Life skids...

Emotions tied to disasters wane and fade, and the picture on the screen reverts to everything else that is wrong with the world. The daily headlines can seem mundane some days, especially on the day after.

I dread birthdays. It is often so pregnant with expectations, and that is, to my dear heart, a crisis waiting to happen. What happened to the innocent enjoyment of birthday cakes and presents? God knows. The fear of being disappointed maybe.

But I had a good birthday. And I could have gotten caught up in the revelry of me. My ego fed, and I am at my high. The countless birthday wishes, and after all these years I still wonder, what is the point? After that day, I would need to go back to being whatever age I was, doing whatever I was doing, and life goes on.

When I say life goes on, I mean you realise you are not the centre of the earth, and that you are really not all that special, in fact, you are like, everybody else.

Then it hit me. It was not the birthday I dreaded. It was the anti-climatic day after, when all things stop revolving around me and I need to face the reality that life goes on, and its not about me. And I have to rely upon my own confidence to carry me through instead of relying on others to remind me I am loved. Carrying myself on upon the well wishes and sweet remarks of others. Letting them dictate and tell me that I matter.

After all, isn’t that what everyone wants - To matter?

We are often so addicted to feeling. Feeling good, feeling bad, feeling sad, feeling blue. And in the million things going on in the world feeling makes you feel like a part of it. Does it not?

And the emotions tied to the disaster wanes across the world, and at the end it was only those that have lost in it that it will remain, strong. And he or she might feel alone once again, to pick up the mess. A strong sense of self-centredness stirs the anger that the whole world has to keep on turning. Why can’t they suffer with me, they ask.

But they did, the whole world stopped for a while and felt the pain.

And then life goes on.

Just like today, like any other day. It goes on and I must be glad that it stopped, that one day, just to celebrate my existence. And they that stopped to spend some time, however little, out of their busy lives to make me feel I matter, I should be grateful for.

I shall be. I shall be grateful.