Present beckoning…

I have always dwelled in the future; always awaited the future – near and distant. All these years, the present never complained, never reprimanded me, never spoke for itself. It patiently bore my flippancy towards it.

All this while, all these years of my life, I dreamt of loads of happiness and impending success to come my way ‘one fine day’. I envisioned that one day my inscrutable existence would define itself and I would rejoice to personal as well as professional glory. A day when my troubled mind and aching heart would finally be able to rest. When everyone around me would eventually accept me with my misgivings and my despondency would shrivel up to reveal the exuberant me.

Today, like every other day, I walked the long road towards my house, racing against the approaching twilight and prepping myself up with thoughts of a nice cup of homemade coffee and then my favourite show on television. A man on a bike suddenly crossed my way as I turned into my lane and halted my steps. There I was, standing dumbstruck for a moment and staring at a lush green garden blooming with the colours of winter.

I have walked this road infinite number of times and never spared a glance? Are You playing with me? You let this escape me? He replied, “But that is what you always wanted. To rush back home to a future moment when you sit on your couch and weave a mesh of unfulfilled desires; desires that may never come true.”

Yes. I ignores the bliss that is today and the agony; as escapist dodging both the smile and the tear. Desiring profound success instead of basking in the glory of today, expectant of being happy and at peace rather than taking on the turmoil of today and not finding solace in the arms of my beloved today but dreaming of a lifelong tryst.

Here I am, with the people who love me and I wonder why am not being adored by the ephemeral unknown, lazing in the winter sun and summer rain and thinking of a time when I’ll be too busy to know the season and being irresponsible and selfish and desiring to be loaded with duties that I may not even be able to fulfil.

Seems like I have turned out to be an embodiment of the perplexed being, swaying between two unknown worlds – one that I have no control over and the other that I can but wish not to master.