Time and Space

Before you groan inwardly, this is not a summarised version of the String theory. As much as I’d like to talk about the Time-Space Continuum, this has nothing to do with Physics. I don’t think I am even qualified to discuss it, much less write about it. This is about the time and space in my life. And I think I am the final authority on that one.

I was one of those kids who fell sick almost every week and didn’t go to school half the year. I had severe chronic asthma since I was just 3 years old and unlike most of my friends, it never left me. The story of me and my asthma is a fairy tale. My mom always waited for us to break up but he never left me. His love for me was infinite.

Asthma coupled with a bunch of absurd allergies, they were an alluring combination that restrained me from playing outside, in the sun or rain, running, cycling, eating ice-cream, or pretty much everything I liked. I know! Not an ideal relationship!! My parents and doctors were at their wit’s end. They tried everything they could, to no avail. It made me sad for them too. I did some research about my condition, and that did not help with my anxiety. I would not recommend googling your diseases.

Then I got used to it. I learned to live with my restrictions. Home and school was my world. Anything outside these two was a dangerous zone. Yet I managed to make the most out of it. I traveled through books. My reading carried me to places that even normal healthy people couldn’t think of going. I made friends with the characters in the book. For any other person, Harry Potter, Tom Sawyer, and Oliver Twist might be just characters from kids’ storybooks. But for me, they were my childhood friends. I went to Hogwarts with Harry, I went on fun adventures with Tom, well you get the picture.

I had gotten used to how my life was, I had convinced myself that I didn’t need a lot of people in my life. Things were not good, I knew that, but I didn’t know how good I had it back then. At the age of 22, my next best friend came into the picture. Back-pain. So the skinny weakling that I am already, slowly realized that even standing straight without hurting my back was a luxury that I didn’t realize I had. I regretted every single moment of my life that I could have spent dancing, jumping, cycling, swimming, and all other things when I had no back pain. As time passed, my world shrunk again from hostel, college, and job to just my home. It also shrunk in population. From roommates to classmates and colleagues to just my family and a handful of friends. I had to resign from my job. I cried like a five-year-old who realized her puppy had just died as I returned my office id card.

If you think that this couldn’t get any worse, you are sorely mistaken, it could. And it did. In the next year, my lower backbone developed a curve that completely restricted me from sitting. I couldn’t sit at all. Sitting up was excruciatingly painful. This broke my heart. I couldn’t possibly express myself on paper how crestfallen I was the day I realized I couldn’t sit for a long time. Imagine my shock when I realized sitting was a luxury too. My world grew smaller inside the four walls of my bedroom. I was bedridden. And I spent two years like that. Imagine staring at the ceiling for two years. Eventually, I did manage to do a few things that made me feel a little better in these two years. I painted on the walls of my room. I started a literary blog along with my friend. I bought a ukulele and started training myself. I made sure I surround myself with people who gave me positive energy. Yet at the end of the day, I wanted to ride a bike and go to the beach.

I could go on and on, complaining about the agonizing moments, recounting the terrors of confinement that I went through in these two years but that’s irrelevant. But that’s not what mattered in the end. What counts is what one tends to overlook in their lives. I know you might not be in the best place in your life. Maybe your job sucks. Maybe your relationship is a disaster. Maybe you’re jobless. Maybe you’re broke. Maybe you don’t like the people in your life. Maybe you’re alone.

Forget all this at least for once and think about this. You can sit. You can stand. You can stretch. You can spread your arms and run. You can jump and dance and swim. You can ride a bike. You can chase the butterflies. You can leap into the pool. You can fall and get up. You can hold a baby in your arms. You can play with the kids. You can sit on a swing and reach the sky. What matters is YOU CAN. And don’t you dare waste a single moment in your life thinking of the things you cannot do.