Born Yesterday

There’s an episode of Bluey where the dad is playing with his children and they’re pretending it’s his second day alive. The kids are explaining to him how everything works and what it is, and at the end of the episode, while they’ve stopped playing, the dad can be seen just standing in the backyard marvelling at a leaf.

What an amazing lesson in embodiment.

I often say that receiving my transplant was a glimpse into this second day of living kind of mentality. It was, for lack of a better word, like I’d just been born yesterday. Colours were brighter, textures felt different, I got to eat so many foods for the first time. And let me tell you about that shower, because that first shower was hands down the best shower I’ve ever had in my life, which isn’t something you might think when you think of showering post surgery wrapped in Saran Wrap to cover IV lines, using a shower chair with the help of someone you just met a few hours ago. Even the water felt different.

My husband reminded me recently that in those early days, I wanted to record everything. And not only so I could see it back and relive the memory, but I also wanted a way to be able to share the newness and novelty I was feeling with everyone else.

The novelty, the marvel, the joy that came with eating an orange.

I was 100% in my body, in the moment. Partially because I had to be, because pain and a lot of these body based experiences are things that require your sole focus, but also because it was all going somewhere I’d never been before. It was that vacation feeling in my everyday life, and the idea that this got to be my reality now was overwhelming to me.

Being so embodied, not in my head thinking about what’s next or what I’m making for supper tonight or the work I have to get done, it gave me that born yesterday feeling. And while my life (thankfully) isn’t the same now, and I do get to do more normal things like worry about what to make for supper, wash the dishes and stress about the fact that I forgot to send an email, I still have the power to access that born yesterday state. I have, and do routinely, return to my body and experience things like I’ve never experienced them before.

I’ve eaten oranges now, plenty of times, but I’ve never eaten this orange. And if I slow down and smell the orange, and take a tiny bite, does that change my relationship with the orange? If I slow down and notice where my body is, does that change my relationship to being in a body?

We can’t all be born yesterday, but we can pretend. We can experience things with the same level of attention and childlike wonder.

What does being alive feel like when you are truly, deeply, fully alive?