staying.cool

i lay my head back.. further, further.. and all at once, i feel the water soaking the back of my head. lower and lower, now it covers my ears. meanwhile, my legs move to get me afloat in the water; and before i know it i’m on my back floating down the swimming pool.

i stare at the blue ceiling passing overhead, my hands and legs moving lazily, slowly.. keeping me moving, keeping me floating. the world is mute, sounds do not percolate through the water to my ears. i vaguely note a swishing sounds.. some experimentation soon tells me that it is me.

my eyes peer through goggles, i continue to examine a nondescript ceiling, my body remains afloat as it has been trained for the last 18 years. my eyes glaze over as i continue to move down the pool. thoughts unbidden come to me. the first thought is that i should write about this feeling of calm that floating down the pool always gives me. the second is whether i’m gonna bang my head against the wall of the pool. i dare not change position, i don’t want to lose this tranquility. there are days when i crave it, the absolute silence, and the sheer contrast it usually has to the sounds of the swimming pool.

swimming is one of the few activities that i can enjoy physically, knowing that i am halfway decent at it. when i first hit the pool after a long time, i realized just how much i had missed it. and just how out of shape i had managed to get. i’m a long way from that day now, but i’m not regular enough for my own good.

sitting outside on a sunny spring day, with a crapload of stuff to eventually get done. and doing none of it. this is the life. rahman plays away to glory, there is a reason that he alone occupies pride of hard drive space on my laptop. the cars pace by.. in the absence of a bombay traffic light, this is the best i can do. there is a faint chill in the air, just enough to tell me that summer is not completely here yet. a cup of tea or coffee would complement my life currently to perfection, but the effort involved doesn’t seem worth it.

my google reader cup has overfloweth beyond the brim, over the edge of the table, and way into the hall. with probably close to 3000 items to eventually get through.. i can foresee a lot of reading to do. these are updates that are nearly 45 days old.. time is a commodity that is in scarce availability today. this is in sharp contrast to my life as it stood 2 years ago, a recent perusal of the archives reminded me very bitingly about the way the day was spent. a couch, a laptop, a browser window. possibly things were to be done, i had decided that life needed to stop a while. possibly not the best decision, or the best time in my life, but i get the feeling that that break did more good than bad. it is something i need to do soon, get out of frickin’ jersey… and relax.

..and i still won’t go find a life for myself. go figure. i have no reason to be writing about this, but i am. go keep figuring.

…however cliched that may sound.

25 is supposedly big. as a very wise man said: ‘its never too late or too early to be 25. One fine day, you just are 24 no more.‘ 25 is an age that you think of as far away. you tend to state a lot of things as going to be done by 25. as a kid, its the age of deadlines. i’ll be an astronaut by 25. superman must be 25. its the age that is somehow associated with things having been done. studies. a partner. a job. a million dollars.  i would now supposedly be considered a mature adult. the next 5 years are supposed to run away with themselves, and you’re 30 before you know it. i can look back at a quarter century of existence now, i can vaguely remember dreams i have had in the last 25 years.

i wanted to be over 6 feet tall. check. i should be on track for a million dollars. doubtful. someone special should at least be on the horizon. lets see. i should have answers to a lot of questions. i have a lot more questions now. work should be part of my life. i’m technically still studying. i used to think about doing an mba. i’m doing a phd. writing should be a part of my life. check. the kid in me should not have any complaints. comics, action figures, candy. check. writing this should be easy. anything but. i’ve always wanted to be different. i can only hope so.

it has been an interesting 25 years. i’m guessing any period of time over a day can’t be anything but interesting eventually anyway. i have my fair share of regrets. i have more than my fair share of high points too. i may not be living up to the potential that i used to demonstrate. i’ve learnt the rule of keeping on going no matter what works. i have faced some of my worst fears, and learnt the simple way of dealing with them. i’ve learnt opinions, beliefs and dreams are things that are completely personal. i’ve found out about how fragile and how strong a relationship can be at the same time. i’ve adopted cynicism and sarcasm as a way of life, and i’m liking it. i’m hoping that i don’t turn into the kind of 25+ year olds i have seen. i have realized some unchangeable home truths about myself: my geekiness, my relative unflappability, my insomnia, my anglophilia… and more.

i want to come up with a final statement, a fitting conclusion. but 25 is less a time to conclude, more a time to speed up. i see the year zooming by already. the question of how epochal a year it can be  is still up for grabs though.

one form of 26 is hitting already. i’m now 25 years and 26 hours old.

this time, of course, celebrating the new year seems to be less important, and the fact that i’m home kinda kicks it in the balls.

the highlight of the year was actually officially knowing that my dream of a phd is turning into a part of my reality. that a goal i decided on a long time ago is finally getting done. knowing you are on a path to fulfill a childhood dream has a specialness all to itself. this is, of course, second to the dream wherein i wanted to be six feet tall at some point in my life (which i succeeded in as well).

the lowlight of the year was the destruction of my car, my laptop and, less importantly, all semblance of a life. quick on the heels of this came the realization that the first of any possession has an emotion associated with it, that cannot be easily replaced. however, the life factor is made up for due to the reason it ceases to exist.
the fact remains that i still sit in a driver’s seat today and can visualize that one moment.

now, i sit back, and think up the plans i have for the year ahead. there are too many, and there is too much i have to do. life is quickly starting to speed up, getting a move on would be a good idea.

it would also be a good idea to have a happy new year. whatever you may be going through, its good to remember that a new year is around the corner. its good to celebrate it. however you end up celebrating it.

its still a new year.

whatever that is supposed to mean.

the weirdest thing about life is that no matter how much you believe you will do something different, something unexpected… that somehow things are working out worse for you than anyone else.. eventually though, all of life is pretty much the same for each and every one of us.

the same troubles, the same worries, the same insecurities, the same issues, the same anger, the same reasons. and each one of us hit the hurdles at the same damn freakin’ time in our freakin’ lives.

almost scary.