My Soul Has a Hat

Sometimes you come across words at just the right moment in your life, the kind that linger long after you’ve read them. I recently stumbled on a poem by Mario Raul de Morais Andrade called My Soul Has a Hat, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.

I read it right in the midst of celebrating Honey’s 50th birthday. It was a milestone that felt less like an ending and more like a wonderful marker of all the beautiful, ordinary, extraordinary days still ahead.

My Soul Has a Hat

I counted my years and found that I have less time to live from here on than I have lived up to now.
I feel like that child who won a packet of sweets: he ate the first with pleasure, but when he realized that there were few left, he began to enjoy them intensely.
I no longer have time for endless meetings where statutes, rules, procedures and internal regulations are discussed, knowing that nothing will be achieved.
I no longer have time to support the absurd people who, despite their chronological age, haven’t grown up.
My time is too short:
I want the essence,
my soul is in a hurry.
I don’t have many sweets
in the package anymore.
I want to live next to human people,
very human,
who know how to laugh at their mistakes,
and who are not inflated by their triumphs,
and who take on their responsibilities.
Thus, human dignity is defended, and we move towards truth and honesty.
It is the essential that makes life worth living.
I want to surround myself with people who know how to touch hearts, people who have been taught by the hard blows of life to grow with gentle touches of the soul.
Yes, I’m in a hurry, I’m in a hurry to live with the intensity that only maturity can give.
I don’t intend to waste any of the leftover sweets.
I am sure they will be delicious, much more than what I have eaten so far.
My goal is to reach the end satisfied
and at peace with my loved ones
and my conscience.
We have two lives.
And the second begins when you realize you only have one.

I don’t share these words in a sad or wistful light. Quite the opposite. They reminded me that there’s so much to relish in the years we’re blessed with, and that it’s worth choosing joy, laughter, and the company of people who fill your heart to the brim.

I don’t really believe my “second life” is just beginning now, or that a milestone birthday marks the date. For me, that turning point came when I lost our sweet Matthew almost 18 years ago. Nothing shifts your view of the world quite like loss, but out of that pain grew a promise to myself to really live this life. To hold people close, to make time for little moments, to laugh loudly, to be softer where I can, braver where I need to be, and grateful every single day.

So here’s to the years ahead – to good food and good wine and good friends, belly laughs, long talks, short trips, Taco Tuesdays, and celebrations that don’t wait for an occasion. Maybe you’ll read these words and find they were just the ones you needed right this minute, on this day, or in this season.

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