The Parts We Haven’t Read Yet

I turn twenty-one.

There is something strange about birthdays. In reality, it’s just the fact that you have completed another year, but somehow it feels more like a kind of retrospect and self-introspection into what the past year has brought out and life in general, even if you don’t celebrate birthdays. It’s as if life were a book and you turned a new page; and although you eagerly await what the next page might bring you, you also contemplate the previous pages that you have read.

Twenty-one is a particularly strange number to arrive at (I may say this about any number, but somehow this feels different, and a strange, eerie feeling creeps into my mind whenever I think that I just turned twenty-one).

There were versions of the future I once considered certain. Some endings seemed inevitable. Not dramatic endings, necessarily. Just conclusions that felt so final that there seemed little point in imagining what came after them. It felt as if things were about to be over. The curtains on the stage were about to be drawn.

And yet, here I am.

That is perhaps the strangest thing about being alive: the future has a peculiar habit of refusing to match the version we imagined.

There were moments when I stood at what I thought was the end of a story. The stage was set. The lights were dimming. The actors were taking their places for the final scene. The curtains were about to drop, and I was supposed to make my grand exit. I was standing at the cusp of the exit.

But I was mistaken, and I am thankful even today that I was. I had mistaken the feeling of “this is an interval in the long play” for the much stronger statement “this is the final scene.”

But those are not the same things.

I looked back at the stage for one last time, and something had changed. Sometimes, just before the curtain falls, something happens.

Someone says something they don’t know they needed to say.
Someone knocks on the door.
A plan gets canceled.
A new responsibility appears.
A friendship begins.
A book is left unfinished.
The weather changes.
Morning comes.

Sometimes the interruption is so small that, in retrospect, it seems almost absurd that it mattered.

But it did.

And perhaps this is one of the things we misunderstand about being saved. We imagine that there must be a moment of revelation, some magnificent reason to live, some sudden understanding that makes everything beautiful and certain.

I have realized that it actually never happens that way.

Sometimes you stay without knowing why.

Sometimes you stay because you are curious.

Sometimes, because there is one person you haven’t said goodbye to.

Sometimes, because you want to see what happens next.

Sometimes you don’t even make a decision. You simply fail to disappear, and then another morning arrives, and then another. And somewhere along the way, without noticing, you have accumulated enough tomorrows to call it a life.

I used to think a reason had to be large enough to justify an entire existence.

Now I wonder if perhaps we have it backward.

Perhaps a life does not need one enormous reason.

Perhaps it can be made of hundreds of very small ones.

A conversation that lasted longer than expected.

A song you hadn’t heard before.

A meal you wanted to taste again.

A person you wanted to see tomorrow.

A question you still wanted answered.

A place you hadn’t visited.

A story you hadn’t finished.

There is something comforting about realizing that the things that keep us here do not always have to be profound. We are allowed to remain for ordinary reasons.

And perhaps that is what I want to say, not just to myself at twenty-one, but to anyone who happens to read this.

If you are standing somewhere you believe is the end of your story, always believe that there is a next chapter. If you ever feel that you are at the cusp of exiting the play, just look back at the stage for one last time, and maybe you will see that things have changed.

You don’t need to suddenly love your life.

You don’t need to find some grand purpose.

You don’t even need to explain why you want to see tomorrow. Just wake up tomorrow and see what happens.

Maybe all you need, for now, is to leave the ending unwritten.

Because there is a strange freedom in an unfinished story.

An unfinished story is not a failed story.

It is simply one whose ending has not yet been written.

And none of us, fortunately, is particularly good at predicting our own plots.

I am twenty-one today.

There are still pages I haven’t read.

There are people I haven’t met, places I haven’t seen, things I haven’t learned, mistakes I haven’t made, mornings I haven’t woken up to, and versions of myself I haven’t yet become.

I don’t know what is waiting in the next chapter.

But I will say one thing: I am thankful that I looked back at the stage for one final time. Because I was not supposed to be here, alive, writing this, but a huge wave of unexpected events occurred, which forced me not to leave the stage. That is the sole reason why I am here. I hope that these things may keep happening whenever I am at the cusp of exiting the stage, these unexpected things happen. I also hope that if you are ever in a position like mine, these things happen to you as well, so you don’t leave the stage before it is time to do so. For me, the plan was ready; I just waited for the day to arrive, but by then I no longer wanted to execute it. May this happen every time I have a plan to execute, so that the plan doesn’t get executed. For now, I am here, well alive, writing this story.

Goodbye for today, friend, whoever is reading this. We will meet again with the new stories of our new chapters. And again, of course, do not leave the stage before the act is over. Look back for one final time!

Yours lovingly,
The Yesenin who stayed