Mirror, Mirror...

Pretty much everything I've done in life I've done because I wanted to, with nary a thought to what that looked like, or felt like, to the people in my life. So it's quite an ego bashing to admit that most of what I know, of myself as a lover, and I use that word in its broadest sense, I know through the eyes of the women who've been a part of my life over the years.

Mind you, I say most, not all. Still...

It is an interesting thought, though, that some parts of you are only visible, and comprehensible, when bounced off a significant other. Is this why most of us feel incomplete, at some primal level, unless we have a companion to share our lives with?

My last post, a week back, was about watching Before Sunrise, again after a long time. I followed it up with Before Sunset, which incidentally, I'd never seen before. What hit me the most was the contrast between the two meetings. While the first was full of hope, promise and expectation, the second had undercurrents of disappointment and rancour which finally boil over towards the end. The difference, I think, between being 20, and still making one's way in the world, and being 30, worldwise and cynical.

I don't think, though, that the movies, back to back, would have made as big an impression on me if the contrast hadn't resonated with my own life. I did not truly realise, until that point, how much I have changed in the last 10 years.

With one important difference, though. I believe I am happier, with myself and my life, now than I ever was at 20. And this is despite the cynicism and sense of been-there-done-that that seems to boil over every once in a while. Or perhaps, as a friend of mine mentioned in conversation the other day, though my troubles run deeper I am better equipped to be happy, inspite of them.

There is, however, a lingering sense of incompleteness that stands out, occasionally, in bas-relief especially at the end of a long, tiring day when I know there is no one waiting at home. Perhaps, though, what growing older teaches you is the non-immediacy of these lingering disappointments regardless of how looming and ominous they seem in the present circumstances.

C'est la vie...