I am too young to mourn the past, but it is dead, and there are few who can give those memories life. Little is said or done now to remember what we had many years ago. I was sitting with Dadu, Dadi and Omi at the dinner table on Sunday, and I completely fooled myself into thinking Baba was going to walk in at any moment, with that silly, put on grin that he has. I literally believed that he was going to appear out of thin air and give us hugs.
It's been hard being with my grandparents because they're so depressed. All of my life, I have been around old age, and now it's getting to that point where things seem imminent, to the point where my grandfather has weakened himself so much just by thinking becoming weak for so many years. He has rendered himself helpless because he is a man who has aged, and who has convinced himself that he is nothing of what he used to be. Livelihood, independence, it's run out, so he lives to remember and lives to love his family, but his reward is less than half of all the hope and prayers he puts in. Knowing this upsets me. That confidence, the command and the rigidity has all eroded leaving behind no edges--the soft wrinkly skin, the professions of loss, the rekindling of memories of which I have no connection, except they are mine too in some remote way. Always so witty; he is absolutely the brown Englishman who dressed with such style and pride but also made fun of the English (and still does). And poor Dadi, who has been his eyes and ears, who knows what she's thought over the years, what she's felt; she hasn't said a word, would never hurt a single soul...in fact, I do not believe she has ever hurt anyone.
***
Lately I've been feeling wasted, like I'm not keeping track of what's important and I've forgotten what inspires me. I've been doing silly, self indulgent little things when I have the time. Maybe belittling isn't the way to account for it; although I cannot help but feel hollow because so much of what I've done in the past year has been some form of instant gratification, not necessarily something productive in the long-term (except getting into Hunter, which I'm not even excited for because I'm only going part-time, and when I think of the amount of time it'll take to finish, I don't care).
I don't know where to find it, but I know it'll come back to me.
