Last month I had the great fortune of celebrating the anniversary of my birth, last week it was officially one year since I landed in Mexico City, and today is exactly one year since I signed my first lease here, the small room where I prepared for job interviews. It's a little hard to believe how many things can happen in one year.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how valuable, and hard to dimension, time actually is. I remember seeing somewhere, years ago, that if you're lucky, you get to experience around 75 springs, 75 summers, 75 autumns, and 75 winters. It's not a lot when laid out like this, and if you're reading this, chances are you've already experienced between a quarter and a third of yours. That is, again, if you're lucky. What will you do with the summers you have left? You can also see it in a different way: if your life were a 24-hour day, it would be barely past 9am when you turn 30. So it's still early; you could even say you have an entire day in front of you. But the entire day is not promised. No one knows when their clock is going to stop running. The paradox we face every day, then, is that it's okay if you don't have everything figured out right now, but you also shouldn't just sit waiting. It's a simultaneous "it's so over" and "we're so back" situation.

I also came across this idea on twitter recently, where you imagine you're actually 85 years old, and for one day you get to come back to your younger self. Like if you got a wish. This is your one chance to experience everything like in the good old days (the walk, the music, the sunlight), one last time. How lucky we are to experience all of it: the joy, the sorrow, the love, the heartbreak, the pain and the beauty.

One thing I've been trying to keep in mind, especially when I think back to how I was feeling one year ago, is contentment. I think we often get so focused on the next thing, on striving for more, that we forget everything we've accomplished so far: how many of the things we once wanted, we now have. There were nights in that small room when I had difficulty falling asleep because I didn't know what would become of me. Somewhere underneath the worry, though, I think I always knew I'd be okay. One thing I do wish is that I had worried less back then. Everything always works out somehow.

Thank you so much for reading. As long as you're alive, you can always start over, again and again.

until death, all defeat is psychological