I sat in my sister’s backyard the other weekend, watching my four year old nephew play with mud. He was happy as a clam, squatted by his tall orange construction cone with his “asphalt” and building zone. “It’s very dangerous chitthi, you can’t come here” he said, digging up more mud with his blue plastic shovel. I laughed.
“Everybody loves the weekend and Friday evening feels awesome. But do you realize that Sunday evenings are dooms-y and most of Sunday passes by with the queasy sensation of the impending dread of the Sunday evening”, I asked my sister. “Tell me about it! It’s like the weekend is done after Sunday morning.” she responded.
It makes no sense, whatsoever. Especially given that so many of us are privileged enough to be doing what we love.
We suffer more often in imagination than in reality ―
Why do we respond that way to an upcoming week?
You know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the quiet silence that overcomes a household on a Sunday evening. Where we all sit down quietly in our corners and type away on our computers. Craning our necks into screens getting ready for the week. Quiet, distracted, worried, stressed, irritated even, snapping at those around us. I’m winding down! I’m preparing for the week! Sure, we could have a thousand excuses. Yet even if the week is about to be filled with doing what we love, we worry senseless.
Last month, Pratyusha walked into the clinic conference room with a paper bag. She handed it to me and smiled, “This is for you”. Inside the bag was a meditating fox coffee mug wrapped up in an orange tissue paper as a birthday present – it read “wherever you are, be all there’. “It is microwave and dishwasher safe, you really know what matters!” I cried.
“It reminds me of you. You’re always so calm no matter what happens” she said. I laughed out loud internally because my friends think I’m calm. When in truth over the last decade, the skill I’ve mastered is just not to react on my inner agony. But you know what? The mug was exactly what I needed.
I just realized that when I am around my nephew and I’m not living in the moment – my energy is all messed up. I get all serious, my shoulders tense up, my forehead develops a persistent little frown and even if I do manage a smile, it is absent-minded – that mood is contagious. And that’s how he’d learn it from me. I realized what I’d be doing as his aunt if I kept this attitude up. I’d be teaching the him that exact response to a Sunday evening, which in honesty he didn’t sign up for.
Listen, I don’t know what your world was like when you were seven. I don’t know if you have just happy memories or if you have some difficult ones. I don’t know if it was filled with a lot of joy like mine, with some really difficult times too. I don’t know if remembering it makes you smile. Or if your eyes well up. Or both. I don’t know if you miss your mother who left you when you were ten or your father who went missing when you were fourteen. All I want to tell you is that I’m here. If you’ve lost something, anything in life, you’ve most likely realized already that you gained something very, very precious – you know what matters. And there are SO many people alive who live without any idea of what matters.
We’ve all been indoctrinated into believing this and that. That running behind what everybody else is after, actually matters. Like chasing any other damned dream that wasn’t yours to begin with is how your success will be defined. That until you get rich, famous or prove something to the world – you aren’t worthy of love and goodness.
That is bullshit.
I want you to remember that when you were seven, regardless of what you were experiencing, you were a wise, innocent person – that person still lives within you. You had a sense of what was right and what was wrong – to be kind, to be genuine, to recognize with clear discerning what matters and to love everything you did, everyone you met, to be in the moment – these were the only truths even if you didn’t know to give them words. To act on anger or to hurt someone was wrong. This was most certainly the wise voice from deep within – the voice that adults around you might have not acknowledged or allowed to grow.
I want you to listen to that seven year old version of you – he is right. That seven year old version of you who makes the best of every minute every day? She knows the way.
Wishing you incredible beauty and love,
Aarthi
Talking pillows, gazing stars ❄️ 