“Strength” is what we call it when we do what we don’t want to, when we subject ourselves to a little obligatory discomfort to inch closer to that noble and intangible “prize”: maturity. I see myself aging like fine wine or cheese–because if there’s anything I’d want to bear a likeness to, it’s cheese. Age adds flavor, age is bold, age jacks up your price on the market. Age means strength.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks that if I can’t be significant, I should at least be different; and if I can’t emerge successful, I can at least be strong.There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, you just have to be strong. Not everybody gets what they want, you just have to be strong. This too will pass, you just have to be strong. It’s usually a question of strength when I ask myself what the hell I’m doing pinned to this desk. It’s usually strength that’s to blame when I wonder why I didn’t become a writer.
Aside from strength, I also talk about “time”, I talk about “money”; it’s all a matter of allocating resources. This is what maturity has amounted to: understanding my life as a series of economic consequences. And this keeps me so busy that I tend to forget where things should go. I make lists, I draw grids, I try to keep organized but I’m never really organizing my life around the things I really want, so I keep forgetting. My more “mature” conscience, the “stronger” part of me says that this is okay. This is just part of it and without all this useless aging and all these initiations, I’d just be a fleeting glimpse of the person I am now.
Alice Sarmiento 