As children, we want time to fly by so we can grow into adults and manage life as we please. But when we reach that stage, we want time to stop, because we discover that we’re subtracting years from our lives, and instead, we can’t do anything as we please.
At ten, we run around in the fields and have the most loyal friends. I’ve always thought that true friendships are, precisely, those of childhood. At 20, if we dedicate ourselves to studying, we’re almost finished with our university degree and want to start working to become financially independent, and we want to renew the companies where we work.
By 30, we’ve already achieved important life goals, but when we reach our third birthday, we become dissatisfied and set countless goals that motivate us to keep getting up at dawn to continue another day of work. Even though the warmth of our bed beckons us, but the duty to support our family and household expenses with our income lifts us.
When we get married, we don’t always find the perfect princess, but rather the woman we truly love for her virtues and with whom we want to have children. And soon, the children arrive, and suddenly our lives change completely because we discover the most unconditional and pure love.
Also when we divorce, life shows you that nothing truly lasts forever, and love, having become routine, buries the marriage. Then, perhaps due to experience and life’s blows, you become somewhat distrustful and doubt friendship, family, and romantic love. You become so demanding that you doubt the existence of love in the age of broadband internet, 5G, and so-called legally approved same-sex marriage.
Gray hair begins to fill our beards and invade our hair, and like vampires, we begin to fear mirrors, because we age without realizing it. I confess that I don’t have any mirrors in my house.
We’re almost 40, and we curse so many years of economic stagnation and yearn for another life to achieve failed goals. Not everything depends on us, and circumstances play tricks on our personal and social development.
It’s terrifying to see how baldness creeps into our heads, how we develop a little belly, and how a tooth hurts and needs to be extracted. While we are amazed when we see how a four-year-old skillfully uses a computer mouse to navigate, or how he or she plays a children’s game on a tablet.
We reach 40, and when we send our photos to friends who live in other cities and countries, they tell us in their replies: “You’re so old!” But then, with some consolation, we discover the charm of reaching forty, even though the official count is beginning to be ignored.
50! You’ve reached the mid-life stage, almost all your friends, family, colleagues, and neighbors tell you, and we begin to say: “I’ve never felt so young.” And that’s when, as the Latin saying goes, we begin to age. But we take some comfort in the fact that it’s a stage denied to many, who, due to health circumstances or accidents, are left behind on the beautiful, but short, path of life.
I’ve watched my daughter Isabella grow up, ultimately choosing journalism as her profession, which has been named the most beautiful profession in the world, according to Nobel Prize winner for Literature Gabriel García Márquez.
57 arrives, and like movie stars, we begin to take care of our physiques and visit the King’s gym, where no aristocracy goes, but rather a noble family that loves good looks and health. We go to star masseurs like Yoan, and we begin to take problems with humor to protect ourselves from stress and heart attacks, because we’re still young and want to live longer.
The world keeps turning, and we think there’s some planetary problem, because one week goes by quickly, one month is June, and the next is December, and we find ourselves celebrating another New Year.
Existence is short, joyful, and painful, filled with some difficulties. But it’s the greatest gift from God through our parents. So we must take care of them to prolong our beautiful existence with dignity, in this small, but only place in the universe where life exists.
Translated by Aliani Rojas Fernandez
- The Confessions of Turning Years Old - 23 de August de 2025
- Holguin, a city between two rivers - 21 de August de 2025
- The Charm of Gibara - 21 de August de 2025