Sitting on a bench by the side of a company garden, I watched two small children on a swing. One goes up, the other goes down, and vice versa.
On the colourful and jovial side of my greying sixties, my eyes were glued to the swing but my mind was working in endless raptures. My thoughts were on a swing.
A swing through my past remembrances and my future dreams.
I realised that the past was getting too heavy, and the dreams of the unseen future were too sparse and lightweight.
The past was beautiful and positive, enriching me from all angles and vistas. I achieved what I wanted, earned what I needed and raised a decent family. I nurtured relationships and never compromised my efforts regardless of my expectations. I followed my passions, lived my profession to the fullest, and made a living from it.
But do I still have dreams?
Silently looking at the giggling children, I thought about the dreams of these children. They have no past, just loads and loads of endless dreams. So much has to happen in their lives. For them, the swing is heavier on the dream side.
So,
As we grow old, the swing of memories and dreams goes on. As we age, the memories become stronger and the dreams become less and less real.
I remember my father, at ninety, had nothing but his memories to share. He would sit with a group of people and narrate his glorified past, no matter what. His future was ‘the day’, which was not far away, but rather any day.
I tried to nurture my psyche with the positivism of my obscure future. I tried to weed out anything and everything that was cluttering my mind and heart with the burden of emotional baggage. Be it some stupid commitments or loathsome relationships that were sucking and draining my positive energies.
I have been resolute in leading a life full of passion. Passion for writing, passion for gardening and travel, and a passion to be in love, to my last day.
Don’t we all, in our swinging sixties or more, need this awesome feast to swag our taste buds?
Do we have to follow the rut of still carrying the load of several things that we have shouldered in the past three-quarters of our lives? —
Do we need to keep bowing in front of some illogical friendships and relationships that have humbled and sucked us?
Do we really need to keep pondering over ways to accumulate more and more wealth to make it better for people who may not need it or may not give a hoot to the toil that we have been doing our entire lives to store it?
No, we don’t need anything.
We need to at least NOW, learn and strive to live for ourselves.
I don’t care if people call me selfish.
At sixty, yes, I am selfish.
I want to live on my own. I want to discover the man in me.
There’s nothing wrong with that, right?
