LETTING MY HAIR DOWN

I need to chill out. I need to unlearn the feeling of being responsible and grown up. It has deprived me of the carefree child I used to be. And I don’t like myself like this. It’s not me. I believe it is imperative to be a responsible and level-headed individual, but for heaven’s sake!! Not all the time!! I worry, worry, worry, and often lose out on the moment.
I don’t want to turn into my grandmother. She is a great lady, extremely accomplished. But she worries about everything, all the time. She looks for reasons to be worried, as if her life has no meaning without it. I’m afraid I’m becoming like that, apprehensive, skeptical and pessimistic.

Perhaps, experience has molded me into what I am. I won’t say I’ve had all the problems in the world, no, in fact, I’ve been lucky. But in the past few months, since the time I’ve begun to live on my own, I have become a serious individual. I don’t like too much joking, am damn serious about my work inside and outside the classroom, and prefer to be home studying than to go out partying and drinking myself silly.
Have I become prosaic? Maybe not. Maybe it’s just relative. I have my own ways of having fun and letting my hair down. Perhaps I have my own style, which seems dull to others (and sometimes even to me), but which is a great stress-buster for me. There are days when I’m a social animal and days when I’m a recluse.

There are a lot of ‘perhaps’ and ‘maybes’ and ‘probably’s’ because nothing is certain or proven. I’m just following my stream of consciousness as I write this. Perhaps Virginia Woolf felt the same way as she tried to figure out her mind and the minds of others. The human mind is truly fascinating!

What am I supposed to do when I have two homes?

The stork dropped me off at the capital city of India. I brought great joy to my family, being this plump, white and pink bundle of fat, perpetually smiling and gurgling, ready to receive anyone with open arms. I grew up to a a frowny five year old; i wonder why I scowled so much in my photographs. Probably I didn't get along with the kids in my class, or wait, I just remembered, the damned boys used to poke fun at me because I was a fat kid, ya, maybe that's the reason. I hated boys. Studying in a girls' school from the 1st to 12th std didn't help my rapport with the opposite sex, but then that's another story.

Home.....hmmmmm.....my last entry said a lot about my original home. But perhaps my perception was too idealistic and unreal. Home also means restrictions, questions to be answered, moral obligations and sometimes, the lack of personal space. Which reminds me, this is precisely why I was ecstatic to leave home for another home, in the first place.

Bombay = Freedom
Last night, my friends and I sat around Marine Drive, gazing at the dark waters, the distant lights of the tall buildings crowding the horizon, the paling stars, the bowl-shaped moon. And I felt so content, so happy, so FREE!! Here I was, free as a bird, free in my existence, no worries about getting home in time, no numerous frantic calls from over-anxious parents, no binds; just my close companions, the sea breeze and the orange light from the street lamps.

So which home is better? I've no idea and nor will I set out to find an answer. Both mean a lot to me. My first home has a special chair reserved for me at the dining table, while my second home is a sanctuary for my repressed and fettered spirit. I love both, I need both.

I love my life.

"Home, when my thought's escaping home; when my music's playing home; when my love lies waiting silently for me......." is what my heart's been humming for the past one week. The actual journey home seemed a distant phenomenon.
Now I am home. There is no place like home, there really isn't. You may travel the seven seas, to the other ends of the earth, to the moon, to Mars, but home still occupies that special seat in your heart.
This is perhaps because an individual is himself at home. It is a space where he/she has trekked through childhood, puberty, teens and a confused state of adulthood. When you go out into the big bad world, it is imperative for you to conceal a bit of what you are, to assume many qualities that may inherently not be yours. And these are the qualities you leave behind as you stand at the doorstep of your home and ring the bell, yearning to be let in.
Of course, not to forget the fringe benefits of a well-stocked refrigerator, a washing machine and a much desired microwave oven.