Bubbles, Checklists and the Life We Keep Waiting For

 

“2011 batch!”

As I read those words on my college WhatsApp group, a nostalgic smile spread across my face.

Those carefree days came alive in my mind. And I laughed at how silly and immature I used to be.

But I also wondered how free I was.

All I had to take care of were my studies and all the possible dreams I had for myself.

Daydreaming at its best!

Back then, life seemed so simple.

Just get one lucrative and respectable job, and the deed is done for life.

I will have all the luxuries.

All the freedom.

Zero tension.

Life used to look just this simple.

 

The Milestones We Dream About

 

Then I got the job.

And with it came the realisation that it wasn’t the happy ending I had been looking for.

There was another milestone ahead.

Marriage.

It didn’t actually look like a milestone or a project. It was one of those dreams in which I imagined I would keep everything rosy with my divine maturity and compassion.

Innocent and silly me.

I used to vow that I would never fight with my husband. I would always be a good wife, a good daughter-in-law, and so on.

I thought that once I found the right partner, I wouldn’t need anything more significant.

But another bubble of my imaginary paradise popped when I realised that a marriage is not complete without small fights and arguments. After all, two people coming from different environments, upbringings, conditioning and, most importantly, genders cannot possibly live together without occasionally rubbing against each other’s worlds.

And then came another milestone.

A child.

Oh God!

Another, even more colorful bubble formed in my imaginative mind.

I thought that after having a child, I would reinvent my life. I would bring back all those deserted dreams and passions.

The central idea was always writing.  Over the years, writing has remained the one thread that keeps pulling me back to myself.  Read more about my writing journey →https://wordsallmine.com/what-happens-in-library/

And then my child arrived and, with his cute laughter, slowly popped the remaining bubbles.

I have stopped blowing new ones now.

Not because I am unhappy.

I am happy with my job, my marriage, my child, and everything new that entered my life after college.

But every new thing came with a cost that I have to pay every day.

There are health issues that come from the daily ignorance of small things we so casually dismiss.

“It’s just stomach bloating. I’ll take a tablet and be fine.”

“It’s just a little pain in the knee. I’ll apply some analgesic and be fine.”

“I’ll start tomorrow.” Exercise. Dance. Yoga. Writing. Whatever it is.

But somehow, tomorrow keeps remaining tomorrow.

And the passion, the art, the dreams don’t come out like a gush of a river anymore.

They come as a drizzle.

Once in a blue moon.

Financial management, child education and upbringing, household chores, office work –  these become the core of this newly evolved life.

And then, almost quietly, mental fatigue, acidity, anxiety, migraines, weakening eyesight, bone and joint pains become companions.

Little reminders that I am no longer the same bright girl sitting on the last bench of the class, dreaming without having to calculate the cost of every dream.

 

When the Checklist Is Never Finished

 

And yet…

perhaps I have been looking at these milestones the wrong way.

Maybe job, marriage, children, a house, financial stability – these were never supposed to be the destination.

They were only a checklist.

And perhaps the biggest mistake we make is believing that life will finally begin once the checklist is complete.

We keep telling ourselves,

After I get a job…
After I get married…
After I have a child…
After my child grows up…
After I have enough money…
After things become less hectic…

And life quietly keeps moving between all those afters.

 

Learning to Live Between the Milestones

 

Maybe life doesn’t begin at any particular point. It is happening right now –

In the middle of the unfinished work.

In the middle of the messy house.

In the middle of parenting and deadlines.

In the middle of dreams that have not yet found enough time.

Perhaps growing up is not about completing the checklist and finally reaching some imaginary peaceful destination.

Perhaps it is about learning how to manage our lives in the middle of the chaos.

To find ten minutes for a forgotten passion.

To laugh without waiting for everything to become perfect.

To take care of our bodies before they force us to.

To write a few lines even when there isn’t enough time to write a whole story.

To keep a little space for ourselves while fulfilling the spaces we occupy in everyone else’s lives.

Now, I sometimes sit at the last bench again.

Only this time, I am not sitting there to dream about my own future.

I sit there watching my child do anything and everything.

I click his pictures.

I save them.

And I sometimes imagine a future in which he is grown up, blowing his own colourful bubbles, dreaming about the life waiting ahead of him.

Perhaps that is why I have always been drawn to writing about the small moments that make up an ordinary life. Some of those reflections have found their way into my earlier writings too → https://wordsallmine.com/slowly-i-growing/

Perhaps one day, while looking at these photographs, I will think, How colourful my life had been.

Not because every bubble stayed intact. But because life kept giving me new ones. Some burst.

Some floated away. Some were never meant to last. And perhaps that is what makes life meaningful.

Not completing every bubble on the checklist.

But learning to live beautifully while they are still floating around us.