I am the third generation of a wealthy family. A family financially buttressed by uric acid. My grandfather and my father left me with a good amount of this metabolite. Unlike them, I have only suffered from two or three gout attacks. Everyday, I take a Zyloric pill. A box of this medicine contains 30 pills. Before I even have time to realize I have already finished another box. Another month has passed. At breakfast, sometimes, I count how many pills I have already taken or how many there are left in the box. I measure time, sometimes, according to my prescription pills.
At school I used to count the weeks left before the holidays. At University, it was the years I had left to finish my degree. In life, it used to be the months left for the birth of my children. In the daily struggle, the amount of time left to finish off paying my loans, leases and mortgages. For many years I have measured the passing of time by counting how much there was left to achieve certain goals, finalize certain obligations.
Now, I am at the age of finally being able to sit still, the age of taking stock of what has gone before me and what I have in front of me. Given that the past can never be changed, I spend each and every day fighting with all the hope inside me to take on new projects and not retire from anything….from absolutely nothing!
Anem Fent! Diari Levante-EMV la Safor. Sunday 30 september 2007. January 2019
Pasqual Molina 