Logic tells me that the last day of one year and the first day of the next are just two regular days on the calendar, that dates and years are just constructs agreed upon by society for convenience. But surely I’m not alone in thinking that these dates carry a lot of energy that logic simply can’t feel.
Last night was the last of this year’s series of Christmas parties and reunions. It was with the Go family, the extended family on my dad’s side, minus a few in various countries or cities who couldn’t make it home.
As we said our goodbyes at the end of the evening, a thought intruded my mind, how many of these goodbyes would one day be the last? We lost two uncles over the last two years. There isn’t a reunion where I don’t look for the silent smile on A-pe’s face, flushed red from beer or wine; or listen out for Sa-pe’s contagious laugh.
We played a lot of those trending parlor games, including the one where you are blindfolded as you try to scoop money off a table and onto a large plate with a spatula (it’s harder than it looks). A gust of wind blew the bills off the table as Sa-Um Nena, Sa-pe’s wife, took her turn. “That was Sa-pe for sure,” I thought to myself. I was glad to see Sa-pe still joining in the fun. On brand.
Another intruding question: how many more first hello’s will I get to experience in this lifetime? Ours is a rapidly growing family, with two new members joining us in the coming year (coincidence? I think not). We look forward to welcoming them in soon.
There is a space between the end of one thing and the beginning of the next; we call it the transition. And then there’s the space between the beginning and the end: The middle. I’ve always found the former to be much more exciting. This is where change happens, after all. Meanwhile, the latter is the part I often take for granted.
The middle is boring. Even psychology tells us that we tend to only remember the beginnings, the ends, and maybe the occasional peaks in the middle. But the middle is where we always are. It’s where reality happens, constantly. It’s where we’re, as they say, in the thick of it.
I came across this IG reel by Andrew Murnane a few months ago. He was talking about how the past is something we don’t have to identify with. He asked his viewers to do this freeing thought experiment: imagine that we had no past and that life simply began right now, so that our thoughts are not personal to us because any personal connection would’ve occurred in the past. We are simply our awareness of what is now.
I recall all the times I’d find myself subconsciously back in this thought experiment. Almost always, it occurs while in the presence of people I care about. Last night was one such occurrence. Many other instances of similar hues and frequencies have colored various points of my year.
During these moments of awareness, I would find myself already there — déjà là — seated across, beside, or surrounded by people who have decided to give a portion of their time to me. I enjoy their presence but at the same time, I question my worthiness to receive it. What did I do in the past life to deserve the people this life has introduced to me?
But then I would remind myself, don’t doubt reality. I can doubt destiny all I want. Doubt memory, go ahead. But to doubt what’s right in front of me is to be voluntarily blind. So I’d tell myself to accept it, receive it, be in it. Because this will end at some point.
This current reality, this is the middle, and it’s all that is sure to exist. It’s the stuff of being alive. People come and go — some more permanently than others — but right in between the coming and the going is where we experience the gift that is time shared with them.
The harsh truth, which is a lesson that demands to be learned again and again, is that every version of reality has to end to make way for the next version. In the same way, all middles only exist because an end exists.
Now, at the end of this year, I hear echoes of the “boring” middle. I am reminded of the impermanence of moments and my often misguided entitlement and attachment to things and people. May we live the in-betweens as fully as we do the beginnings and ends.