Tempora Mutantur

After my parents died, I was left with cleaning the house of decades of junk. My mother saved everything, so eventually I came across the hospital bill for my birth many decades ago. The bill was written on a small slip of paper similar to a restaurant check. My mother spent three days in the hospital, for which she was billed eight dollars per day: $24. The cost of my delivery was $26. So the bill totaled $50. Three days in the hospital and delivering a baby, just $50. Today it would be thousands. 

Earlier this year, I went to my dermatologist for my annual skin cancer inspection and she found a small cancer on my back. She removed it and the procedure took about three minutes. The bill was $245, which is $150 more than the regular, no-cancer visit. 

I remember going to see my pediatrician when I was a few years old. He lived in a big house (at least, it seemed big to me) and his office was in the basement. If I was really sick, he would come to my house with his black doctors' bag and examine me.

Today, doctors practice—mostly—in fancy offices that make you feel like you just stepped into the next century.

As a Roman poet supposedly said, "Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis."  Meaning: "Times are changed, we, too, are changed within them." Though, I feel like it's the world that is changing but I'm not changing with it. Time is a stream, and I'm a rock in that stream. Time flows around me like water flows around that rock. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it's how I feel.

Is reincarnation real? If it is, then when I pass on, maybe I'll come back to this world. My birth date might be in the 23rd century, or the 24th, or the 25th. To the reincarnated version of me it will just be my world; I will remember no other. But when I get to the end of that future life, I know I will be amazed at how the times have changed during my life, and I'll probably think about having another lifetime to live, in another century or two.

Maybe in my next lifetime I'll get some things right that I didn't get right this time around. Maybe I'll be a little smarter, a little wiser. I hope that's how it works.