Balloons, Cakes, Candles and Tabula Rasa

Here I am closer to my maker by a year and I feel like celebrating! The clear blue sky stared back at me as if to say “Hey you little one out there, someone felt happy when you were born” and I feel good (So childish- but birthdays always bring back the child in you). For me birthdays have always been my new year- time to start afresh, time to make resolutions (to be broken later of course!) and time to introspect. Normally when everyone is home the mornings are busy – with cards, cake cutting and gift unwrapping. But this time there is just me and my TT (Terrible Teenager/ Typical teenager) so I am having a lazy birthday and have lots of time to introspect!

There are three very important things in life- they are your Birthdays, Hope and Erasers. All of them allow you to start afresh! They actually let you turn a blind eye towards all the mistakes and errors you have committed and turn over a new leaf and start writing with a newly sharpened pencil. The first page of the New Year is always so clean and bright with the dark pencil etching your hopes and desires clearly. It is like your maths note book at the beginning of the school year, so clean at the beginning (I remember doing the sums on a rough piece of paper and then deigning to write on the new note book!) by the middle of the year its pages are curling, the brown paper cover patched up with cellophane tape and the pages themselves a nice light muddy colour (With all the erasing that have been done!)

The wind is blowing very hard today; sweeping away the cobwebs that have inhabited my mind for a long time. I feel clean and raring to go (where to go is another question!) for the last couple of years I had lost the ability to be within myself but like finding a lost key I have somehow retrieved this ability and it fills me with delight; it’s kind of like being reborn or starting anew or like opening a new door..... 

This time when my newbie adult left me to go back to her college and life I felt down in the dumps thinking that my TT will also soon leave me and I will be all alone. For once in my life I felt old (That’s my age- normally my mind is stuck at the age of twenty-two!) I have of course heard about the empty nest syndrome and the various side effects that it has, over the years. But like the young woman that I am!  I have never paid any attention to it. (You never think of unpleasant things happening to you until it strikes you or a loved one). I still have a few years to go before my nest is empty. When the kids were babies I always planned on things that I would do when they grow up- going on a walking trip to Europe was one major dream, learning to fly was another and write a book and so many other things. Don’t know if any of my pipe dreams will ever come true but today I feel anything is possible! 

As a child I use to look forward to birthdays- to open all the gaily coloured birthday gifts! What was inside was not important- the number, surprise and the beauty of the cover were!); as a selective teenager it was to look forward to the treats one got and the special gifts (Normally the demanded ones!); as a young adult the gifts were still important but the focus was on how well the party you gave turned out! But now the wishes alone feel good – just to be remembered is a feel good factor and nothing else matters....

Face book has of course given a whole new dimension to celebrating! When you are far away from your friends and family it lets you feel their presence and contributes to the feel good factor! So today when I am almost all alone (Except my TT) I feel as if there are balloons on the chandelier, the  candle filled cake is waiting to be cut and all my virtual gifts scattered all over the table and the most important thing is that I have plenty of good wishes to keep me company. 

I remember the days of making cards and sending them to friends – those days were good but the present day idea of sending e-cards is also good (It is more Eco friendly!) One might argue that you can cherish the cards over the years and e- cards do lapse after a month, but then... When nothing is permanent in life, why kill the poor trees to pander to your memories? 

The wind is cold and blowing hard- all my little cells are tingling and being reborn and I look forward to a fresh chapter where I can leave my creative/ non creative impressions. The sea is my favourite colour today – turquoise and splashed with green! It is a little rough today just the way I like it.......