Yearning to be me

Di always surprises me with her thought-provoking random questions. So, when she asked me whether I would like to swap lives with someone, she singled me out and banned to say ‘NO.’
Through out the pensive weekend, I was torturing myself to justify my hasty choice- the life of my friend Kalpa who is married to music right now but soon to be married to his long-found heartthrob. Perhaps, it was his happy-go-lucky approach towards studies or near-perfect family life that made me pick his life over anyone else’s; or perhaps it was the way he makes life look every minute worth living.
Kalpa was not that type of person who had anything and everything even before asking. There were days he had to bus it to work when he overstepped the fuel limits set by his farther. There were tedious hours he had to practice in order to make his way to the Youth Orchestra. But most of all, he knew that most of the ingredients that make life fulfilling are not buyable; they were to be won, realized and achieved.
He has an amazing memory of people who had helped him- even a passerby who gifted him with a smile or a kind word never managed to escape his memory. He keeps making friends; not only us, the Montessori crowd, but a load of Aussies and Americans. But he never fails to keep in touch. This is why I want to be Kalpa, so then I can discover his secret of sectioning life so as not to leave anyone behind.
Weird enough, I never wanted to be someone else in my life. Perhaps I didn’t know enough about anyone to feel envy or even a tiny yearning. The thought makes me shudder. I try to imagine a life without polsambol and chocolate chip mint ice cream, a writing table with out Pride and Prejudice and recycled papers, a day without my girls pecking their heads at my weekend adventures and misadventures, a victory after losing out on two tiring tournaments, and a day without Colombo dust and sizzling drizzles that touch the edge of my denim pants. I’d rather be at home and home forever if I can.