Pebbles, people and personality

I am much older now, I can feel it.

Think of a pebble at the bottom of a stream. I used to be a pebble who is completely at the stream’s mercy. A certain strong current, a sudden undulation in the stream bed, and I would be uprooted, swept along till I tumble and fall. Then the painful process of taking root again in some place. Sometimes not so painful. Oh who am I kidding, it’s painful all right.

But now again, think of a pebble nestled in a place with a lot of stream bed vegetation! I can choose to move or stay. I can talk to the fellow pebbles in my area. I in fact talk a lot to the fellow pebbles, and we create quite a ruckus. It’s a lot of fun though… the ruckus adds meaning to my life, or should I say, moss to my crevices.

I seem to have discovered the tact and delicacy involved in letting life pass me by when I am a carefree observer, a mere pebble lying alongside a bunch of grass. I have also experienced the delight of letting some currents wash over me, and just, well, being. There is a comfort level, but nothing mundane or boring about it. It’s a comfort awash with all the excitement of moving around! A comfort born out of having cushions around that prevent large chunks of me from being ripped off; out of a certain niche I have dug for myself which allows me to grow and move freely, but which I control of my own volition, without external aid!

Somewhere inside is also the courage that if I allow myself to be swept again, I will be fine. That I am a nice enough pebble, with enough edge to dig myself a niche wherever I go; to make new associations and find my moorings in the strangest of stream beds.
I am 24. High time this happened!