The ground beneath my feet

The ground beneath my feet

There are some things that you count on. Even when every day starts with a new reminder that we live in a world gone a little mad, there are some things that you can hang your hat on, and expect the hat to be exactly in the same place when you reach for it. Like your parents’ love for you and yours for them, like yours for your children, like the feel of the cool crisp air on a winter morning, like the softness of your little nephews curls, and the rock solid firm strength of your bravest and strongest friend.

Everyone is brave in their own mysterious way, and none of us can never know the true depth of the other’s struggle – you can only guess at it and marvel at their quiet grace. And perhaps try and learn something from it. Even without their ever saying a word, you know that getting out of bed in the morning and facing the day takes every last bit of their stubbornness. For what else can you call such craziness but stubbornness. To smile and go about their business and care for others when all they want to do is crawl into bed and stay under the covers.

But what happens when one of the strongest people you know can’t find it in them to lift those covers. Someone who you always knew was like the still water that you always admire, but something always told you that they run very very deep. Someone who always smiled and laughed off their troubles and was there for everyone else and would only let little bits of their life show when it collided with yours.

When that happens, the ground can shift, and there is loss and there is guilt. There were a thousand signs, you tell yourself, some you missed but which are not so gently nudging you now. Some you caught but were too busy or self involved to follow up on. Like the last time you had lunch with the gang and she barely smiled and seemed far far away. You sent her a text asking her if anything was wrong. A text ? What were you thinking, really ? Looking back, you feel so small and so selfish. You weren’t there for her. You let her down.

It’s not about you, the voice in your head says. Stop making it about you.

But it is about me, isn’t it? It is about a me that is so self absorbed that I could just be absent and not even notice my own absence? In a world obsessed with ‘presence’, there is just so little of it. We spend our entire lives in our head, someone recently said – indeed that is true.

She made it, there’s that annoying little voice, she made it. Yes, she did. Of course she did. Thank goodness for that. She is the strongest person I know, as I’ve told you before.

And in her own inimitable way, her journey gently reminds me that we are not put on this earth to live a lifetime in our own heads. No, we have a purpose, as strange it might be to believe, especially if we were to listen to our devices. We are only here to spread joy, to serve, to help, to nurture, to be kind, and most importantly, to be there for each other. We knew that when we are very young, don’t you remember ? As long as we were fed and cleaned, all we wanted was to laugh and coo and play and smile, and make everyone else smile? We were barely conscious of ourselves. Remember when your playmate cried, you said you would kiss it better, just like your mother had taught you? Ofcourse your kiss could make it better. And it did. But some of us forgot that along the way. I find myself wanting to relearn to live that feeling again.

It is much much harder than it sounds, isn’t it? When at the end of a long workday, your little one throws a tantrum to get you to notice him and the almost teenager runs rings around you with a cheeky smile, and the sound of the phone signals more bad news from around the world, the temptation to slide into a world where you are at the centre and everyone is merely there to test your fortitude, is almost hard to resist.

Some call it body consciousness. Some call it the ego. And it’s a stubborn creature, with the strength of memories of many lives.

So my new journey starts tonight. Lying sleepless, well past midnight, on this strange and cloudless night, I tell myself it’s time to get over myself, starting now. I am sure I will slip and perhaps even fall spectacularly from time to time, I also know that I do posses the pigheadedness to pick myself up, brush the dust and judgement off, and trudge on, leaving myself behind. As many times as it takes.

As for my friend, I know she has forgiven me already, without waiting for my apology. She got over herself a long time ago, you see.