years roll by and we grow older, wiser and not necessarily happier...sometimes we stop and think if what we are doing with our lives currently is really what we set out to do when we were younger, foolish and perhaps a little happier!! and that is what brings us to view ourselves from a different perspective...have our dreams changed or have the way we dream our dreams changed? or is it possible that the same thoughts which seemed all important at some stages of our lives now no longer feel the same way?
some years ago i used to be an obsessive mother with two small children...since bringing up kids was pretty much like trial by fire, i used to always be anxious about whether i am doing it the right way...nothing seemed as important as the wellbeing of my little ones...i felt like i was playing god and shaping two destinies...
many many years ago when i was still a teenager i had read gibran's prophet and he had said about children...
"Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for
itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
Which you cannot visit not even in your dreams.
You may seek to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life not goes backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are
sent forth..."
which makes me ponder how life teaches you to let go of all those whom you hold so dear to you at some point in your life...which also makes me feel so joyous at having let go, for now there is a sense of freedom from the cloying anxiety that you felt before...you are suddenly glad that you are yourself and have space in your life for thoughts about yourself... don't we all crave for this space in our togetherness with all the people who matter to us? how different this road is from the one in which we started our journey when we were actually alone and wanted to crowd our lives with togetherness...
gibran had also said
"Love one another, but not make a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your
souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you
be alone...
Even the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with
the same music..."
this i had really really not liked when i read it for the first time way back when i read it for the first time...what kind of a togetherness is he talking about where being together you needed to be alone? back then, young that i was and full of expectations, this was so very confusing...
the road that i tread today is so beautiful because i do it on my own and i do it alone...today gibran makes so much more sense...