To Ease the Passing of Time

For me writing in English is like painting with one brush and only ten colours that I cannot mix. In French, I have four different sizes of brushes and forty colours that I can mix to create new ones. Since I don’t know as many fancy words and expressions in English, I have to go straight to the point, like painting with strong and vigorous brush strokes as opposed to more delicate and gentle ones in French. That’s probably the reason why I chose to write the following article in English. It is inspired by a conversation I had with my good friend André about getting old. 

It’s not despair or anxiety; it’s not even sadness. It’s more like a vague sense of emptiness.

It’s like you feel that you’ve been around and inside out of everything, even if you know that what you did and saw is really nothing compared to what is left to do and see.

You know that if you could start all over again tomorrow, if you still had the time and energy, it would be the same joys and the same sorrows all over again.

You know that no matter how long you would have to search for the truth, the few answers that you’ve already got are the only ones you'd be able to get.

And you know that wherever you may go to see new places, the excitement would be the same as when you first saw the new places that are no longer new to you.

If you had the possibility to fix again the things that you’ve already fixed, you know that you wouldn’t be able to fix them any better than you did the first time.

The very few people who are left in your life today are probably the only ones who will still be there at the end of the way if they are not taken away before you.

Your life is pretty much settled in a mold, and you don’t even want to think about what’s going to happen to you when that mold is broken.

In spite of all that, you are content and happy with your life because you know that what you have left is genuine and true, but you also know that you can no longer fill your heart and your mind with illusions, wishful thinking and fantasies like you used to. That’s why you feel a little bit empty. That's all!

Cheer up old man!