Reality

Real life

My real life is this. I am me. 33, working in an ecommerce company, a mother to a lovely happy child, a wife to a person whom I was destined to meet. With vague notions of how interesting I am. Vaguer beliefs that there are deep layers to me.

My interests are undefined. For the now its an intention to get fit. In my future - I will be a dancer, a deep medidator, a shamanistic healer, a globe traveller, a writer. In my past- I was a trainer, a yoga practitioner, a photographer. In my present - I am a worker, mother, wife and me.

There is a line that someone said recently. He said that he realized that to date, he had lived an average life. Time had come for him to challenge that for himself and be the best person he could be.

An average life .......

What makes an average life, what does not. Does making a startup into a business make a life not average, or making a difference to others count, is it fame or developing a new game? is it rearing kids? or finding the peace and chakra bases? Is it speaking on Ted? Or being a president? What is it that will state - NOW, HERE. TODAY - my life is not average?

There is a fine line between contentment with the present and an aspiration for the future. The desire to get something is what fuels the fire. Sans that there no 'pulse'  or for me a lack of purpose.

Feeling alive happens when there is a thrill, a sense of discovery, a sense of unadulterated joy.

Off late this happens - in the smaller everyday moments of life. As I dance to a song with my baby, or laugh at her antics, or play peek- a- boo - for these slivers of time - I drop being an observer to my life and jump in.

This happens when I am outdoors, in nature. I cease to be for a while mentally racing to get somewhere. The mountains tell me stillness is all right

Motherhood is feeling alive. A mellow, tranquil bursting my heart open kind of alive. Yet - as strange as it sounds - sometimes it comes with a sense of dread.

My baby will grow up, she will leap off into her future leaving me again with this feeling of hollowness. Of a life that will be stamped with average. 

and yet I don't know what is not average. 

The more I live, the more I know that if there is one thing that is a constant - its me. Sitting in the Himalayas, or by the sea coast, on my office desk or watching tv. I remain me. The external places will never change how my head thinks. My happiness isn't connected to a thank you mail, a gift or a party. It is in my reaction to these events, the level of importance that it has

So what is.

I have stared at the blinking cursor for 5 minutes, to answer that.

10 years ago, the words would have rolled off. Travelling, meeting people. making connections, learning new things, being connected to the cosmos, being silly, making memories - yada yada yada, doing more, learning more, being more - a mad bouncy ball would have shrieked in mock horror at the others mellowness

Sure. Each of those is still valid and true. And forgetfullish. I do, I get happy. I forget,
Its external. Movie plots, books, plays, recitals, - come and vanish. Vapour off. They dont even leave behind memory chunks like they were supposed too. Fading off is unacceptable.Not if that is what was to have been about staying alive

Maybe.

Memories and being in the moment are not connected.
Maybe I cant compel my consciousness to choose what to remember and what not to
Maybe I should stop worrying about making memories and focus on living the today
If it remembers good. If not then not

Reality is - That this is all bull. Reality is that me and my average life are happy. Reality changes.

A child does not delve in demarcating between imagination and reality.
At the end, we are all living someones imagination, as our reality

A speck is me

I am a speck in the cosmos.

As tiny as I feel a grain of sand is on the beach.  

The realization that I am miniscule, tiny, irrelevant is strangely liberating. It re- emphasized for me that no matter what I do, achieve  or create – the passage of time will erase it.

Everyone and everything around us is set to go. Evaporate. Disappear.  Your boss, your phone, your pet, your clothes, your travel, your memories, your experiences- all gone

Four small experiences over the course of the past weeks made this feeling of utter peace a little more truly

1.  I read an article on buzz feed that brilliantly mapped the change in scale and perspective between Earth, and our planets. Our planets ant the solar system, our solar system in the galaxy, our galaxy vs other galaxies, and a comparison of the infinite and vast galaxies overall (

2. Seeing interstellar –  without going into the depths of how the movie was, good or bad, the fact remains that it showcased how there is the infinite possibility of life, planets, stars and a whole universe out there.

3.  Travelling – Sitting by the window seat of a giant Boeing and watching all of what we call earth, fade away and being replaced by a sea of clouds. Watching how minute the trees look, how houses fade into valleys, valleys give way to mountains. A road looks like a static river. The sun shines on it all and you only gaze down on it wishing everyone there peace and love

4. Going to the Zoo- Walked into the aquarium, and as T said muma fish fish fish, I saw this

A rock ,

A fish

A rock shaped fish, a fish that can be invisible and my jaw dropped. I gazed at this being and the multitude of other creatures that lined the aquarium and the speckness factor of my life only increased

All this made me realise that there is so little of life that is carried forward. Most of the moments of my past have dissolved. I remember few of the books that I have read,  have forgotten movie plots and play themes. The one thing that sticks more is bad Bollywood songs

Life ebbs by, creates and carries on. I worried through most of it. Will I be rich? Will I find love? Will I have someone to call my mate? What is my purpose? This half living consumed me more often than not

Today, I still worry – Will I get more money? Will I be promoted? Will I get my bikini body but all this in a highly dispassionate non-involved way.

S told me I am basking in momminess, that this contentment – or lack of ambition comes from being a mom. I disagree.

It comes from being a speck

Tiny, lovely and insignificant