As the sun of life sets behind the horizon of senility, my mind momentarily diverts towards those reflections in the mirror, which used to depict a lady... with charisma and eternal charm; The woman that was me.
But now I only find the view of a lady terribly aged, seven and a half decades old, who uses a stick for finding support even in petty things of life. Everybody used to boast of her dazzle, the mirror was surely her best friend.
But the friend had betrayed her a long time back. Yes, the mirror had betrayed me. Maybe the depth of the wrinkles all around my face, the crow's feet near my eyes or the increasing count of diseases defined why my best friend had cheated me… To make me realize that age is inescapable, it somehow finds you even when you try not to find it.
As I lied down to get some afternoon nap, my mind suddenly took me back to the time when I had went to a park with my grandma, I think I was eighteen back then and she was as old as what I am today. It is one of the last memories I have of her.
We were sitting on a bench under a fully grown pine tree. "Child," She spoke softly with her iconic toothless grin."I might look old and physically and behaviourally withered, but whenever I am with you, I feel as young as this tree. I feel so young at heart! I don't know if you would remember these words when you reach my age, but never 'try' to feel that you have grown old. Don't live in your past by remembering those beautiful days that have gone. The day you let these thoughts come to your mind, you would resemble that lifeless tree over there," She pointed towards a dried tree in the corner of the park. "And we cannot do this to ourselves," She kept a hand on my head as I etched this maxim in my heart for life.
My eyes opened in a jiffy. I looked at myself again in the mirror. And after a long time, I smiled. How recklessly had I made myself old and dull and sad!
As days proceeded, a sense of freshness took over this pessimism of eld. Remembering my past made me hate the person that I had become now. It is strange how we smile at our past and anticipate our future, but forget to enjoy the delights our age brings to us. Maybe grandma was right, it is the heart that should feel young, a body will age anyway.
