Everything is Wonderful in Retrospect… My musings on Turning 32

While generally I am always an extremely positive person, I sometimes even pride myself of having inexhaustible positivity; this one last week has shown me that feeling positive or negative, happy or sad are somewhat the same.

It had been a teary week for me turning 32, really for no apparent reason. Apparently most of my friends went thru this when they turned 30. It is not like life situations had changed in any way or the person/people who were in this drama changed their roles, but in this one week every emotion that I’ve had had been magnified. Instead of talking myself out of having these feeling I decided to enjoy it. I decided I would enjoy crying my heart out. Feel every tear and every pain and not judge myself. I decided that I would let Her be and just observe. The pain was real and closing it up with “wise” words and positive phrases or distracting myself with “fun” activities or any activity was not going to make it go away but merely put a plaster on an already near septic wound.

And so with Swami holding my hand I decided to face the storm, not only face it but indulge in it to get totally soaked in the sorrows of my life situation. I decided I would cry as much as I decided to, dance as much as I wanted to, works out so much that m body hurt and I could not move and then mope about as much as I could… and then completely exhausted from all the drama be welcomed by the soothing arms of sleep. I must say I totally enjoyed it.

Yesterday I met up with a kindred spirit and we reviewed the week, passionless and from a point of observers. It’s interesting how we are to different people from amazingly different countries and backgrounds yet our life situations are so similar. We ranted about our lives and how we were both stuck in a rut not knowing what to do or how to get out. Scolded Swami … asked him again why he is so selective in answering questions. While he is so quick to answer some in the very second that they are asked He takes years to answer questions that we feel are critical in our lives. Questions that we feel are extremely time bound. We complained and complained listening to each other’s stories and sorrows all the while very aware that this was merely the ego speaking. The Small Roshini and the Small Ms.X… and at one point we both stopped … I said.. “you know … how different our lives would be if we had all we wanted as soon as we asked for it?”

“Where we are today is because Swami had denied everything we asked that he knew we were not ready for or the timing was not just perfect” If we look back… everything that has happened to us so far has been perfect. Not one incident has proven to not be beneficial to us in any way. Our stories are flawless and every incident pain sorrow joy is critical and pivotal to the other.

The one critical thing that we both observed is that throughout these ups and downs, the observer has become very obvious to us. The role of the observer just to watch this drama, separate from the incidents that are happening. Being in the role of the observer gives you that calmness and serenity akin to playing a board game, where you know you are the player yet it is unreal. Most people think that when taking on the role of the observer, you limit yourself from enjoying LIFE as it is and it is meant to be. I believe in the absolute opposite. Being in the role of the observer allows you to indulge more into life as fear is removed knowing that this is but a game. Anxiety and self-judgement becomes less because it’s just a game. There are rules of course, you set them yourself because without rules, what fun is playing the game. And just like watching a football match or a cricket match, sometimes we forget we are the spectators and we feel like we are playing the game for real. Embrace even that feeling of full involvement for even that is life. But every now and again look at your life like a movie. Write and autobiography or write future episodes of your life the following day. For at the end of the day… LIFE IS A GAME… PLAY IT!