“Believe me. Turning 40 is the BEST.”
It was a gamble to meet her then. It was a crazy idea to fly to the East Coast two weeks after getting my second COVID jab. Everyone was still hunkered down, very much afraid to catch the virus that shut down the world.Yes, the vaccine was necessary and new, yet somehow to many, it seemed like an alien idea. I took it because I knew that I wanted protection. Plus I desperately needed to be in New York City to walk its streets, be with my people and pump life back into my soul.
My friend, journalist and author, sat across me that evening, unsure of this novel pandemic encounter. It’s been awhile since we met in person as it is always feat meeting friends who lived outside of Dallas, Texas. We chose a two-top right beside these huge windows that provided the much needed ventilation to circulate the air. La Shuk, a Moroccan restaurant now sadly permanently closed, sat in the middle, at the edges of the stuffy opulence of the Upper East Side and effervescence of the community of Spanish Harlem. It was the middle ground of where we first met at a talk that she gave about her memoir in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates A taste of the Middle East in the United States. We were breaking bread and breaking ground, dipping our toes into the life that is after the intense shake up of the pandemic.
My hands shook as I tore a piece of my flatbread and reached towards the mezze in front of us. I wasn’t sure whether she was comfortable sharing a plate. Removing the ability to commune over a meal traditionally meant for sharing - many hands diving into a single platter - was unnerving and perplexing. The tremors that haunted me daily were on overdrive.
We exchanged our battle scars from the topsy turvy of the past two years and from life before that. My life in the Philippines, then jumping across to UAE and the US, her life in the US then in the Middle East. Over four decades she’s lived and I approaching the starting line.
“Forty is a good number.” She reassured me again. “You’ve lived long enough to see how far you’ve come, but you still have a lot of life to live and give.” She was right on the nose about living long enough. The past months, I’ve looking back on the past decades I spent here on earth and how I move forward. I’ve been and accomplished a good number of things, met so many different people, gone through phases of life and moved across continents among others. If the average life span of person on earth is eighty, then one can consider forty the actual midpoint.
I officially entered mid-life literally.
This made me think about the Six of Cups, the nostalgia card of the Minor Arcana in the tarot. It is a squeak away from the midway of the five. Some things past, yet there is still more ahead. Children, a presumably elder one in a floppy gnome hat, presents the tinier child, head covered with a scarf, delicate hands gloved, with a vase with white flowers in bloom. Their present in vibrant color. Behind them looms their home, a chateau, built with solid stone. A pathway, bathed in gray, with a man and his walking stick, striding towards home.
When this is pulled in a reading, it is the querent living in their memories, looking back at the comfort and carefree days of being young once. The inner child very much alive and well. It is a longing for the time that was, wondering whether it is simply a sliver to be savored and let go or something and somewhere to plant one’s self in. The past gives one a sense of comfort. Because what was once unknown and uncertain is now permanent, unchangeable and enduring. And yet, there is the gnawing of what if’s, wishing that one could change the past.
A little voice with a big stick of regret whispered and questioned every decision I made, why each step forward felt like going backwards. I beat myself up for who I was - a nervous, yet eager university graduate, twenty something, who wanted to be a storyteller, sit in the middle of and sift through a mountain of research to distill it into a creative idea to be brought to life and, more importantly, earn a living that will also allow me to enjoy life’s pleasures and help support my family - and why I found myself retreating back, breathing life into what caused me to repeatedly break into a thousand pieces. I repeatedly walked through the burning building to be rescued again and again. Approaching the big 4-0, the midlife, the midway, why did I chose that still? Was I still that same person with the very same needs? That past life should remain as that - in the past. Or does it?
In Vedic astrology, there is a lot of talk about past lives. That one’s soul lived decades, hundreds, maybe even thousands of years ago in another fleshy vessel. Like a different outfit. There is also the concept of purva punya, the “past life credit” as mentioned by William R. Levacy or “accumulated merit from past lives” as interpreted by James Kelleher. Much like one’s credit score built up on how you manage your financial credit from credit cards, loans, etc, except that it not only improves in this lifetime, also the next one.
It is against what I was raised to believe as a Catholic - a singular chance at life on earth that determines where I end up after in eternity, never to return. I still struggle on whether I am fully onboard with the concept of reincarnation and incorporate it into my practice. Does the past life only mean a lifetime spent by another human who is not me, but the soul and essence of me? Or is it possible for me to have past lives within this very lifetime?
On top of my age, as an immigrant, I am forever in mid-life, in between past lives, homes, identities and communities. There is a constant pull towards the comforts of what was, the anchor of where I was born, raised and grown, and the push towards the possibility of what could be, the chasm of where I am to continue my life and one day leave. Does this mean a total abandonment of what was?
The fibers of me were made in the Philippines. My motherland lives rent free in my head. My social media feed is filled with news from home. Tagalog are the words I exchange with my husband, family and friends. My palate regularly craves for the pucker of sour, the funk of bagoong, the soul and sunshine from tropical fruits and the constant accompaniment of rice with every meal because rice is indeed life. I don’t know if I ever move past that.
But is it always a polarity of never not this, but just that? Don’t we not bring our past selves into the new, “better” person who we desire to be?
My friend and I did not exchange hugs as we parted ways. The awkward wave of sanitized hands and grins behind our masked faces had to do. I walked towards the 96th street station to the beat of ambulance sirens, Latin beats blasting out of the corner bodegas and the muffled phone conversations from fellow masked pedestrians. The 6 cradled me, swaying to the rattle of the once dystopian, but now really empty train cars. I stared at my reflection, breathing harsh, hands shaking and whispering “This is 40. It’s OK.” as the city skyline disappeared with the train’s descent into the tunnel.
I turned the key into my childhood friend’s apartment. We’ve known each other for over two decades. We’ve seen each other grow up with family, crash and burn through school, careers and relationships, a friendship maintained despite the separation, and, now, physically reunited across continents. We caught up on how my day went - one of walking through the city, combing through the exhibitions at The Museum of Modern Art, bookstore browsing and, finally, that dinner with a friend. My hands still shook, but not as intense as I felt my soul’s cup slowly refilled with life.
Here I was living with my past in the present and with one foot into the future. Another chance to not just to simply jump back into the burning building head first, but to step back, allow the fires to subside then put them out, before running back in. That there is a past life, in this actual lifetime. We need not look for it elsewhere, but use it to learn and lean in towards the future. Perhaps the next lifetime will be better for it.
This was 40. I am home.
Sources:
“Holistic Tarot” by Benebell Wen
“Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom: A Tarot Journey Through Self-Awareness” by Rachel Pollack
“Path of Light Volume 1: Introduction to Vedic Astrology” by James Kelleher
“Beneath a Vedic Sky: A Beginner’s Guide to the Astrology of Ancient India” by William R. Levacy
What I’m watching:
I am currently in the middle of “WeCrashed” based on the rise and fall of WeWork founders Adam Neumann and Rebekah Paltrow-Neumann (Yes, she’s related with the Hollywood star with the same surname!) I think I am up-to-here of shitty rich people shows. People who wield a lot of power and money and continue to vacuum it for themselves. Sadly, these are REAL people with REAL World Impact. I purposely capitalized the “W” and “I” for emphasis on the scale. They are sh*t, we know it. Can this even change? Do we have the power to do something about this?
If you’d like to read more about tarot cards and their meanings, head on over to what I’ve written below:
Major Arcana
Minor Arcana