Grow Up!!!

I am 45 and have a short term memory, which means that I often forget things that has happened recently... say within the last few days or hours or minutes. This is not a bad thing actually. Makes up for a great excuse and it is true. My doctors, who have been experimenting with my body and brain to study the effect of extreme high altitude, rarefied atmosphere along with oxygen deprivation and prolonged exposure to low atmospheric pressure, has finally ruled that my brain cells have been permanently damaged or altered in a way that they find hard to explain. But my short term memory is an outcome of my vertical life. While my long term memory often remains intact, though now, as I could probably 5 years ago, I would find it rather difficult to rattle out names and heights of several thousand peaks and passes scattered across the Himalaya. Nevertheless, this evening, a short while ago, suddenly a vision from the past came to me. I was back to being tiny thirteen and an uncle asks me; So what do you wish to become when you grow up!

Grow Up!!! I must have looked horrified. Here I was at the prime of my teen world having a blast of a time. Who wanted to grow up! Not me. And if I remember correctly then I told him that I don't wish to grow up and if I do then all I would wish would be to continue growing up. I am still the child, growing up since I have no choice in the matter, but refusing to grow up, since there I do have a choice. Why don't we all exercise this choice, at any stage of our life, even for a moment, try it, it's whole lot of fun.

On the subject of childhood and growing up, while I was trying to think of something more illuminating, I suddenly remembered a poem that a friend had written when she was only 14 and which she shared with me only a few days ago. It sums up beautifully the way my world used to be and the way it still is, since I exercise my choice and simply refuse to grow up. By the way, this friend of mine, would never grow up either, but she is trying very hard to. Now enjoy the poem: 

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Stupid me,

I think the world is going wrong

When everything is perfectly right

I think that there should be more trees

For the birds and the bees

But other people don’t see things in that light

And when I wake up, and the sky is grey

I wonder why it’s so, in the month of May

So stupid me,

I guess I’m just another freak.

Stupid me

I ask people why they change

When it’s so easy to stay the same

Just don’t let things like money

And a broken heart affect you

And you’ll never have to suffer any pain

‘Easy for you’, they say

‘You’ve never seen life that way’

So stupid me

I guess I’m just another freak.

Silly me

I think of life before the engines were born

And people lived the way they should

With just enough food for a day or two

And not too many diamonds on

The heels of their shoes

All the women-they cooked and cleaned

And the men-Can’t think of what they did without T.V.

So silly me

I guess I’m just another freak.

Stupid me

Thinking that dreams were easy to follow

When other people just can’t swallow

That. Now that includes my mom and dad

And I know that’s pretty sad

But that’s what happens when your dreams

Just can’t come true

Now I don’t know why I said that

‘Cos I know my mom won’t like that

So stupid me

I guess I’m just another freak.