Tejaswinee Barua on going slow with life

Here’s a lovely blog received from Tejaswinee Barua who is based in Brisbane, Australia. She is an engineer by profession and a writer by choice.

She says, ” I have, a year ago embarked on a beautiful journey, by becoming a mother to a beautiful daughter. There are many things that I feel like sharing from a mother’s perspective, the initial pangs of self-doubt to the journey of enjoying the new role as a parent.”

‘The Window that Changed my Life’

The window in my first floor bedroom, an ordinary window has given me a view of life that I had been missing. A view that is painful yet hopeful. A sunset that has urged me to fill my life with more sun.

It is a view of an Aged Care Home, an old but well maintained little place. I can see well into three rooms of the home from that window in my room.

Someday, I see beds occupied. Some days, they are empty.

I see the old men and women sitting by the window in the afternoon orange glow of the sun, staring into the nothingness that their world has become, but surely only seeing the completeness that their life was once.

And my one year old baby sleeps peacefully as I look at them.

A sunset and a sunrise envelope me at the same time.

And each day, that view puts my life into perspective.

Each day, it makes me realize the fragility of life. It reminds me we rush for nothing.

I have brought my girl into a cruel world. Into a world where you are pushed into the rat race. I am scared for her, for me.

There are waiting lists in day-care, in schools, let alone college.

She must join swimming lessons, you must add her name to the wait lists, you must put her in a dance school, read to her those ABC books. That is the advice I get, and as reluctant as I am, I do all that. With the fear that if one day, she lags behind the others, I will be to blame. I want her to succeed in life.

And, for my success, I rush too. For the next job, the next promotion.

But the windows of the old age home tell me to take a different path. To take things slowly.

Those empty eyes tell me to savour life in slow motion. They tell me to play with my baby a bit more, to read more books, to go out for more walks, to eat more ice-cream, to make love more, to laugh more, to be more silly.

They tell me that the waiting lists, the shopping lists, the promotions, the money, the new expensive home and car are not the things I will remember when I sit on one of those chairs one day.

They tell me success is not all those things. I will remember my baby’s smell, I will remember the trips to the park, those long drives, those candlelight dinners. I will remember only the times I took slowly. Those will be the highlights of my life, my successes.

And as I watch the occupied bed from yesterday empty today, I know that is what I am going to do.

I will make a success out of my life by living, not rushing. Success for me will be lazy afternoon walks, trips to the park, culinary exploits, more books, more soaking in the rain, more sun, lots of ice creams, more tickles, more giggles.

When the sun sets on my life, I will bask in the plethora of memories I would have created.

An ordinary window and empty eyes have urged me to do that, to take a different path.