: “But that happened in the past, forget it, now everything is different”. Even my boyfriend, not too long ago, when I was telling him how I felt for having died in a naval battle in 18th century, said to me: “Bah, but that was a long time ago, it can’t affect you”. I could only smile and keep quiet, as I know that he won’t understand, no matter how much I explain it to him. Our past lives are not really past. We say “past” to situate them in a more or less remote time, prior to the current one. That doesn’t mean they are forgotten, nor dead, nor overcome in many cases... and, of course, we haven’t become different persons, nor do we have a “new life”. This is so for everyone, not only for the ones who remember past lives. We think death is some kind of separation between one life and the next, a full point, next paragraph, when in reality it is only a full point. It is having a shower and changing your clothes. When you go out to the streets, it is the world the one that has changed (a little), but you keep being the same.
Sometimes the past becomes the present. During the last year I have felt very connected to Fritz, as like him, I ended up choosing light instead of darkness, and I told myself: “Enough, stop excuses. It is time to be who you really want to be”. So, like him, I started to exercise my body and my mind, and I resolved to commit myself to what I most like, which back in his time was the army, and today is writing. Physically I now feel younger than a year ago, and I have seen changes in my body that I thought were already impossible to reach. We both could go on with our lives and do our best. Sometimes I look at my forearms and for a second I seem to be looking at Fritz’s forearms. His veins are more marked and his hands are more masculine, and I like them the same. There is no difference between being a man or a woman, as long as both of us are capable of transforming our body to feel happy with ourselves. I haven’t jumped in a parachute yet, but I have no doubt I could do it if I wanted to. At the same time, Katrina is still there. Katrina hasn’t gone yet, and surely she will never go. We don’t want her to go. Katrina makes us remember that even in the driest desert, a tiny flower can survive... even if it is only for a short time. She makes us remember that even in the middle of darkness, a fragile and beautiful star can shine brightly... even if its existence goes unnoticed for those who prefer to live in shadows.
Have you the faith to be...
Sane enough to be...
Honest enough to stay...
Don’t have to be the same
Don’t have to be this way
C’mon and sign your name
Are you wild enough to remain beautiful...
(“Beautiful”, by Marillion).
There is a hole in my heart no one can close. And I don’t understand why it is there, which brings me more rage. I don’t know if I also feel the holes I have in my guts, but those are there as well. They keep bleeding as if the hemorrhage hasn’t killed me yet. I thought the bullets would do. It seems some day they will do, I will die slowly and everything will be over, at last. The anxiety, the agony, the grief, the fear. But in reality nothing can kill us, so there I am, with a body apparently stronger, but with a spirit weakened by war that keeps fighting for coming out the abyss, bleeding to death little by little if I don’t do something to clog those wounds.
Probably it will also depend on the treatment these wounds receive. I suspect that in my life as Fritz I was tempted to resort to arms to reclaim certain things in my country. That would have been only a temporal relief, as anger would have been channeled and soothed for some time. But the pain that caused that anger would have kept on growing in silence, like an abscess, rotting the body inside until it would burst again. In the long run, the pain wouldn’t have faded, and the suffering inflicted on other people would have infected the wound even more. That is why I have always felt proud of Fritz. Despite carrying all that grief, he could carry on and choose the right side of the wall, risking his job or even his life.
Ultimately, it is our choice. Everything depends on us. Everything. Always. Perhaps the past becomes the present to remind us that great truth. Our life is ours, and we choose how we want to live it. We choose how we want to be, who we want to be.