TILL TODAY

Time was flying fast - first attempts to stand straight, first steps, first brisk run, fist confident walk. He was full of energy, he was taking me outside to play with kids, to introduce me to basketball, to show me martial arts. In return I was whispering into his ear my many centuries wisdom, I would remind him about his drive, love for life. He gave me a name. It was a different name sometimes. Some moments he was calling me "my shadow", sometimes it was "my reflection". I thought it's cool to have many names. It meant I was important. You don't waste time naming things that are not important, right?

We loved our life! Sometimes we would be very scared or upset, but we got more reason to appreciate it - our family grew bigger. We now had had sisters and brothers. I knew my Ramon would be a great Big Brother, our life was preparing us for this. We already knew how to take care of home, how to feed us, how earn pocket money here and there. I was afraid we would have less time to do our fun things.

I loved when he was taking us on the field. I would see him getting his basketball shoes on, watch him controlling the ball, seeing the target. I would go silent and watch how the ball goes into the basket. He would scream "SLAM DUNK!" Oh, what a wander that moment was! His heart would be pounding so much, I would be barely catching up, running around, collecting his bouncing emotions and storing them in our timeless "I" chest.

He would go home and be the best "Wise protector" out there for his little sister and brothers. We would have less time to do our fun things, yes, but we knew we were playing important role in their lives and it felt better than "Slam dunk".

His "I" chest was growing so fast, sometimes I couldn't keep up with it. We would carefully discover this life and place new self knowledge there. We had a drawer for "cares for his family; loves to love; truthful to his principles", another for "loves basketball; loves music; loves water; loves speed" and there were more of others. Some drawers though he was creating without me. There was one especially annoying drawer he never let me to touch. I always wanted to clean it, I felt it didn't belong to us. Ideas that didn't belong to us, self believed that didn't belong to us.

Who put them there? Seemed like more and more voices were whispering ideas into his mind. It didn't matter how much I screamed, I heard only echo of my voice. What idiot would tell him he isn't worthy of something? I knew him as no one knew. He was worthy of the best this world had to offer. He was generating so much love that I felt I could burst into particles within him.

While I was busy collecting our memories, our believes, our feelings, Ramon would be going through life like he had done it before. With perseverance, with courage, with open mind. We moved to Massachusetts and started our study there. We met new friends. We got into a new school. We got into a fight (that kid shouldn't have mistaken my calm for my passiveness). We met a girl. We met more girls. We even got a job! Life was so colourful, I couldn't wait for my boy to step into his next step in life.

One day something magical happened. Our lady, who we had been seeing the most told us she was pregnant...

I was not ready for that. Or was I? Oh my, we were ready for that! Just look at us how good we were handling it. I felt something new. That was a new feeling. He called it Love. Love. We had a Love drawer before, but this Love felt different.

When we were holding that boy in our arms, there was nothing but love. Everything felt possible. "We would get a better job! We would get a better house! We would get an education! We would protect this little baby, baby Nando. We would show him all colours of life!"

And we did all of it! Nothing could stop us!

...and next...

Magic grew bigger.

Ramon created two more wonders for us - baby Roeni and baby Rocio. Oh, we would show them the biggest love imaginable! We will rewrite the definition of fatherly care!

I started noticing how many rooms, chests, little shelves we started getting within us. Our "I" chest drawers started getting more prefixes "I love sport..with my family", "I love trips...with my kids", "I love party...for my family" and we loved it every single one of them even with more intensity.

I remember on one of such days, while Ramon was asleep as usual I was going through new files I received during the day. There was a funny "Roeni on a bike" memory, there was "Nando now knows more about comics than me" realization. I was putting it in respective drawers and noticed a dusted old closet. It looked oddly familiar... When I walked up closer, I recognized it! Of course! It was our "dreams" corner! We got so many new dreams since then, that I had completely forgotten about it.

I was trying to open it, but doors wouldn't move even an inch. I was trying to understand what was holding it and then saw it... Saw little fluffy creature hanging at the bottom and holding the doors together with its little trembling arms. It looked as if someone threw a hairy tennis ball in a chimney - black, long curly hair, huge eyes staring at me.

"Who are you?" - I exclaimed in shock! The creature was looking at me with eyes full of fear and was shaking it head as if refusing to answer.

"Are you lost? Do you want me to help you finding a way out?".

Instead It grabbed the doors even tighter and with a more determined stare shook its head.

"No these dreams. No hurting the family. Family is first!" - squeaked the Ball.

"What "hurting the family"? Is someone hurting our family? Are you here to warn us?" - I asked in shock, afraid to hear the answer.

"You do hurt family. You do bad. You open the closet. He do dreams. He do bad to family" - kept rambling the Creature.

"Are you saying that if I open that closet it will somehow hurt his family?" - I asked and saw It shaking it head in agreement. "Hmmmm. Why do you think is that?"

"Dreams comes true. He become bad father. He be said after. Kids be said." - was almost crying the Fluff.

Oh, I realized who I was talking to. It was a Belief. Belief is a powerful creature that is born when a memory or a feeling becomes so strong that it gets its own mind, its own voice and can start acting within a soul equally to me - shadow. Belief can whisper ideas, thoughts into the soul's mind, they can overwrite the dreams I so carefully plan and paint, they can re-organize memories in drawers to its own liking.

"Oh, my dear" - I finally realized who I was talking to - "We can realize our dreams and still be the best father on Earth, Venus and other planets, universes life will bring us. You see, the closet is dusty not because we forgot about what we like, but because we enjoyed caring for our family so much that we forgot about everything else. But contrary to your belief, we can be both - adventurers and great fathers. The space our family occupies would never shrink, it can only expand with new ways to feel love and feel loved."

I saw creature's arms shook. I knew this Belief did not have enough fuel to keep the strength to keep me from our drawer. I reminded It how we could choose to enjoy nature time alone, but we would always prefer to be with our kids, how much we enjoyed hearing them chatting, how an evening of watching them performing was always better than any adventure out there for myself. I watched the Belief shrinking with every story, every reminder until I could barely see it.

There was nothing else holding our old dreams. The closet was open...

When I opened that closet I didn't know it would be so painful, but so unavoidable. A lot has happened since then to us. We learned how to be the best father in a different way, but we missed the bunter. Ramon was learning to listen to the content of our Dreams closet, but he was missing his kids to realize the dreams with. We also started opening the self-care room more often. We wanted to be there for ourselves and our kids when we would turn extremely old. Apparently, humans consider 90 as old. They are funny sometimes. At 90 you barely even know a fraction of your multiple lives!

What's important - the engine of our life kept running at full speed. We were never afraid to pivot when necessary and to stop when needed. Step after step, breath after breath, our choices brought us here, to our Life. I chose the best Soul for the best Life to guide through.