The Wheel of Time

… goes on.

(If you’re in the mood for a beautiful, slightly sad earworm, I can highly recommend “Wheel of Time” by OMNIA. 😌)

Last night, I thought there was a mosquito in our room.🦟

I couldn’t quite see it while it was flying, but my son said it was just a little fly. Since mosquitoes are the only ones I kill, it was allowed to live.

When we got up this morning, there was a little hoverfly sitting on the window, and I was glad that I had let it live.💜

I carefully held my finger next to it, and sure enough, it climbed onto it and immediately started licking my finger. Apparently, it needed a little energy. It stayed there, so I was able to carry it outside.

I remembered that hoverflies used to always sit on the phlox in our garden, so I tried to place it there. But instead, it stayed on my finger until it eventually flew away.

That reminded me of a time in my childhood when, like many children, I was incredibly curious. Like a little scientist, I wanted to understand how the world and the living beings in it worked.

And one day, that curiosity turned to hoverflies.

I experimented with them.👩🏻‍⚕️

What was curiosity and a desire to explore for me at the time caused immense suffering to these little creatures. I can’t and don’t want to sugarcoat that today. When I think back on it, I am simply incredibly sorry for what I did to them.💔

But this morning, I realized something else:

I am no longer that child.

The person who carefully carries a little hoverfly outside on her finger today grew from the same person who once saw it primarily as an interesting object of study.

We change.

Constantly.

And most of the time, we don’t even notice it.

Change isn’t always pleasant. Maybe one of the reasons we often find it so difficult is that every change also means that something old has to end. Even a positive change can mean leaving something familiar behind.

Sometimes, it takes years before we realize just how far we have moved away from an earlier version of ourselves. For better or for worse.

Our past doesn’t consist only of things we’re proud of. There are probably decisions, behaviors or moments in almost everyone’s life that they would judge differently today than they did back then.

We can’t undo those things.

But we can learn from them.

Maybe that’s exactly the important lesson our past can teach us. Not to pretend that we never made mistakes. Not to rewrite it until everything fits the person we would like to be today.

But to look at it.

To acknowledge: That was me. I did that. Today, I see it differently.

And then to act differently.

Our past shapes us, but it doesn’t have to hold us forever. Perhaps some of the things from our past that we regret today have actually helped us become more conscious, compassionate and mindful.

The little scientist I used to be hasn’t disappeared, by the way.

I still want to know how the world works. I observe animals, discover things and probably ask far too many questions. 🌏

But today, when I look at a little hoverfly, I no longer see only something I want to study.

I see a living being. With a body and a soul, in its own environment.

A little hoverfly sitting on my finger, taking in a little energy before eventually flying off into the big wide world.

We should try not to forget our past or sugarcoat it, but to accept it and recognize through it who we have become. 💜