Being Here

I almost died when I was born.

My parents didn't know how to care for a baby born, technically, in the European spring, and I got bluer & bluer until a nurse saw me and took measures to warm me up again. 

This is an oft-repeated story in my house. My mother tells it like a funny story about fresh-off-the-boat tropical natives in a cold & grey land. As a child listening, I remember feeling special every time it was told. It was one of the few times my mother would talk about me as an individual human being, not as a thing she had to feed, clothe and keep alive. 

In this story is the absence of my father. He doesn't feature in it. Nor did he ever, as far as I can recall, ever tell it.

But as a woman inching towards her 46th year on this planet, I now realise that this is a story about my almost not existing. And I think that's how I have lived my whole life. 

I've tried to exist as little as possible. I've tried always to get out of the way, make the path clear by removing the obstacle that is me. I've been exhausted down to my bones trying to justify being here - by always being useful, by being of service, by anticipating & needing all needs. Most recently, in a very dark moment, I coolly & calmly considered not being here anymore. Of matching the insides with my outsides and just...exiting.

Yeah, so these are my two states of being-here: Being of service or not being here at all.

Now I think that if, as a newborn, I almost died and made it back, it must be for a reason. It's too much effort to revive a dying thing, if one sees no purpose to it, right? 

So let's start with that. 2025 - the year of being here.