I live in the future. I got a tattoo when I was 19, after spending an entire year of my life living 5 years down the road, hoping that it would remind me to stay present, to enjoy the now. There are times in my life, even after sitting through 15 minutes of hellish pain inflicted by a large, bald, sweating tattoo artist, I forget. I become so obsessed with a known place I want to be, that I cannot – will not be swayed by the events that are happening now.

My brother sent a book with me when I left, that I have easily read 4 times – now on my 5^th. It is mostly about writing, about how an author deals with the day to day process of putting pen to paper, but it’s also about life – because of course, that is what writing is describing after all. In a time where I find myself firmly rooted a year down the line, I have begun reading this book again, coming across pages I had previously dog-eared, passages that I had underlined severely in black ink. ‘to be engrossed by something outside ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind.’

Recently, I had a bit of a panic attack. There had been a bit of drama, and I found myself feeling like I was left with nothing to do, nothing to learn or see. That I was failing miserably at collecting the stories I had so confidently told the grant committee I would get. So I did what I usually do – call my mom. She listened, and as word after word fell out of my mouth, wisely reminded me to just be. To enjoy the company of the people here, to spend time with the children. I later had this same conversation with Silivia, telling her I just wanted to spend time with her. She agreed, replying that I could write books about the people I had experienced here, holding her hands apart from each other, demonstrating how thick the book about her would be.

So I did just that this week - was engrossed by something outside myself, which calmed my incessant chatter about the future, mostly. Che and three of her best friends followed us home after school had finished, eating bananas that were stashed in the corner of the room and laughing, laughing, laughing. I held a 2 year old who I had never met before, mumbling to me that she was fii when asking her how she was, her mom surprised she wasn't crying in my arms. I watched Silivia do extraction after extraction, laughing when an old man told us stories about his lost love. I sat inside while Silivia made us dinner, hurricane lamp glowing lightly, as Che crawled into my lap and fell asleep. I did not think about the things I would do when I came home, or how I would sum up this year to anyone.

I often wonder where I picked up this trait. This obsession with the future. I remember back to my elementary school days, that fateful question – what do you want to be when you grow up? I often wonder why this question isn’t – what do you want to do now? I think if we were more accustomed to asking that question, more determined to be proud and confident about the now, we would be turning out very different children, adults. I can remember loving to write when I was small, but possessing a knack for math and science. I wonder if I had been framed the last question instead of the first, if my path would have been different. Not geared towards biomedical engineering or biochemistry, leaving my love of writing to be forgotten and covered with equations, only to be remembered when spending a year in solitude, away from the clutter of well-intentioned careers.