The skies and borders are opening, but this time, it is not the same kind of panic everyone felt two years ago. It’s the kind where everyone is in a hurry to start something but doesn’t know how or where tountries are just beginning to experience the feeling that Europeans and Americans already did a start. Asian cofew months ago. We almost taste freedom, smell the wind, and practically feel the warmest hugs we have all longed for.

My friends and I are too excited to book a long holiday to return home and be with our families. Although, that little crippling thought haunts you out of nowhere. What if something happens again? What if the cases rise on my way home and borders start to close again? What if I cannot return to work this time and eventually lose my job? What, what if… It is daunting to even think of it, painting a miserable and scary picture. But then you rewind to the moments when no one knew this pandemic would ever happen. We all said to ourselves at some point, “This is just like in a movie”. Apparently, it is.

Asian countries reopening is like a Book 2 or Season 2 of any movie or series we watch on Netflix. We all know what the story is about; we are just waiting enthusiastically and trying to figure out the new twist and the ending. In times like these, you tell yourself sometimes f#%@ it! I’m going to live my life because I don’t know how and until when it will last, or Live on the edge, Life is short, or as the famous one (YOLO) You only live once.

It’s great to live wildly and worry-free, but life is not short; it is long and full of agony. You have families and friends around you that you care about and think about. That is our distinction as humans from animals: the conscious acknowledgment that we exist for ourselves and the circle around us. Live your life with great adventure but with fear so that it is well-lived and not wasted when the time comes.

What’s next? I think is to breathe and appreciate what is in front of you, do all the things that you love that you missed doing, travel to people and places you haven’t seen and been with, and most especially, embrace and reconnect with yourself, there is nothing more important than to center yourself, recharge, be more potent than before and get ready for the Book 2.