The curious case of benjamin button.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hadn’t given too much thought about my own mortality until the other day , watching 8 decades of Benjamin Button in three hours. I knew that I was afraid of getting old, wrinkly and retiring spaghetti-strapped tops that I love to wear.That much I knew. Ditzy huh? In hindsight, I should have been afraid of more than just the age of my body and the lines on my face.  

Never did it occur to me (or perhaps I avoid dwelling on it) that time with the ones we love is..fleeting. That, more than free will, the greatest gift we were ever given is time. That whether it be with our family, friends or the love of our life, we seek the perfect time of being with them. When I say ”perfect”, I mean being able to come to terms with the fact that in spite of all the bumps and humps of…relating with them, we realize that it was all worth it. That time was not wasted but rather it  made perfect what once used to be far from ideal. Even if that, too, will come and go in a blink of an eye.

That’s how it was with Benjamin and Daisy. How I agreed with her when their paths finally cross in the most perfect time and she muttered”, “Thank God, we didn’t get together when I was 26″.  When she was young, flighty and did not have a care in the world.  It wasn’t their time.

This question of “timing” I perfunctorily asked myself and I’m comfortable with the answers I hold. That line I could have thrown to Santi (the then unfortunate whipping boy), my Mom (oh how she’d concur to that!) and a handful of others who had the bad luck of dealing with my 26 year -old self. Not pretty. Did they waste their time on me? Did I waste mine running away from them?

A man “born under unusual circumstances” had this to say, “Your life is defined by opportunities..even the ones you missed.”

Amen.