The One Where I Reflect on the Last Six Months
I recall a thought I had on the morning of my laparoscopic cholecystectomy, it repeated itself in my mind like a broken record. “I can die today,” I thought. Typical things I’d think about never included death but more asinine ideas like what I want for lunch or whether I should wear pants.
When you’ve looked at death, things are never the same. You can lose it all, and then in a blink, it’s all given back to you. In those moments where you reflect on everything you have to lose, you realize that your life wasn’t worth much to begin with. The things I had to lose were tangible and insignificant like clothes, books, or various gadgets. For the first time ever, the notion of “You’ve got nothing to lose” made perfect sense. I find myself now with a new assertiveness based upon the idea that I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
What we call the beginning is often the end, and to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.
- TS Elliot
