OTHER PLANS

Three days ago I was writing an article on Aromatherapy– easy ways to inculcate it in one’s life right now. The next morning I heard of the passing of a closest family friend. A man in his early fifties,father of two young girls. Someone very sweet, hardworking and an amazing person overall. He took every precaution – mask, gloves, sanitizer and what not. That article feels far  too trivial now.

Stories on Instagram are turning from a request for help to R.I.P – ‘by when the pandemic would be over’ are discussions of the past. This lockdown isn’t about trends, cooking and challenges. This is about surviving is what people are saying. I feel that’s a sugarcoated way of saying the truth – this one is about dying. However I don’t want to talk of the dying today, I want to talk of the living.

We will talk, be sad but we will get over it. The families who have lost never will. Again we are talking of the living. Why? Dead are gone – everything about the dead is always about the living. The grief, the funeral, the photographs, the memories. ( cf John Green, The Fault in Our Stars – “Funerals, I had decided were for the living”)

6 years ago, my life changed entirely. Life took little to no notice of what I wanted, of what I had planned. 2 years ago everyone’s world paused by the pandemic and now again it changes.

Why do we constantly plan to gain a sense of control, are we not strong enough to accept the reality – we are not in control. Maybe we can find freedom in the surrender.

You’ve probably received a whatsapp forward in the form of a poem or a story saying- childhood was the best, no worries of the past or/and .  All those clichés telling us “Present is a present”, ‘Carpe Diem’, etcetera and yet we are preoccupied with the future.

In Papertowns, John Green, explains how earlier life was simpler “Did you know that for pretty much the entire history of the human species, the average life span was less than thirty years? You could count on ten years or so of real adulthood, right? There was no planning for retirement, There was no planning for a career. There was no planning. No time for planning. No time for a future. But then the life spans started getting longer, and people started having more and more future. And now life has become the future. Every moment of your life is lived for the future–you go to high school so you can go to college so you can get a good job so you can get a nice house so you can afford to send your kids to college so they can get a good job so they can get a nice house so they can afford to send their kids to college.”

My heart breaks for Marina Keegan – A 22-year-old girl who died 5 days after she graduated from yale. Her collection of essays was published posthumously into a book of which she will never know. Keegan had a promising future – an internship at ‘The New Yorker’, a play to be produced at an international film festival, and a remarkable literary talent that had already earned her awards and critical acclaim. She also had a boyfriend, a community of friends, and a loving family.

I wonder how many times she gave up on little joys for the future she never got to have? How many goals and dreams were postponed for the future that will never come?

Her’s is one story, one life, one lesson – among many. I wonder what goals uncle had that came second to work? I wonder what uncle would have done differently had he known this would happen.

Jojo Moyes put it beautifully in the novel ‘ Still Me’ – “When people we love die young it’s a nudge, reminding us that we shouldn’t take any of it for granted, that we have a duty to make the most of what we have. I feel like I finally get that.”

Maybe I should learn drumming now instead of someday.
Maybe I should forgive more easily, love more abundantly.
Maybe we should live more freely, live in the moment. Life is uncertain after all.
Maybe we should carpe diem, live in the now.

I will complete the article on Aromatherapy and I will use bath salts to feel a bit nicer.
I will try to be a little more flexible, a little softer, a little kinder, a little happier.

Life has other plans. Life is what happens when we are busy making other plans. 

Bhavna Chaudhary, Author & Wellness Enthusiast