I sometimes wonder about the phrase, 'looking back at life'. Some would say it only makes sense for someone over the hill to consider it with seriousness. Maybe. But even for someone as old as me, in his late twenties, there are usually some things to look back on, a childhood for instance. The misadventures of many summers or adventures of a rebellious hostel group. Perhaps even a bad bicycle accident or getting lost in a foreign city. True. There is always something. And this makes me wonder even more because in all honesty and sincerity there is nothing I recall even remotely that does justice to me 'looking back at life'.
In borrowed words from a great man, a certain Mr. George Costanza - whose childhood lost somewhere in those early pages of character sketches from the show seems to have inspired mine - my life thus far can be summed up in one word - nothing. As proof you only need to realize how long, winding and irresistibly boring the previous sentence was.
Even as I write this, I make a genuine effort to recall some fond memories from my childhood. Yes there are some bunked classes in school to stay home and watch the recently launched saucy MTV but let's face it; those are hardly looking-back-at-life worthy. My life back then was like a tennis match and not even competitive ones we now know. Imagine a two English jerks dressed in white like a couple of ice cream cones along with their dashing ladies dressed in ankle length white skirts and playing the game with utmost compassion so as to not hurt the tennis ball or the racket. What you get – is a bit of from here to there and some there to here. And that was my life. A bit of – from school to home and a bit from home to school. Then of course things changed. A bit of – from college to home and a bit from home to college. All the while of course kids around me were winning inter-school and inter-college sports encounters. Discovering joys of a blessed plant named marijuana or involved in deep research to garner empirical evidence of the female anatomy that thus far was only accessible in the form of bribed books from the scrap dealer that had a few pages torn or suspiciously stuck together.
I know by now it is almost impossible to not feel sorry for me. Thanks I need the pity. Again like my fictional guru Mr. Costanza would say, pity is indeed quite underrated. In the more recent past however there were a couple of breezy years that I can fondly recall but I won't as I'm back amidst the hotly contested tennis match and also because I could do with some pity.
So, please do not be ashamed of yourself for pitying me, I welcome you with open arms and urge you to 'look back at me' before moving on. Thank you, and hope you have a wonderfully abnormal day.
