I think I was about four years old when I first danced on stage. It was three of us performing to the old Hindi song, ‘Aplum Chaplum’. I have been told that on stage during the performance I told my fellow dancer that she did a step wrong, she stopped, we both did the right step together after a second.
Proud parents in the audience still applauded to their children performing for the first time. I have a vague memory of this performance, but I remember the practice sessions. We were told that we will be taught these steps and will be expected to do these exact steps on stage.
That’s all I cared about. To do the exact steps taught and hence I stopped my fellow dancer on stage during the performance. I remember her hugging me after the dance thanking for correcting her, because even for her to obey what was told was important.
I can’t imagine the embarrassment of doing something similar on stage today. And surely not a hug but I would receive a slap on the face for doing so. But I think that’s the beauty of childhood innocence.
I like to be on the move and have been away from home. I know how to deal with that. But staying at home without mom or grandma is not something I have ever done. It is something new, it makes me feel like being kicked out of my comfort zone into some weird mixture feeling of anxiety with a tinge of sorrow.
As a kid, I was out there on a platform doing the dance as taught. My brain did not know what is a comfort zone, what is doing something new for the first time, what is anxiety and thinking or worrying of the future, it just knew to obey something told.
When I think of living an entire week by myself without mom or grandma, feeling all these weird emotions of sorrow, fear and more, I realize how much we complicate things as we grow up. How growing up gives us knowledge of things that backfires and ruins our peace.
As a kid, I was told to do things and I did it. Sometimes I could do it, sometimes I couldn’t. I remember joining dance and singing classes and not continuing singing as I couldn’t do it. That was how it worked.
Today, I think of trying new things, feel anxious while I do them, like the masters’ course I have taken to do. Today, I know what I am comfortable with, and what I am not comfortable with.
And the struggle now is always to get over the discomfort and do something new. It was so much better not knowing what makes me feel comfortable and what doesn’t. When it was only about trying things and knowing if I could do it or not.
As a kid, I have always lived away from mom as she was working. I would see her if I get up early in the morning or directly in the evening. This is why till date I have the habit of getting up early because I have done so since I was little.
Today, it is a year my mom has retired, and over a year since I lost my grandma. Either of these ladies has been with me every day on my journey of over twenty years. And having to live an entire week without both made me cringe.
Maybe this is why they say one should learn to live like a kid. To not know and hence not care what it means to ‘think about tomorrow’. Know no word as ‘problem’. Just do what is told and end of story.
Last night, that’s exactly what I remembered and told myself. I took my diary and wrote to me, told myself what to do. I wrote to me what is to be done. I’ll try to be the obedient kid I once was.
“You have exams up in days, study, eat, sleep and repeat, that’s it. To think of mom’s absence and someone’s presence is not going to help. Like you cared for doing the steps right, you will follow this. If you panic, feel low, stupid or anything, you’ll stop yourself, think of what is correct and do it. It is important to do the exact steps told, remember?”
The point of sharing this story and relating it to what I feel now is because I know I am not alone. I know as humans, we all have grown. We have left that kid in us far-far away. We have complicated our lives beyond imagination.
If you feel any struggle, discomfort, any other situation that makes you feel what now? What next? How do I do this? How to go about this? Or it feels like the word we have learned as we grew ‘problem’, think of how you would deal with it as a kid.
It might not work for everything and all kinds of situations but will open up a doorway to some sort of solution. I was miserable when I returned back home last night after leaving mom on the station as she left with her friends for a week. I tried this and it worked.
I hope this post made you think and comes back to your mind in time of need.
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