I.
Last night my life found itself in a room with my childhood.
It was a beautiful room. Packed full with laughter, music, tears and food… Lots of food and a rabble-appetite that seemed satisfied although the food went untouched! There were bottles of alcohol too. They stood dully on a table with the quiet demeanor of those who know they aren’t wanted at a party… who knew they weren’t needed at this party. Characteristically of booze bottles or not I don’t know… but they didn’t seem to mind.
I don’t know why I sit down to write this because it seems so unnecessary. I know that all I have to do should I ever want to relive that evening is get ‘em ol’ girls from school back together. It doesn’t matter where, it doesn’t matter when, it doesn’t matter who else will come or what we’ll have for dinner.
But yet I sit and write this, because quite honestly I sometimes get scared that someday I just might grow up too much… too fast. So much and so fast that I will even forget to remember.
II.
It was all a haze really… we were laughing so hard I couldn’t see what was happening through watery eyes. Ears reverberating with the shrieks of one and guffaws of the other. Sides hurt… cheeks getting ever more sore… I couldn’t breathe!
I loved it.
There were oodles of blah music that transpired from a makeshift music system, comprising by and large of two computer speakers and a barely working(?), highly strung disc-man. As fate would have it, I was the only one who could operate that thing.
They made cracks at me… “So you finally get it going with some sort of a MAN!” Bitches!… how hard they made me laugh! They of course paid dearly coz they didn’t get any music until I was done. They (characteristically of them, I know)… didn’t mind.
The evening wore on… we didn’t. We only seemed to get stronger and fuller of energy.
P asked S: “Aren’t you tired? You came straight from work.”
S said: “I don’t understand.”
The conversation went on. But it has already said what matters.
III.
Sometime around midnight the stomachs got their way. Vegetable Biriyani… cold, oily… I’m talking major dyspepsia material here… what do I say… it was delicious!
IV.
The contentment that followed dinner manifested itself as a conversation. Everyone talked… everyone listened… quite often all at the same time.
V.
Then there were narratives of loves lost and found…there were tears, anxiety and there was hope.
I (silly as I am) wasn’t paying attention. I looked. Realizing that we weren’t in our dull grey pinafores with our pigtails… that our problems were seemingly graver than bad marks, how conversations about crushes had now moved on to marriage plans… I watched them comfort and rejoice… smiling in spite of themselves…
It was like taking stock… of your whole life… right there with each other. Talking and coming to terms with what the years had molded you into. Thinking about how we all started at the same place and how we worked differently… sometimes making the decisions for ourselves and sometimes life making the decisions for us…
VI.
I don’t know when I fell asleep… but I remember waking up just before I did.
Pebble of wisdom:
Growing up is easy to cope with once you realize you never have to.
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6 comments:
*sniff
I'm so moved!
You've captured real 'reunions' so well!
:)
Growing up is easy to cope with once you realize FEW never have to.
Or rather, Seeing yourself grown up is painful to cope with once you realize that a FEW others never really have to.
Nice.
Came across this one just now in an ol' Readers' Digest as i was browsing through :
"Too many people grow up. That's the real trouble with the world, too many people grow up. They forget. They don't remember what it's like to be 12 years old. They patronize, they treat children as inferiors. Well I won't do that." - Walt Disney
Dont know whether relevant to ur post, nevertheless its abt growin up ! nice post.
So write some more, wouldn't you?
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