(S)milestones

 

 

Do I celebrate birthdays and what have I accomplished? Pertinent questions that were propelled in my brain as today happens to be mine…there is an inundation of greetings from bosom friends and folks who are prompted by the social media and of course my family, who never miss the boat; hubby, dad, mom and my kids necessarily in that order, for accomplishing a milestone in the journey of life. So on the threshold of 50( a good three years to goJ), I am on reflection mode, to take an introspective and contemplative look within and measure the life that I have so far lived and I feel that I have failed on the basic count of wishing my parents, especially my mother, who has borne the pain and labour to make me see the light of day. How self- centered I am, whereas the altruistic creator would be praying for my well being!

As I take the self assessment check today, I realize that childhood was indeed a breeze, pristine and carefree days with nothing to fret and fume about. Everything that I needed was available on a platter and erudition was an effortless process without pressure and pain. Games were a hot pursuit for me with occasional dabbling in debates and elocution.

Teenage was full of exploration, from the cocooned shell to liberation and unshackling of mind. Fledgling outfits, standing for social equality and egalitarianism crying for redistribution of opportunity and wealth on the one side and capitalists and bourgeois on the other, accumulating wealth and profits for oneself, became the order of the day and as the coteries battled it out in the temples of knowledge, the art, science and administration of Governance took a back seat in my mind.

20s, the age of relationships, agnosticism, vacillation, apprehension, ambiguities and uncertainties was an all new episode or chapter of my life with graduate school and marriage happening alongside each other even though I had stayed blissfully away from affairs and affiliations! The decade was a melange of events fluctuating and seesawing between the good and the bad with the scales finally tilting on the positives with two beautiful off springs to add colour and vibrancy to motherhood.

30s justified my presence on this planet with the bringing up of two whippersnappers and my decibel levels went several notches upward! It was a also a period of care and nurturing the elders in the family but whether I did justice to the responsibility bestowed on me becomes a perpetual point to ponder and reflect upon!

40s, a significant age of maturity with a reasonable amount of hair loss and weight gain, a number where I had all the moves but albeit at a slow pace making me to realize that it is the old age of youth and the youth of old age was not far beyond and just round the corner! The level of imperfections in all fields added as embellishments to my beauty and the list of undo ables messaged by motor neurons, a constant battle between fact and fiction! The wrinkles only an indicator where the smiles existed!

Did these 40 plus years make me go on top of the ladder, wiser and more mature? Honestly, I do not know the yardstick for measuring these abstracts especially wisdom, except the measure of grey in depleting territory of black on my head, but these numbers may have taught me to more careful and ripened and I never lost sight of the memories in the ages I have passed by! I am still carefree, ready to rock and roll and read fairy tales and eager to be over the hill so that it is all down slope and I can pick up speed and it becomes a ‘smilestone’ and not a pile of groans!!!