"Mind over Matter"

                                              "Sada Na Baghin Bulbul Boley 

                                       Sada Na Bagh Bahara'an 

                                       Sada Na Maa Pey Husn Jawa'ani

                                       Sada Na Sohbat Yara'an"

Hi everyone,

At the age of 57, I see myself standing in a place where I thought I would never be. A place where your husband looks at you differently as you are getting stripped of your youth and all that comes with it, a place where you start to realize that you need your children more than they need you, a place where you have a rude awakening that they are bigger than you in each and every sense of the word, a place where society forces you to take a back seat. 

It is the time when you start walking on the 'Pul Sirat' of life. It is the time when you let go of your heart and hold on to your mind. It is the time when your mind needs to kick in big time and become your balancing stick. Quite often you shake like a leaf inside, but the world doesn't need to see that. All it needs to see is a strong, dignified, wise, and put together woman who hasn't just landed here claiming all these virtues, but rather, has been through the mill and earned it. 

Although, like everything else, this doesn't happen overnight, it seems as it did!

In the photograph I attached, I see my two year old trying his best to get away, while I am trying my utmost not to let him slip out of my protective hands. Now after 32 years I look at this photograph and see very different things:

Things were never in my control; I just thought they were and that kept me going. There is a bigger force up there who is in charge, who gives and then takes it away, who takes it away but then compensates, who gave me limited knowledge, a tunnel vision of sorts, so I could live in my own small world thinking I had power.

You can wallow in self pity and mourn whatever you lost as a woman until the day you die, or you can put yourself on a pedestal with a few medals around your neck, where you can become untouchable, where you can be E.F Hutton and "people will listen", where you somehow develop a Midas Touch, where you realize what you have gained outweighs what you lost, where you give a lot more than you take, where you cannot afford to look down or you will fall, where you don't allow yourself to look back for risk of becoming stone.

Individuality is a beautiful thing. "You come into the world alone and you go out of the world alone" is not only the biggest reality of life, it is perhaps one of the very few philosophies that has logic attached to it. As a woman, one must apply to life as you often stand alone!

I am enjoying this stage, or rather, myself, on this stage called Life. I drag my middle aged bones everywhere and test their limits. I cannot wait to get old enough to play the card of senility!

Much love,

Shehla