Clock
Did you hate afternoon naps? Were you convinced that an adventure was underway just outside the room in which you were laid down, the afternoon air hot and still and silent, the fan whirring overhead, the curtains filtering out the light? Did you try mightily to stay awake, the fear of missing out uppermost in your mind (no, it’s not a modern thing, FOMO. Yes, we felt it too, just not for the latest cell phone or social media event), believing fervently that your mother or caretaker was the most cruel in the world, or at least, on your street; that all your friends, your mates, your comrades in mischief were able to sweet talk, cajole, bully their way out of this senseless, useless waste-of-an-afternoon routine, that only you were stuck, resentful and not sleepy at all, in this bed with its cool cotton sheet patterned with hundreds of tiny orange flowers? And then you were being woken up, a snack waiting on the table, a group of suspiciously sleepy eyed kids beginning to trickle out in the middle of the street.
Clocks work differently in childhood. They are slow measures of endless class time, but in all fairness, count the endless summer days equally slowly, a drip at a time, lazy mornings lounging with a book and a cool drink. Dead afternoons (the bell of the ice cream vendor a wake up moment) flowing into endless evenings of seven stones, chain, police and robbers, carrom and jam sessions, nights of star gazing and meandering conversations flowing into the next day of more of the same.
Something happens to the clock a few years later. A sense of urgency fights an endless battle with lethargy. Everything is happening now or it should be, to the teenager. It should have happened ALREADY. Sleep deprived, knocked around by short circuiting brain activity, it doesn’t help to be told by know-it-all adults that it’s just the hormones going crazy. Yeah. Big help. That clock is ticking a little faster, but nothing uncontrollable. Each moment is simply magnified, important, significant. Sleep, when it comes, is sleep of the dead and exhausted. More often, sleep is bartered for other temptations – late night bike rides, walking deserted beaches with friends, long chats, rock concerts. Alcohol. Music. Sex. Food, lots of it. Figuring out who you are in the middle of the confusion and chaos. Endless suspense – does she like me? Will he ever make a move?
Seventeen was thirty years ago. That clock went cuckoo in the intervening years. It lost all sense of time and decorum. The years began to flash by faster until those memories of childhood naps and teenage angst became precious, something to yearn for. These years, October comes too quickly. It’s July before you can catch your breath and New Year’s Eve is barely survived before Diwali is here again. You barely recognise the baby you grew in your body for nine months. He is that tall young man who hardly gives you the time of day. Adulthood – promises, promises. In reality, it is mostly running to stay in place. If you’re lucky, you’ll break out, be free, do what you love, be with the one you want – but the clock is remorseless and time is running away from you. Keep up. If you can.
Was the clock ever set just right? Between the slow never ending days of childhood’s summer and the urgent drumming of head and heart and body in those heady spring days that followed, and now the crazy roller coaster of years flashing by while we scream silently for time to slow down, did time and experience and life and love ever come together seamlessly and the clock keep perfect time?
I think of the year I turned twenty one. Truly, life was ahead of me. I had lived through trauma and turbulence, happy childhood and troubled adolescence. The memories were mostly good ones. Now, there was love and all of life waiting for me. The clock was, for once, ticking in time with the rhythm of my life. That’s what I remember best of my twenty first year. Don’t get me wrong. I have loved each part of my life, never more so than now, as I learn to let go, leave it be, leave it behind.
Being twenty one wasn’t perfect. But it was in step. I felt in sync with the world around me at twenty one, and that unique feeling lasted through those few years in my twenties. It didn’t take a conscious effort. It didn’t need mindfulness and being in the moment. I was in the moment without having given it any thought at all. I could look forward to new experiences, to independence and freedom from family and home. It is only now, in twenty-twenty technicolour vision that is the gift of middle age (along with other stuff you don’t need to hear about right at this inspirational moment), that I see that the lack of effort was the clincher. Life was there for the taking. Happiness too. And I reached out and took it.
Effortless. Easy. Everything life should be. Turning twenty one was all that to me. Was it the best time of my life? No. Was it something I miss today or yearn for? Not at all. It was simply the time I hit my stride and went with the flow. After some turbulence, I regained equilibrium and liked that feeling. Ever after, when it felt like things were slipping away from me, I had this time to fall back on, to recollect the process of finding my feet again.
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Post script: I was also very lucky. I’ve been reading this piece again and it sounds terribly cocky and self assured. I think about a twenty year old fiery girl, living a life of activism, filled with the strength of youth and conviction. Yet, she is often assailed by doubts and fears. I admire her boundless courage, she is the twenty year old I might have been in some other life. And I want to hug away her frustration and anger at a world gone mad. I want her to believe there is hope for a better tomorrow, because she is the one who will make it so.
I think about the conversation I had this morning with a twenty one year old. Unguarded, vulnerable, he sounded as lost and lonely as I have been at so many points in my life. Insecure about friendships, unsure about where life and love were leading him. With a personality that makes life difficult enough – bitingly sarcastic, needing to say hurtful things, a highly developed and somewhat misplaced pride in self. I was all that and more, it’s hard to admit to him. I want to tell him that change will come, unaware and unwanted. That it is the one thing he can count on. That change brings with it hope. I want to hug him too, smooth away the hurts.
And it reminds me of the twenty one year olds who were lost: some who made their way back to us, after staring at the abyss for too long, others who let go and headed into the unknown.
Young people about to step into a messy, complicated world. Heading off down an uncharted, unpredictable road. No, twenty one isn’t quite the way I remember it.
By the time I hit twenty one, I had messed up badly. Let old friends down, thrown away solid relationships, magnified one moment of tragedy into an excuse for unforgivable behaviour. And yet, I had friends who stood by me, who hung on through the bitch phase, the clingy needy one and the rejection phase that went on for ever. I left home, left behind the people who cared about me, in a vainglorious search for who I really was. It took a lifetime to answer that question in part. At twenty one, the search for answers is imperative, it seems, in order for life to go on. The universe has different plans though. The answers appear and disappear hazily, never staying still long enough to grab hold onto. Some answers turn on themselves and become questionable. Others take the long route and hit you in middle age. And you think – oh, where were you when I needed you the most?
Twenty one. It will never come around again. Take whatever life throws at you, grab it and go with the flow. Count yourself lucky if you have a couple of friends who know you inside out. If there is a family that still loves you, that’s an added bonus. And you like yourself too? You’ve hit the jackpot. And if not, don’t rush it. There is a friend out there for the very worst in you. Families can be the people you choose for yourself. You are changing and evolving – you’ll end up finding things to like about yourself. Hang in there – the rollercoaster ride is about to begin.