Still a dreamer

The life we've already lived – it's no surprise- is worth looking back at and reflecting on. Breaking it down to a decade, because that's when I graduated from college and started work, I am surprised how less ten years can be.

Here I am after the sad bus ride back home from college, and after the snow fall on the day I started interning with the paper where I'd later work for the next ten years of my life. I still do. Just that I am on maternity leave and writing this at home sitting next to my two-month old boy who just woke up and is squirming and straining. It's gas problem that babies have to grow-out of, something I've learnt from my experience with my first born. Yes, I've two sons to go along with a marriage and a career. All of which sums up my life in the past decade.

Coming to think about it a career, a marriage, two children in a decade is a lot even to spell out, so simply imagine what it'd be like to actually live it. No wonder when I reflect the last decade seemed to have zipped by, and it leaves one with a feeling of how less ten years can be. Life certainly is short.

At the threshold of another decade in life, my youngest sibling is at the beginning of the decade I left. She just returned from India having finished college. If her life seemed to have dragged so far, she'll regret how fast this decade's going to be and it's kind of worrying because where does that take or leave me. I'd really want it to be eventful but slow.

And at the beginning of another decade I write this down, hopefully it'll be able to help me reflect at the end of the tenth year.

I don't want to call this my 'Bucket List' because it has such a finality to it. I will call this my list of must-do things. These are things that complete and make me whole. With all the I and Me going on I definitely sound like a selfish and self-centered person. Maybe I am. Or maybe I just need to do it and find out if it really does make me whole (I know it will), and keep the judging to others and not be bothered by the judgements.

• Grow and groom a garden (beautiful enough to soothe an aching heart and not just for the butterflies, bees and birds)
• paint (that empty canvas that comes to my mind each time I think of painting)
• write a book (inspire others to write too)
• sing a song (make a crowd go wild)
• climb a mountain (cross a river/s, sleep under the stars, and feel the warmth of a camp fire on my face while the frozen wind chills me to the bones from the back)
• take a stunning portrait of a baby (pursue it as a hobby)
• publish my poems (make others feel the melancholy, sadness, heartaches and dejection that inspires and makes me poetic)
• Holiday with my family (hold hands, leave footprints at a beach, sip on a cool, tall lemonade, smile, and leave memories in photographs that'll age beautifully)

I've just realised no matter how fast or slow, or consistent or inconsistent, and whether there have been external or internal influences affecting my thoughts and actions, I am still that dreamer I used to be. Happy!