The ‘Extra’ Day

It’s here and I would have missed it, which sheds some light on my sieve-like memory, as if more were needed! What am I talking about? The 29^th of February of course, that ‘extra’ day that comes around every four years, because Time behaves the way it does or maybe because our human understanding of Time’s behaviour is the way it is…which is to say limited and vague. How I wish the ‘Doctor’ were here with his tortuous explanations! Don’t ask me for scientific details, I don’t know and can’t say I’m particularly interested, preferring instead to wake up pleasantly surprised or sour-faced (depending on what Life has on offer at the moment), for an extra day, pretending it’s some sort of miracle!

What would I do with an extra day? Plenty, if I weren’t half as lazy as I am 😛 Isn’t that what we’re constantly clamouring for – more Time? Time to do all the things that live eternally on our to-do lists, time to relax and do nothing, time to breathe deeply and do something important, time to laze, time to sleep, to eat, to dance, to pick up the kids, to have one more cuppa, to pretend that time is indeed eternal, time to make more time! And yet when it comes around I find myself singularly unprepared to take any sort of advantage (Can you tell, Wolf Hall is having its peculiar effect on me?!). As it is, it’s a day like any other, and will I’m sure be whiled away like any other, to be regretted only when it’s too late to matter and all that remains is to wait another 4 years.

I’ve always wondered what people with ‘Leap’ birthdays and anniversaries must feel or do, if indeed anything. As I see it, they could save money by celebrating just once in four years, although that would mean forfeiting gifts too! I don’t know anybody born or married on the 29^th…actually I might…but I’ve forgotten! What would you do? I can’t make up my mind where I would have celebrated my ‘uniqueness’ or pined for ‘ordinariness’…both have their merits! There’s nothing special about the day as it is, except that I woke up to a heavy mist through which the shrouded sun aped the moon and somehow promised magic! Or maybe that’s just my imagination running wild as usual 😛 Is it better to believe in Magic and be disappointed, or not believe and save yourself from despair? The eternal question! Is it better to have an ‘extra’ day and not do anything significant with it or not have it at all? Would it really make a difference if we decided that Time had changed behaviour and there was no 29^th Feb any more? Would we miss it? What do you think? Wouldn’t it be fun, if instead of obeying rules, the Earth just went spinning off into the Universe on a journey for a new Sun?! Lord knows we will need one in a few billion years from now!

But enough with the philosophy (blame it on Wolf Hall and Cromwell :P)! I’m going to have my own ‘Leap’ year of sorts. I’ll be leaping from Goa to Bombay soon. Why that reminds me of, “From the frying pan into the fire…” I’m sure I cannot say! But it’s not only the physical ‘jump’ that worries me, it’s the fact that I’ll have control of my own household again after 2 years of being a guest of sorts in my parents home and all that that entails – deciding menus, cleaning, cooking, supervising servants (God Help Me!), supervising Ishaan (I can feel God shudder ;-)), adjusting to small spaces, rented furniture, the new school, missing my friends, missing the garden, missing the fresh air, missing misty sunrises…missing…Oh I know it’s a choice we’ve made and it was a conscious one. Doesn’t make it any easier or pleasant! I know two years down the line, all going well, I’ll have a different story to tell, but for now, the uncertainty is killing. Also, it’s a leap year so who’s to say what Time will do or won’t?! Sometimes things left undone and words left unsaid come back to haunt. So here’s to (as my friend M so wisely put it), ‘Looking before Leaping’, but fingers & toes crossed for a safe landing 😉 Sounds like a plan? Well it’s the best one I have!

Happy Leap Day People!

Here’s to success in your ‘Leaps’ 🙂

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