Butterfly

You cannot lose time. One might say you can misuse the time you have, but you cannot actually lose it. To lose something is to have it and then misplace it, or let it go, and then, in a next moment, not to have it anymore. You cannot do this with time, you cannot misplace it or let it go.

I would say then that you have, perhaps, misused the time you had. But you only misused it because now you think differently than before. If your mind and your thoughts were the same as they were years ago, you wouldn’t think you have wasted all your life, you would think that, no, everything is alright, everything is as it was supposed to be.

So, you did not lose time. You just changed. You changed your mind and your ways and your goals, and now you think that everything you have done up until this moment wasn’t right or accurate anymore. But that is part of life. It just means you’re growing up and evolving.

Do not think back with regret. Do not look back in your life and be bitter about it. Everything you’ve lived, experienced, makes you who you are right now. And even though you’re not proud of yourself today, I am absolutely sure that you have all the tools to change, to do anything you want. And if you are now a person with this potential, with this capacity, then something in your past, in your upbringing, must have been done right.

If you think you failed, you now have the opportunity to be successful. Because, you see, you did wrong, realized it, and now you can do right. It is so difficult to have been wrong and then to make things right. Some people just do things well, accordingly, and it’s actually pretty easy to be right when all you have been, in your life, is right. But you, no, you did it wrong. If you make it right now, sweetie, you’ll be the most successful of all.

You’ll also be the wisest. One can only truly understand life when they’ve failed at it, and had the opportunity to correct their mistakes. You can only be a worthy winner when you had already been a loser. You can only truly give something when you had it taken away from you.

You tell me now that you are so wrong in many ways, that you feel you have failed and that you don’t even know what to do, sometimes. All because of all this time you think you’ve lost. I would tell you then that I think you’re just like a butterfly. You spent a lot of time in a shell, forming yourself, and now you are free. Free to fly, to grace the world, and specially me, with your colors and your beauty. They say butterflies only live 24 hours, and I’ve never seen a butterfly flying desperately just because of that. No, they rise from their long hours forming themselves and enjoy their 24 hours, calmly and beautifully.

I am honored to have been able to watch this transformation of yours, to be somewhat part of it. It is like a snowstorm, or the constant movement of the sand in the desert – an actual “miracle” it is, to see a human being evolving, transforming, learning and changing.

I fell in love with two “Vanessa”s, and even though their names were supposed to portray them as butterflies, I don’t think they were one. At all. You, instead, are the most beautiful, most colorful, most graceful butterfly I have ever seen.

And don’t let life say “no” to you, honey. If you have only 24 hours to live, don’t take “no” as an answer.