Starting All Over!

There are few joys compared to starting all over! A new year, a new place, new people....The new has something to hope for, something to look forward to, where the old often has exhausted itself. The last month, exhausted options, absorbed lessons. ..

I would say life has not always turned out as I expected, but I wouldn’t say in the end, I did not relish life as it turned out to be! I have been, I would also say, blessed with the new, even when I wished to settle down at one, be it places or friends! Seven places before marriage and four after, not including Bangalore where I lived four times in all the years put together. Which place do I call my place, maybe the place that calls me back the most? I have been lucky to live near Goa after marriage, to have known traffic free roads of Kudal and Chiplun, where long drives were immensely relaxing and nature was so lush. Yet it is very rare that a place has held me back, maybe once, an apartment where I could see a lake from my window in a place like Pune. But eventually the signs are so clear when it is time to move, that once done with it however painfully, I rarely look back!

People ask me which place or friends I miss. I am sure I cut across as hard hearted when I don’t have a place or person I miss. For me the place I live, the best friend I have in that place, is all that matters! I am surprised when my old friends remember details of long past times, as one would of a moment ago,but that are almost clean out of my mind as a past life would be! Being reminded of them is, for me, like having undergone a past life regression session, and I dare not admit that to my dear old friends who have carried the memories so religiously! I even surprise and scare myself with this capacity not to look back at even the most fabulous of times, even those that had been immensely difficult to give up! Which friend do I belong to then, maybe the friend who cares to keep holding my hand, whatever the distances that may come in!

I have often thought of myself as absent minded, not interested in devoting my whole mind to the routines, not living in the present, but some days like today, as I realise I am starting over, I also realise I am most present where it really matters. I do live each place fully, absorb each friend totally, so that when I part I carry their essence in me, they are added on to what I am. We usually miss something which wasn’t lived fully, which wasn’t totally added on to us.

Starting over again for me is the point of time when comes the awareness that I am a new added up person. Each place, each person, each year adds on to us in more ways than mere figures! Reminds me of the words from a song..

Maine tinke uthaye huen hain paronpe, ashiana nahin hai mera. I don’t have a nest...I carry the straws in my feathers.

Sometimes the best things about life can be found in not having a nest, in starting all over, in growing again in a new soil, however painful each uprooting is...