A birthday lesson

There are some years in your life that you just do not want to let go of. And the saddest part is that no matter how hard you try to pull it back it still moves forward and goes behind that curtain. Yet there are some other years that you would want to shove out of the window from the top most floor of your high rise apartment and they wouldn't leave till it's time for them to leave. It took me quite some time to understand that the clock of life follows its own rhythm and that I cannot tamper with it. That's what birthdays do to you; at least from that age when your birthday cake appears to explode from the weight of the candles on it. They make you see the truth more clearly with the passage of time.

I celebrated my 43rd birthday a few days ago and looking back, I noticed that every year after I turned forty has been not so easy on my poor heart. It would get worked up with anxiety and worry; right from about the strands of grey which seemed to multiply with no concession and the lines and blemishes on the face as well as the sagging and bagging... there was no stopping of any of that. What I found the worst was the expanding waistline and the receding hairline; a gain and a loss alongside but not in the desired order. Fretting about it all the more didnt help to make it any better. In fact it got worse. The stress added on a tormented look to my otherwise ageing face. That looked really bad! The stress ended up in pains of all sorts; joints and muscles and where not. The doctor who I went to gave me my first warning bell; "you should take it easy". Till then I never knew that I could get stressed. I was always the one who was forever cool and forever young and had always people around and was always wanted. And now I almost turned in to the person who could rarely stay cool and thus grow older faster and was on the constant look out for people to be with her. All this did not happen way too long back. In fact, it’s only been a couple of months. Till then I used to brag about being ready to grow older gracefully but the truth was that I wasn't. I now saw that it freaking petrified me. My worst  nightmares have been about being stranded alone in a place with mad vehicles of all shapes and sizes honking and hollering at me from all sides and no human to the rescue. {Nightmares on traffic is not an uncommon phenomena to people living in a city like Bangalore, if you know what mean ;) }

Trust me, that is the worst place anyone can be and I wanted to come out of that.

So, what did I do?

 I started letting go; letting go of worries which made no sense of worrying. The first step was to take a deep breath and let the situation sink in. I accepted the fact that those greys on my hair can only be coloured and that's what I decided I will continue to do. I am still not ready to give in to the grey. I also accepted that the lines and the blemishes can be covered if need be but I find it too much of work. My to-do list is already overflowing. So I let that be. But all this is secondary, the most important thing about the gaining years was to learn to accept that it was alright to be alone. In not so long from now I will have much more of time to myself and instead of getting worried about it I needed to start thinking about making the most of it. My grown up daughter is very much on her own now and I am super proud of her. But there is no more running behind her or getting obsessed with her routine which used to occupy a lion's share of my time till recently. This relatively new found space confused me in the beginning and I used to flare up in exasperation. I just didn’t know what to do with my time. Getting myself caught up in the mundane chores at work and at home did not help me.  It made the space larger and wider and I was getting lost in it. The phone became my clutch and I started getting hooked on to it; checking it to pass my time and trying to occupy my mind. No offence, but I am disgusted with the addiction that WhatsApp can create in you if you let it do so. 

So that's my big new learning. I want to live the rest of my days by spending my greatest currency, my time, on people and things I am passionate about. What this birthday did to me was made me see that. It gave me the opportunity to find the time to reconnect with beautiful people who i have known at various stages in my life but never had the time for. I was always busy; busy driving, busy cooking, busy working, busy hanging on to my phone, busy getting messed up.

 I woke up on my birthday with a prayer in my heart; please keep me happy today and it worked. I had one of the best birthdays that I have had in so many years.. without anything that counts as fancy in a materialistic context. I had enough time to spend with people I wanted to be with for a very long time, I spent time doing things that I always enjoyed doing but never found the time for and that made all the difference. 

Now my prayer extends.. please help me stay this way:)