The Bigger Picture

I don’t remember who wrote it and where, but it said growth is often tragic.
How many of us don’t want to return to our childhood with a gasp?
Only when we grow out of it do we cherish the childhood. When we were children we were desperate to grow up and meander into adolescence. Once in adolescence, we peeped into the adult life. How badly we wanted to step into those shoes!
And, in the heat and throes of adult life, we look back and sigh. We regret our growth and long to be a child again—to go back to those days when happiness had no sharp edges and laughter had no layers of dried up tears.
Love was not trapped in any conditional clauses. No ifs and buts. No masks, no pretension.
As a boy I used to dream a lot. Sitting by the window in my study at home, I used to gaze at a night sky unbelievably star-studded and glittering, feel the seductive cool breeze stroking my cheeks, and try and figure out the reason for the nightingale’s pain and pangs.
And, I used to cry. I wasn’t sure why I wept into my pillows almost every night. But I did when I felt a sense of imaginary loss and abandonment.
And, I wrote poems to my lover. I had none though.
But at the cusp of my teenage and adulthood, I met her. My love.
Perhaps, I can’t pick the precise moment I saw her, but she happened in my life—walked into it with her smiles, laughter and quick swings of mood.
If I close my eyes now, I can see the flashes of our life on the campus and feel the warmth of our love.
We loved each other in those under-privileged days of communication. No asking ‘where are you? or saying ‘I’m okay’ through missed calls, expressing intimate passion through coded SMSes which are all gibberish to others, and comforting each other through veiled e-mail forwards. Each day we went back home with beautiful memories of the day, and looked forward to the next day. We were content with our situation that off campus there was no way we could contact each other, and it gave us room and time to dream.
But we drifted away abruptly. We vanished without a trace. We had lost each other in the flow of life. We went with the stream, often slamming hard at embankments of unknown shores. And, we ended up on strange lands.
I had grown up, and have begun to grow old. But the boy didn’t grow up with the flesh. The lover didn’t stop dreaming. But the poet had died, he couldn’t exist without her.
Years, almost two decades, have gone by before we found each other again—even surprising ourselves, and realized that we missed each other in our lives. And, the love is as fresh as it was 18 years ago.
The poet has been resurrected.
People, situations, relations, times and places in our life have changed. But not our love for each other.
In a way, it too has changed. It has become more refined and purer. It has become more realistic that there is no way this love can die, no matter whatever efforts to kill it.
It defies reason, time, geography and circumstances.
Though we look back and sigh over our good old days on campus, and often consider growth as tragic, we thank the Lord for maturing our love under His care and in His purpose.
Many won’t understand—even we find it hard to stomach—but looking back and at where and how we are now, we can’t fail to imagine the bigger picture He has in His hand!