I've been following Dr. Andrew Stapleton, for some time now; he uploads videos on YouTube about PhD productivity and insider advice "no one will tell you" and such. His videos (among other videos of academics and former academics I follow) have been quite helpful in my journey. In one of his videos, he explained how he keeps a sheet that represents his life until the year 80. Basically, this sheet is a series of squares, each representing a week in the life, so that would be 4,160 squares for 80 years of life. And in the end of each week, he scribbles over one box. That's probably the most morbid and dark thing I've ever heard, and also the most fascinating. And of course, I decided to do it, too, because I love dark things.
So, I printed out the sheet (yes, there was a link to the boxed page), and started filling the boxes, aka weeks, I've already lived. And I did it mindfully. Before you object, by mindfully I mean I sat down and thought about my life and what it looked like at those stages, those ages. To my surprise, it was refreshing.
I may not remember my life before the ages of 2 or 3, but I know what my parents were doing back then: immigrating, surviving the collapse of the communist regime in Albania and the terrible things that followed (civil dichotomy, poverty, death etc.). Trying to picture what they went through back in the 90's definitely brought tears to my eyes. I mean, my mom was my age now when I was born, so placing myself in her position was heart-wrecking. I know I may never know exactly what they went through and how they felt, I may never find myself in similar situations, but just thinking about it all expanded the endless appreciation I have for my parents.
I have a couple of fleeting memories from when I was 3 or 4, mostly at a park, on the couch, in a church. But after that, as I scribbled away, pictures came reeling, colors, emotions, scents, laughter... A kind of Ed Sheeran's "Photograph" videoclip, only it was inside my head. And although my hand grew stiff with the constant dull pain that repetition brought, I didn't want to stop. I didn't want to lose momentum.
I remembered things I had forgotten, like the first time I went to the beach (I was about 6). How I cried every time I moved to a different school - that happened a lot, actually - and all the moving. How much I hated dresses, and how much my mom despised my baggy jeans and pyramid studded belt. I recalled the moment I realized I wanted to write stories. All my favorite people who are no longer in my life for one reason or another. That dry February Monday morning when I first had Ben & Jerry's. Those long August nights, a full moon hovering over us as we drove to Albania to see Grandpa, mom and dad speaking in a low voice, and my sister and I singing Taylor Swift songs at the top of our lungs until we fell asleep on top of one another.
Images upon images of a life I never think about. I don't think any of us think about our lives as a whole. The big picture. Occasionally, we think about the past and plan for the future, but we don't really see our lives for what they are: a series of fleeting moments. As the writer Robert Brault said, "Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things."
This scribbling and filling boxes was quite the experience. We often think about how quickly time flies. One moment you're 5, and the next you're 10, and then all of a sudden, you're 18. Then everything goes downhill from there and somehow time goes by twice as fast and you feel like it was only yesterday when you last played Jackstone in the corridors of MNCS.
I got the chance to zoom out and look at my life as a whole, from the moment I was born in 1994, till the year I hopefully turn 80, in 2074. I got the chance to look back at my journey, all the little moments, my little life. 2074 seems so far away, but looking at my sheet here, it's not that many boxes to fill. And I plan to fill them wisely, mindfully and purposefully.
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