If only...

The thin line between selfishness & happiness

White. Blue. Yellow. Orange. Magenta. Pink. Red... One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven... ...is what I think to myself sitting here identifying and keeping count of how many colors I can find in the sunset that I see from over the second floor balcony of my Uncle's home. As I sit here on his rope-tied rusty old hammock, I also wonder about what he'll do with it once he moves to Houston... donate it...throw it away...I guess none of that really matters though once he moves out of this busted old place anyway; a place of chipped blue paint off the walls, week old empty green glass beer bottles laying around, with the addition of the lingering smell of freshly smoked cigarettes laced through the air from room to room...is how I would describe it. It wasn't exactly the most comfortable place to be, let alone a luxurious one, but it was...home. I won't deny, it made me feel a slight tinge of sadness at the thought of my Uncle moving away and not being able to come here just to stare at the sunset while having to smell those awful lit cigarettes of his; they were most definitely intoxicating, but once he leaves, I don't think I'll ever catch a whiff of someone smoking and not feel at least a tiny bit of nostalgia towards his absence. But what can I say? He's living for himself, he's a selfish man with bad habits, I must admit...but a selfish man who knew how to chase his dreams and take risks nevertheless...what a strange guy he really is huh... but hey, what do I know...I'm just the daughter of his little brother stopping by his house at the same time everyday to ponder about life while trying to catch a sunset that is most beautiful at 9 pm from his balcony on a summer's day.
I started to remember all the things the people in my life have told me growing up.
"Be a little less naive..." "Lie sometimes for your own sake..." "Stop trusting people..." "Stop caring too much..."
But this really brings me to the question...should I be more like my Uncle?
Should I go after what I want even if it's not what someone else wants...even if it's not what my parents have planned out for me? Should I stop feeling guilty whenever a situation calls for a lie or two, and morals need to be compromised just a bit?
Have I ever lived for myself? Or am I trapped in a cycle of constantly living for others at the expense of my own happiness...
Better yet, I ask...how can I live for myself?
The thing is, the line between selfishness and happiness is incredibly thin...only question is how to know when a situation calls for you to be slightly selfish in order to be happy...and when your selfishness is simply too costly for you to be happy...
When asked a question such as this, "Your past sins are simply too great for you to ever be truly happy at times...at least not in this lifetime...so you gotta be a good person in order to have a great life the next time around." is what my Mom would have said...
Huh, if that were true, then it's funny how we'd be suffering from sins we committed from a life no longer even in our memories...I think to myself, as I doze off into a deep sleep to the slight sound of wind rustling through the leaves of my Uncle's maple tree in his backyard...until all of a sudden...I started falling...why was I falling? Did I somehow get pushed off the balcony? Wasn't I just on the hammock a little while ago? I ask myself, panicked and afraid...I could feel the adrenaline in my veins... pumping in sync with the beat of my heart...air...getting caught in my throat...it was getting hard to breath...
I guess this is it...it's true what they say...that your life flashes before you, right in that moment where you know you're about to die and that there's no way you're ever going to make it...
My mind was a blur of vivid images of my family as well as all the thoughts and feelings of regret I ever had... stored away in the back of my head... it all came rushing in at once and I didn't know how to handle it...but there was one thing...
"If only I had been a little more selfish..." was my last thought before I tensed up my body muscles and hugged myself as tight as I could...bracing for the fall that was to come, as the ground was getting less and less far away...
"I'm ready to die..." is what I say to myself...until...