I have lost spontaneity: enjoyment also has to be planned

PalmaI have lost spontaneity with my partner, my friends, my family, my job, the things I did because I enjoyed them. I am reminded of this by a photo I see of a girl lying in bed next to her boyfriend. The scene is clear enough to detect that she is not wearing a shirt. The photo is blurry, she is laughing with a grimace of shyness and boldness, and he is hiding. When was the last time we took a photo like that? Without thinking, because we let the moment surprise us and we said this yes, this yes we must immortalize. When was the last time we let ourselves get carried away without thinking? Without gauging if it was a good time, if we had time not to think. When was the last time I let myself go playfully, unconsciously?

I think I have stopped liking spontaneity because I no longer know how to enjoy it. It is like that hilarious friend with whom you struggle to get along because she proves to you that you are not so fun. Instead of a possibility, a window to real life, it represents for me a threat to the status quo of my days, rigid as a soldier, unstable as a Jenga. And, like with that friend, the evidence of what I lack: the capacity to improvise, to enjoy a surprise, a change of plans.

Are we who we are when we follow a pattern, when we are within our own margins? Are we what we are through repetition? Does what is known, the people, the routines, make us who we are? Are we who we are when we have everything controlled because only that gives us enough peace to be who we are? Or are we who we really are when we don't have an arrival time, when we say “one day is one day”? Are we who we are, deep down, in the exception? Are we who we are in chaos, when nothing matters?

Between one thing and another, I have little room left for spontaneity, for playing, for inventing –for example– what the owners of the furniture I find thrown on the street on collection day would be like. I am reminded of this by the fuchsia pink plastic dressing table, full of heart and star-shaped stickers, abandoned next to a solid wood armchair upholstered in velvet that is now faded. Two different and equally caricaturable personalities. I could write a story about each one.

But I have forgotten that these possibilities exist, just as one day my goddaughter will forget that the possibility exists of choosing Frozen blue eyeshadow for makeup or doing "the side-flip on the trampoline," as she says. I would like to have the spontaneity of children and write the way they chatter: direct and without explanations, taking it for granted that everyone knows their language –even the terms they have invented– because, almost always, they think their interlocutor knows more than they do.

How many nos that could be yesses

One day I started taking life too seriously and now everything is solemn and serious: I fulfill my duties and needs as if someone were supervising me. And no, it's just me, monitoring my self-exploitation system. I’m on a mission constantly. I need to fill, structure, and compartmentalize every single day, hour, minute, second of my week so that all my dreams come true. To love the people I love, to write, to be financially independent, to have a body that ages with dignity. Small dreams subjected to a seamless production line (if you don't dare to change the script).

So I say no. No, I'm not coming to lunch because I brought a packed meal today. No, not today, I haven't shaved. No, a coffee no, it ruins my whole morning. No, I need to rest. No, my mind is elsewhere and I'm unable to feel your hands on my skin. No, I'm so anxious that nothing is funny, I don't know how to laugh. No, today I feel kind of bloated. Please, no: I can't today, I can't right now, I can't this week. I have to continue with all this that I had to do. I would like to, yes, I would love to, but I can no longer say yes to more things. The storage is full. I need to empty content because, if not, I will suffocate and no, I won't be able to enjoy anything else that you might offer me.

How many nos that could be yesses, if I could, if I hadn't lost my spontaneity, if I let myself be caught by enjoyment, unexpectedly. If I didn't want to control it, even that, to place it on Saturdays and Sundays, starting from twelve o'clock at noon.