This is a post that was first published exactly two years ago, March 7, 2009 in my private blog. I publish it here today for its obvious significance and for yet another affirmation of the title of this blog viz. the show must go on!
So, its my half-birthday today. I actually didn’t know there was such a thing until my kids told me about it. What it is, is what you think it would be: the exact half-way mark to my next birthday, viz. September the seventh.
What a cool concept, don’t you think? Acknowledging the passage of time and marking a half-way point!
But what I was thinking was that it is actually more than a half-birthday, really. For me, at least. I think it would be fair to also think of it as a half-way point to my life. And that’s being optimistic, I know! Because who knows when my life might come to an end, but still… nice thought.
Which makes me think of a comment that Bono made this morning in an interview with ABC’s GMA with regards to the title of the new U2 album, No Line On The Horizon. When I’d first heard the name of it, I thought to myself about how that is a somewhat pessimistic frame of reference– no line, as in, no hope, no future? But no. What Bono said was that the band saw it as a very optimistic notion: just as when there is a blurring of the sky and the water on the far horizon where the two become one, so also there is no line or no distinction between the heights and the depths that one can reach in one’s lifetime. Nice. No boundaries. No compulsions to rise when its all relative, anyway. And who’s to say or see how high is high? Or how low is low. There is no line on the horizon. I can see it now. 🙂
Well, six months from now, I hope that I will be around to mark yet another birthday, and give thanks to God for the gift of another year, nay, life itself. Half a birthday today; Godwilling, half a life even. Even if not, I have much to be thankful for. May it be that I am always reminded of how precious this life is, no matter how much of it is eventually afforded to me.
This picture? I took it last summer when I was visiting my folks in their home in Bangalore. I had given it to them as a gift with my first earnings from my first real-world job in Delhi. It is a handpainted mural of a old-world folk-style Indian scene of people and animals traversing along life’s highways. I had it framed, and large piece that it is, had quite a time with it in carrying it on the three-hour train ride from Delhi to Saharanpur. But the inconvenience of all that paled in comparison to the joy that it brought to my parents. They’ve treasured it all these years, and never lose an opportunity to tell a newcomer to their home about how their daughter gave it to them!
So far, half of this year, and, dare I say it, half of this life of mine has been very good! May it be that you also take the same view about your own.
