Life’s stages

Life really moves fast, you know! I hear it has stages, only you never realize when one ends and then you get into another (like when travelling, one bus/train/flight into another). One day you are so little, so dependent on your folks for every tiny thing. Next you are busy trying to act ‘Mr/Miss Independent’, because you think you are all adult, cant they see it? Well, we choose not to judge you because ‘it’s only a stage in life’, and you’ll get over it very soon anyway.

Then you get all adult (like you had always wished), and you start to wish that you were still younger. The responsibilities that come with it, the expectations... You start making statements like, “Aren’t kids just lucky, they’ve got someone to worry about them all the time. They don’t have to think about where to get the next meal, or how to get it ready, what to wear, where they’ll sleep… someone is always concerned about that”. Shut up! You had your chance too! (You can tell that to me too).

Sometime last year, I overheard two of my sisters having this ‘stages of life’ conversation. Owing to their professions, there was a lot of jargon I could hardly pick. (There was nothing about debit-credit, time value of money, taxes… Instead I heard words like Oral, Phallic, Latency stages… what!?) So, despite how interesting the conversation seemed to be, my mind had soon wondered to other things and that was it.

For some strange reason today, I found myself busy on Google trying to find out what the girls were talking about. To my disappointment, there are so many theories, named after so many people…

Well, I must be at some stage, or in between stages. Definitely not any of those I remember from that conversation. I am at a stage whereby I have to work hard in order to get any material thing I need. I have this drive to progress in my career and so I find myself sometimes pushing myself beyond the limit. I sometimes have sleepless nights trying to figure out how I’ll deal with certain things, sometimes out of so much joy and other times there is simply no sleep. At this stage, I also have to worry on behalf of some young one, why is she coughing. Oh, she fell, did she hurt herself?School fees is due. That hair needs attention. No, she didn’t just use that word! Did she feed well? Does she feel loved? And then, thankfully my ‘curious mind’ is still at work, I find myself peeping into books to ensure that I don’t forget everything I once knew in this mad rush… And still, take care of me!

I choose not to start envying the young one; didn’t I have my chance too?

But wait! There is one who keeps on reminding me that whatever stage of life I think I am in, whoever grown up I want to feel, I will always be a child to Him. That he constantly and continuously spends His days and nights caring about me.And that I have nothing to fear. And that’s my Creator. And so suddenly, anything and everything heavy that I would otherwise want to attribute to a ‘stage of life’ feels so much lighter… To top it up, He has given me the gift of wonderful friends and family, who love me and make this life just wonderful! Isn't God just great?