a great debt
If there had been lifetimes before this, tell me we were happier in those. Tell me we found a way out out of the smoke-filled room. Tell me the story doesn’t end in fire again.
In that lifetime, the air would be fresher. And the world blessed by the sun’s gentle embrace would radiate life. A lovelier, sunkissed reality where the only sound is gentle laughter against the crashing of waves on the beach.
The dreams we dreamt there wouldn’t differ too much from reality, because it would be harder to imagine a better existence. And there would only exist the now. No past. No future. Just the present.
That version would be simpler. Imperfect as all things are but the imperfections only made it more perfect. The night would not be feared, because of the knowledge that the sun will rise again tomorrow. And each new day would bring the promise of renewal.
The grand problem of happiness would have been solved, but we lost the solution in transit to this lifetime. Maybe we got on the train with it, in a small carry-on, ready to be seeded in the next life. Alas, we forgot to take it with us.
And hence the formula to happiness, however elegantly devised, was lost in a never-ending cycle of new beginnings. There are many things we cannot take with us when we leave. Perhaps that was one of them too.
Perhaps, it is the goal in each different variation. To find what was lost, and to hold it tightly for as long as you can. Some of us are lucky, we find it early. Some of us are not, and we find it late with little time left to enjoy it.
Some of us never find it at all.
I think maybe, we were too successful in that one. And we basked in our newfound gift for too long, but nothing lasts forever except the cycle. We flinched and lost paradise.
We were happy but nothing comes free. What was owed must be repaid. To find what was lost, but not for us. Our turn has passed, and it is time to give back what we have taken.
We were born into this life with a great debt.
If we are lucky, we’ll leave it with a little less.
