Youth versus the maturity of the years.

It cannot be said that over time we do not change. We change for many reasons, we change because life gives us experience and experience makes us see things from other angles, angles that were imperceptible to our eyes because we had not experienced anything like it.

This means that many of our responses to our environment are rooted in our previous experiences. That is why we often change our minds about unknown subjects but we had our point of view even without having our own experiences.

We change because we grow older. The tranquility of age makes us see in more detail what is going on around us, our speed of movement changes and our gaze is now not only to the front but also to the sides. We see the experiences of others and we think that we can also live those experiences.

Because when we are young we are impetuous, vigorous and we think that nothing can happen to us until it happens, we are called young rebels because we like adventure... and it’s my adventure what I want to talk about today.

When I was young I was very adventurous, back when I was 16 years old. I wanted everything in my life and I told myself that I could achieve anything if I put my mind to it.

When I bought my first car at the age of 20, the other part of my adventurous spirit began. I drove everywhere, all you had to do was tell me where to go and off I went. My mind did not take into account the possible accidents that every moment of existence brings. My gaze was fixed on my destination and the consequent victory of the event.

The first time I traveled alone by road, and I did it alone, I drove to the capital of my country, there I would meet a friend who would help me work out the details of my stay in that city.

I traveled for 3 hours, on a road that was busy with all kinds of cargo vehicles, urban transport, anything you can imagine that can be found on a national road and then on a highway. I drove like a person who had mastered the art of driving and my reflexes were good, my speed was always over the limit, my vehicle had a speed limit of 140km per hour and I always exceeded it.

Then I went driving further afield, the city just beyond the capital allowed me to travel for two more hours and so I did, a 5 hour drive because I was trying to get into a university for 4 years and I never got an in. It was too many trips, by myself and with my music. I love to sing, even though I don't have a good voice and I sang the whole trip I even whistled complete melodies.

I traveled alone to other destinations and as a last resort to study at the university.  I drove for about 18 hours on the road. I didn't know the way, but a friend or rather, the father of a friend, described where I should go until I reached the Venezuelan Andes.

As I have pointed out before, I smoked. So during my travels I only smoked and stopped for gas and coffee, I didn’t like to eat on the roads.

And so I traveled my country, many states, traveling alone from one side to the other. On a few occasions I had accidents, but with God's grace they were never serious accidents.

I learned to correct certain defects in my vehicle, to recognize sounds of malfunctions. I learned to change a rubber tire, I learned to check my battery to see if the fault was due to sulfated cables, I learned to check the oils in the gearbox and engine. I learned that every time I took my car out of a car wash he would choke, or it wouldn’t turn on because of the water that could get into the engine after a bad job by the engine washers, this happened to me many times. The car doesn’t respond to the ignition, no matter how hard I try it makes a sound as if to try starting and it cannot. It's what we call engine choke here, I learned to be patient and wait.

I learned to put water in the radiator when smoke came out of the car, wait for it to cool down and then put the bottle of water I always kept for these cases.

I learned to check the oil level of the vehicle since it was always consuming a lot of oil and I had to have several containers of oil to put in when I was far from an oil supply.

My boldness made me learn everything I could to be able to travel wherever I wanted. Once it was already 10 pm and I was driving almost an hour away from the city where I would stay.  It so happened that there were no lights on a long stretch of the national highway, I didn't see the signs and went the wrong way. Instead of taking the right side of the road, I took the left. But as I started to climb I realized that I had made a mistake and was taking the downhill track of some road. Everything was very dark and I braked quickly to back up, before a vehicle met me in front on its normal track.

But when I braked suddenly the car turned off. My God... I got out quickly, asking God for help in that darkness. Thinking about the battery terminals, I quickly went to look for the wiper, a small device with a hole in it where it has many soft but sharp irons that when turning on the terminal scrapes it and cleans it, I opened the hood of the car, removed the cables of the battery and I passed them the raspaborne very quickly. I put the cables back on and immediately the lights came on, I realized that the car would start and it did.

I closed the hood of the car, and quickly backed the car out of the lane until I got back on the lane I should have taken and continued on my journey.

And this is just one of many accidents that I experienced and solved in my travels alone on the roads of my country, in times when it was possible to travel, because now it’s not advisable either to travel alone during the day or to travel accompanied at night. Those were other times.

But what I want to point out is that from my 20s until I was about 40 years old, the world was for the daring, for me, I could do anything! They were fast activities, what I couldn’t solve, for me was a stressful moment but I put all my strength into everything.

Now I see things from a different angle. I no longer have that boldness, now I think more about things before I do them. I take on challenges but I try to control the variables, something I didn't do before.

And that is why I allow myself to say that the experience we achieve in life makes us change our way of seeing, feeling and doing what was different before.

I look back and I see my life go by as fast as the pages of a movie, one after another, so fast and the years make you slow down. Now I have a mind that, although it works all day long, it slows down, it looks at things better. I'm still the disciplined woman with my chores and my schedule. I am never late unless… I never keep my patients waiting for hours to be seen unless...I never stop to make a fuss unless....

I was a very daring woman in my life and maybe that is why even in my 60's I work Monday to Monday, I am happy, I am at peace, and I keep going but in slow mode.

Many thanks to all of you my beautiful readers and sponsors of read.cash, I love you all!