I always noticed
the older generation
be it my mother
father
or my firend
prasie a person
because
that person asked
about their well being
Just this much was enough
and I realise today
Just this much is enough
Expectations
They tell me to give up on expectations
My only questions are How and Why
Meditate, it will quell your excited, disturbed mind, they say
Divert your mind. Take up a hobby. Engage your mind, they say.
Divert your affections to a pet they say.
Is happiness reached only by looking away?
Is life a series of looking away only?
And how many times?
As I have said before, there needs to be a parenting manual
But hey, there has always been one, hasn't it,
A life manual.
The ashramas. Brahmacharya, gruhastha, vanaprastha, sanyasa
Where the preoccupation with the self and it's extensions,
dull or wipe out the lines of when to disengage,
one can fall back on the texts.
I only wish there was a text on the step by step of HOW TO,
Gradually wean yourself from the longing for the sweet but often unrequited affection of the offspring.
Mine is the sandwiched generation they say
We never got to be children,
carefree...
Carried the burden
of expectations of many a kind
I accepted.
I didn't know I could rebel.
I got to be parents to the parents who became childlike.
Accepted.
What about being parents to the children I bore?
I do not even want to exercise the authority we were answerable to.
But when every question is answered with a
so what.
I wonder.... what changed? and mainly, when?
I have to unfailingly, relentlessly play mother
mother to my children ,
The children get to selectively play
children..demanding of attention,
strangers..unconcerned of your emotions,
favour doers.. throwers of scraps of affection as and when it suits them,
Is this a new phenomenon?
or has this been a norm
and me the exception for believing otherwise?