The Body Clock

For me to have any stress related disease would be a laughing matter in the family.

"Oh she sleeps 12 hours a day and can doze off even more. She has no stress", is the general byline in our house. When I started getting random insignificant symptoms, stress was the last thing on my mind. Even I couldn't figure out what was wrong.

I am back to being fit and fine now. But I still get these pangs. A very strong urge to hold another living being close to me. So much so that when I go for a walk, I look at the trees and imagine that they have bent their arms down, to hug me. There are two bottle-brush trees that have gone completely bare but when the few remaining flowers fall on me as I walk, I feel that the tree has heard my silent wish for a hug. I look up and smile at the tree. I am sure fellow joggers think I have gone mad.

I thought maybe I wanted a pet. It turns out that I don't. We had a heart to heart discussion yesterday about whether or not we should get any more cats. The firm 'no' didn't bother me as much as I thought it would.

Yet the cravings wouldn't go away.

I have a squirrel which has made a little nest behind our bathroom window. She has a white round underbelly which is the size of a plump pear. When she scurries across the window mesh, her fur glows with natural backlight. Even thought she darts across vertically, her rotund tummy has a mind of its own and jiggles in all possible directions. I knew she was pregnant. I used to look at her and be happy for her. But yesterday for the first time I was jealous of her. Not in a resentful way but yes I marveled at the irony of it all. The ache surfaced as a half smile.

For all my maternal non-instincts have somehow decided to give way to the most natural human desires of all. Hold a child in one's arms.

I never thought this would happen to me. I was such a strong willed person who took life as it came. I thought I had come to terms with what was not to be. But as time passes, maybe this is the way body clock works. Reasons begin to clamour and the silent time-keeper suddenly decides to become an alarm clock. Its frantic bell ringing can be quite deafening.

How easy it is to misinterpret the 'want to hold' with the 'want to be held'.

Thank God we do not live in the times of the sun-dials. No cloud can cast its shadow long enough to moisten the eye of time. Hum drum tick-tock of the digital world rules. Life goes on.