What's it with life...?

You live, shit happens, you move on, good happens, that too moves on, you plan, and you plan some more, diligently, carefully, thoughtfully and then the bitch pulls a fast one, you never know when the house of cards came tumbling around your ears... but yet when you almost give up, something pulls you up, an incident, some memory, somebody... someone you know or someone strange... and if nothing and nobody comes by, you still find the strength somewhere inside you, someplace which you didn't know existed and you get by... and the cycle continues. Each day you learn, some days you celebrate and some days you curse but each day you hope anew.

You climb your alpine path, you put your whole self into getting to the top, reaching for those impossible things, those big wins and when you reach there, you look for bigger peaks to conquer and you drudge on... you tell yourself... when I get there I will be the happiest person alive and so you put all you have into getting ‘there’... and when you do arrive it is nothing, all sand thru the fingers, you are happy but it is incomplete, there is this nagging feeling that there is more and there is still a long way to go. So you break your promise of happiness, you simply move on… you feel… 'well, if I made it, maybe this is not big enough, big is what I can’t get…'

Down the years you have these suspicions… maybe life is not about BIG, life is really about smaller things… those childhood days when you laughed over nothing, when you COULD laugh over nothing, when you could... well… laugh just because you want to and just because you are feeling good… over nothing, when you would dance to yourself and skip and run down over wet grass barefoot. You suspect that the ladder to ‘success’ leads to nowhere… it just keeps climbing up and gets steeper in the bargain. Success is relative and success is what you define it to be. And life is maybe simpler. Rainy days, sunny days, springtime, cool wind, new flowers, fresh grass, childhood friends, little sister, first love, lifetime love, dad’s smile, mom’s hands, GOD, faith, laughter, family, homemade food, rice-dal-mango pickles, music, silence, twilight, sunrise, morning walks, picnics, secrets, long talks, stolen kisses, whispered passion…

And life is beautiful… not because of all those heady, huge success, but those smaller things. You top the class and all you remember down those years are the tears of pride in amma’s eyes… not how you felt because YOU topped but how you made amma feel. Success is then maybe not about you but about the people you love and about how you shaped your life with the tools that life handed you. Did you do well, did you live well, were you happy and did you enjoy the journey? For maybe in the end that is all that matters. And that is all that lasts. And I hope I am right… for I have but one life and I don’t wanna screw it up!!