Part I: Birth

It's a funny thing, life. We know nothing going into and out of it. We can't even begin to recall the first three to five years of our lives or so, and some of us are so unlucky as to not be conscious for the last few. We are born naive and die tragically jaded, ignorantly unaware or, a very rare few, at peace (It's a funny thing the latter, perhaps I've still got plenty of the youthful ignorant confidence towards these sort of things but I find it hard to believe anyone can truly be okay with dying. But really that's another story.)

Two things are the same for every living soul: we are all born and we all die. Every death is tragic, engulfed by mourning and every birth is... what is birth? Planned or unplanned, temperamental, a joyous occasion? Sometimes, but not all the time. People have managed to give birth without even acknowledging that they were pregnant and how they pull that off is beyond me.

It's a weird thing, not being able to remember our births. We were all there through the screaming and agony, the pushing and bleeding, the slapping and crying and bathing and hugging. They coo over you and fight to hold you while the nurses and doctors take you away to clean up all the ruddy disgusting natural liquids that were keeping you alive only moments earlier.

Then there's the naming. What's in a name? What is in a name? Nine months are spent trying to figure out what this tiny little being is going to be known as for the next 80 years or so. How did people decide on names in the olden days? Nowadays books are sold and profit is made on whether your child will be named Charlie or Henry. Does it really make a difference?

I wish I knew the story behind my name, or if there even is one. Marcela. Marcel or Marcelo if I were a boy. "Dedicated to Mars." What does that even mean? Mars as in Aries as in God of War? Apparently so. Maybe that describes my temperament and overall moodiness. My family-members would understand that best, I suppose.