My life has been so far great in every aspect I can think about. I never needed something even though kids around me were in needs. It is not about to brag but being real. The moral of the story is that being fortunate can make you not being grateful enough with life and the little things that happen to you every day. I am going to start my story from the end. This is how life taught me to appreciate little things and changed the way I was living, but before let me tell you who I was and how this may be happening to you right now.
This is me in the Honor Guard of Venezuela
My father and my mom never lived together, but he was always interested in me and in my education. My mom only had one child, and it is known that when this happens kids “always” are egocentric. As far as I can remember, I always was bitter with every one, I didn’t like to talk with anyone and didn’t like to smile. It was so much that when I was a little boy I hit my head with the wall when I got angry, like if I were a bull (actually, it is my zodiac sign, Taurus, and my last name is “Bravo” that means “angry”) For that reason, my cousins told me that I was a “toro bravo”, an angry bull.
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I kept growing up and my attitude never changed, I fought for everything and got angry for even minimal things. I didn’t appreciate the stars in the sky, the wind in my face nor the peace in the country. My mind was blocked by stupid things and later I would regret for not doing what I really wanted to do or by not getting what I wanted.
I left the university in my 7th semester of ten, it was more for rebellion and doing what I wanted to do. I had a little music school, that even though it was not a bad thing, finishing my studies would have been great. I always complained that I had to wake up at 5am and I always was falling asleep, but the real reason was that I was heading bed at 12am or 1am. If I had rested more it would have being different. It was my choice.
It was until one day that I decided to join the army, compelled for the recent event of the death of my grandmother. I wanted to escape from the life I was living, I didn’t like it. I felt, I knew something was wrong and this situation was telling me to do something.
I didn’t tell anyone. I just asked for the information and the prerequisite to join in a very special force entrusted to guard very important people and pay honors to the people who created the country I live.
My mom was very worried about me. She had raised a boy with all the facilities she could afford. She didn’t thought I could handle being treated less than that. But I felt like I needed to learnt something and life was thinking the same.
I joined the army. They cut my hair and made me shave my face every day from that day on. Made me wake up early every single morning and treated like another one, no preference. They made me do exercises until I couldn’t even stand and my arms were exhausted. They turned me away from my family taking away my smartphone and everything that connected me with the world outside.
They sent me during one month in a mountain that was so cold that just one drop of water was painful and waking up at 2am shaking was something normal. Made me walk during hours and just drink little water. They put me in water swimming during hours. They were all the time looking for imperfections in my works and never recognizing my good work.
They brought me to my point break. That was their goal. Once they saw our limit, they returned the young one to his family to never being called again. They didn’t want weak people. And they would verify that with one main trial.
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The last thing they wanted us to do was jumping from a plane. Of course, the preparation was extreme, so much exercises. We had to be strong to withstand the fall without harming ourselves, even though we had parachutes. They made us sign a contract that confirmed that we were risking our lives and we had agreed with that.
Many of us accepted, but many failed in doing it. Many refused to jump from the plane. It was too high and when the plane was flying the city our bodies were shaking…
I felt the fear like anything before in my life. From that height I could see how tiny I was all the time, and even I was shaking, I felt compelled to do it. I had to jump.
Once I was in front of the door to jump, I just could see the blue sky and the wind pulling me to jump to the vast of the sky. Actually, I couldn’t decide to jump or not, the strong air sucked me taking me away from the safe plane and my friends… I didn’t have a choice. I was lost at full speed in the sky.
I was so nervous that I forgot to do all the things I had to do while jumping… I was falling so hard that I couldn’t think anymore, my mind was getting darker, slower, dizzy… I just saw the blue sky while falling hard… there was no thinking, no feeling, no fear… Just the blue sky…
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When I was getting the zone of not return, the height in which even if you open you parachute you cannot survived the fall, was in that moment when I felt that something pulled me hard from my back, waking me up from my little dream. My parachute had opened not only saving my life but giving me another chance to live my life different from what I had been doing it.
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Perhaps my life hadn’t finished in a blink of an eye, but my time there in the army yes. I had learnt what I had been looking for, what life wanted to teach me.
Once I returned home, I never told my family and friends all what i saw and lived. That was personal and it was for me, only me. Nobody else needed to know and I didn’t want to worry them. I was a different person and just that mattered.
I finished my studies as a teacher of music and learnt to do different things like preparing sushi and coffee in an express machine. I didn’t want to refuse any new experience in my life.
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What I learnt was to be grateful with life. Appreciate the little moments I can spend with my family and friends. Just being relax at home and talk and connect with people, just hearing what they want to say but you weren’t able to hear before. Just getting in bed early because I am exhausted and I can rest, because in the army when I was exhausted I couldn’t decide to rest or not, someone else did it for me.
Sometimes, the most supernatural event in your life happens in little things, but we are so blind that we cannot see them. Sometimes there is not ghost, no UFO… Just life giving you a second chance to live again and better.
Like never before.