Thoughts

I wonder sometimes in the night...when everyone else is asleep in their beds and dreaming peacefully until the rigours of the next working day catch up with them about how life would have been so different had I taken another course.
History repeats itself, it truly does. I really wonder sometimes on whether we are aware of this fact. It hardly seems we are even aware of its existence until an event, a moment sneaks up on us, taking us completely unawares and making us rue the day we did not come prepared for what life undoubtedly has in store for us.

I look out of the window, pulling the blanket about me. It trails on the floor. The window is not open and yet there is this inexplicable coldness in the room, like some unwanted ghost of the past materialised into the flesh, invisible, unseen...yet felt most deeply by those who cannot be rid of the memories of their past. To them, time and memory alone haunt them in their dreams, taunting them into looking back into their past and for once, we realise things that we have never seen before. Or things that we were too frightened to see for ourselves, only realising, too late, that had we taken that particular course or action, our current lives might have been different. Not in extraordinary proportions, of course, but still...there is that refreshing possiblity of change, of renewal...of rebirth?

And then I realise that the window has been open all the time, the shutters have not been shut properly. A small smile plays about my lips; the children have been playing here again and though no matter how much I tell them not to, the poor dears are always susceptible to the temptation of going against their mother's word. Like the adorable, lively children that they are, life is merely a game to them, each day condensed into that expectable pattern of childhood: mealtimes, playtimes, schooltime and of course, bedtime which I think is placed very low on their "to-do" lists. I did not imagine that putting children to bed would be so troublesome. I smile again, firmly closing the shutters and the air warms considerably in the room and I lessen the pressure a little on my thick blanket.

But then, are we already dictated by schedules so early on in our lives? The thought chills me and I get to my feet from the couch, suddenly feeling weary. I have had little sleep over the past few days and tomorrow is an important day for the children as it is their first school production and I have to juggle with my plans this morning as I begin preparing my lecture at the university. If I plan ahead correctly, my lecture should finish well before the evening and I would arrive on time for the production at school. Who knew motherhood would sometimes read out like a strategic battle plan and I, the work-laden general, would have to look out for every possible disaster that could head our way?

My eyes flutter slightly and I glance up the stairs exhaustedly, realising that now I have grown too tired to think. Thoughts are heavy and linger stupidly in my head which is now begging for sleep. I ascend the steep steps, one by one, not bothering with the white blanket now trailing at my feet. It loosens from my grasp and I leave it there, a bright white streak across the blood-red carpeted stairs.