Life apparently has signboards strewn along the way. Reading and following them is also not a problem for most of the people. However, it would be nice to have a map as well. You know, complete with a “You are Here” and a “You need to be Here” and a “This is Where you will be” and oh – “This is Where you are NEVER supposed to be”. I can think of many more such.
I often get the feeling of being a stray leaf just flowing along the stream. I don’t know when or how I landed here. I don’t know how long I will be drifting along. And I don’t know how I will meet the end. Will it be through a waterfall? Or will I eventually join the vast ocean? Or maybe I will just flatten and dry against a rock, slowly being shredded into nothing.
I have to walk for about 15 minutes from home till my bus stop. I am a part of the crowd, the dirt, the occasional fish smell. And it makes me wonder yet another time, what am I doing here? What do I want out of my life? How long can I just toss a coin and keep going where life takes me? I thought the whole point is that you are supposed to be guiding your life along! And the inner voice in my head simply talks to me about food! No clue about what is my motivation or the driving factor! I don’t even know what are my “skills”! I have always had options. I have always had likes. But no passions. Things followed their natural course apparently and here I am!
I recently finished reading The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and I can safely say that I have found my “once-a-year” read for life. I am not going to stop coming back to read it. There was this one amazing analogy that the author draws that captivated me. Imagine a fig tree blossomed with big plump juicy figs. Each fig represents a direction of your life – all equally appealing and good. But then, you cannot decide and figure out which is the fig you want to pluck and bite into. Slowly they start drying and rotting. Blackened, they start falling around you.
It felt like taking a dive into the dark realms of my heart. This analogy sang to me. I feel like I am examining those rotten figs fallen all around me one by one and wondering how different things could have been. Here I am now – a product of the process of elimination. I do not know how long this will go on; my present plan is to wing it one day at a time and let people go on thinking what a sweet and sassy person I am. It is an honest illusion I am conjuring!
I thought at this point of life, things will be all sorted or at least I will have some semblance of direction. I am nowhere close to figuring out the fruit that I must have chosen and bit into. Maybe it wasn’t a fig. Maybe it was a blueberry. Till then, I will simply blow a soft thank you kiss to the ones looking out for me in spite of not recognizing the path I am presently treading. And while I am at it, might as well try to enjoy this winding journey to somewhere!
How is your road looking like? Losing your way make it interesting? Drop in a note when you take a water break 🙂
An Armchair Perfectionist 