Nothing always happens. There is invariably an interlude, an exception, and an anomaly in how we predict our future to take shape!
Like many at my age, I used to think that time was boundless and that an elegant, charismatic self would surely bloom sometime when I traveled through a picturesque landscape. In dreams, the flowery meadow appeared endless and unwilling to greet the horizon—an expensive panorama that could soothe a broken heart in a breath. My dwelling was cranial, if you have not realized yet!
When the leaves fall off the trees and stand bare, yearning for the sun’s warmth, a feeling of apricity lingers. The trees do not feel ashamed; it is a time for hibernation, rest, reflection, and letting go to prepare for new growth in the spring. I longed for such a blessing and silently cried many nights to become a tree to enjoy their perspicuity! If endowed with such an aptitude, I hoped I could escape the claustrophobic existence of living inside my brain. I became more alone and fell behind in participating in my surroundings because, with each passing moment, the beacon from the outside world became more indistinct. My self-made enclosure—a womb-like reclusive zone in the brain—failed to ensure extended consolation.
The ultimate mayhem, the feeling of betrayal, drowned all my senses that morning when I realized a countdown stage of my life had begun! A king tide of restlessness thrust me into reality to shake me up of daydreaming—to mark half a century of my life, drift, and monologue that I lived. I turned 50. Never, for a moment, did I feel that I had reached the milestone. It was more like waking up on a remote shore with my sanity deadened. An awakening still unsettles the most rooted pillars of conviction: no souvenirs from the past other than rusty memories that I thought to be accurate, but hardly that was the reality. A checkmate! I realized the endgame was imperative and could appear at my front door with a menacing stare during this phase. A possibility that was not in a distant future but was looming! But don’t the trees persist with their wishes for the sun’s warmth even if the winter spills into the summer months? When we hope, we inhale life; we essentially ingest the world’s vitality and make it resonate. It enables us to participate in our otherwise sterile lives, so life partakes of us. I, too, hope that despite everything, I may sidestep the inevitable for a little longer and get an interlude in my journey to wander among stunning landscapes. This longing is merely a fantasy, an exception to how things should be, but I must come to terms with being enslaved.
Apricity: the warmth of the sun in winter