On turning 18

September 30th, Friday, 2011.
I had a great day. It was my birthday, and it was one of those days I missed my friends (whom I haven't seen in long) terribly. And also I got closer to friends who did spend the day with me. If you remember, I'm in school, so that means, when your friends change schools, or leave school, chances are u'll see them very rarely.
It was nice to celebrate my birthday, especially when one of my childhood friends(who's in the same class as me) also celebrates the same birthday as me. It's great to walk into your class and see another person also looking forward to day as much as you. I'm a sucker for hugs...both giving and getting.
Only the other day one of my friends and I were teasingly mimicking the line "Relax, we're just thirty" from the Ponds Age Miracle ad. I love the tone with which the girl says that. Though the ad wasn't very tasteful, I'm hooked on that line. Whenever my friends worry about how it must be to leave school, and go to college( though we're looking forward to it) we just chant "Relaaax.. we're just eighteen"
I was looking for a picture to post along with my post, and I hit this, and it seemed perfect. Isn't it so true? We worry about turning 30 leaving behind the twenties, or that turning 45 means being closer to 50s than to 40s... But we fail to realise how many people leave their families and lives behind, hoping for just one more day to live, one more day to add to their diaries, one more day to make memories with the ones they love.
This week, I'm going to be listening to "Seasons in the sun". It's a song by Westlife, and this song was written by Terry Jacks, as he was dying of cancer. There is so much insightful and so much bitter-sweetness in this song, and I just love to sing it over and over again. My favourite parts here are where he says, "it's hard to die when all the birds are singing in the sky" . Every time i hear that line, I feel a chill at how he must have felt when he first wrote those lines, he was dying, of cancer, and he knew that he had to leave all he ever knew while the sun was shining and the birds were singing. I also love the way at the end of every other stanza, he says something to his friend, father, and daughter, something for them to remember him by- whenever the friend sees pretty girls, or the father sees little children, or the daughter sees flowers in spring, they will remember the man who wrote this song. My friends and I love this song too well to describe it. It's not a passing fancy, like songs that go in and out of fashion when they're released. This is an eternal, evergreen song, from 1974, sung, and sung again over decades, my millions of fans like me. Hope you like it too..

Goodbye to you, my trusted friend.
We've known each other since we were nine or ten.
Together we've climbed hills and trees, 
learned of love and ABC's, 
skinned our hearts and skinned our knees.


Goodbye, my friend, it's hard to die
when all the birds are singing in the sky.
Now that the spring is in the air,
pretty girls are everywhere,
think of me and I'll be there.


We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun.
But the hills that we climbed were just seasons out of time.


Goodbye, Papa, please pray for me.
I was the black sheep of the family.
You tried to teach me right from wrong,
too much wine, and too much song,
wonder how I got along.


Goodbye, Papa, it's hard to die,
when all the birds are singing in the sky.
Now that the spring is in the air,
little children everywhere-
When you see them I'll be there.


We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun.
But the wine and the song, like the seasons have all gone.


Goodbye, Michelle, my little one.
You gave me love and helped me find the sun.
And every time that I was down,
you would always come around
and get my feet back on the ground.


Goodbye, Michelle, it's hard to die,
when all the birds are singing in the sky.
Now that the spring is in the air,
with the flowers everywhere,
I wish that we could both be there.


We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun.
But the hills that we climbed, were just seasons out of time.
We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun.
But the wine and the song, like the seasons have all gone.


I once read about this nurse who watched a young woman die of cancer in a hospital. The nurse asked her sadly, "How does it feel to wake up every morning, and know that you are dying?"
The girl replied, "How does it feel to you to wake up every morning, and pretend that you aren't?"
We are each dying everyday. But don't worry about that. Live each day also. They say we live only once. But when they live like us, once is enough.


climbing hills and trees,
--Sunny