I remembered another thing today - and so I'll put it up. It's been coming back every now and again to my head, and so maybe if I write it out here - it'll stop bothering me (you know something like being able to sing a song the whole way through - that way the tune doesn't keep playing in your head. 'Course the problem is that you have to know all the lyrics, and not just two annoying lines which just keep "singing" in your head over and over again!).
Many months ago Hubert - a very interesting friend (who has gone away to Bloomington) - had written on our whiteboard in the computer lab under the heading "Quote for the day": Shilpi says, "This lifetime I may learn Polish. Next lifetime I'll win the 100 metres Gold", in relation to one of our bizarre conversations that we were having. The second part of my "quote" is something that really irritates me.
Right until the time I was 15 - I never did run as fast as I could in any running race. I just wouldn't. I would take part every now and again, but would run very slowly, and that was that. I was petrified that if I did run as fast as I possibly could, even then I would still be the last one or somewhere near the last one to cross the finishing line, and so I never did run my fastest until I was in Class -X. Then in that last running race that we had I ran as fast as I could, and to my immense relief I beat some of the fastest runners in our class.
Now, for some bizarre reason, I'm quite sure that I could have been an Olympic Gold Medalist for India in the 100 metre sprint if I'd started training early enough. I'm not kidding. I've had this feeling for the last three years. Even if I'd started training seven years ago, I might have made it. I know I still run fast - but that's not the point. I don't know why I've been thinking about this over and over again. It's been playing like a stuck recorder in my head, and so I had to get it out.
I don't know why this is one "career choice" that I miss having missed. I can think of many things that I had dreamt of being - but at this age, I can't imagine why it's the missed chance of being a 100 metre sprinter that keeps coming back! If it were something like being an artist or a sketcher or an accomplished writer I would have understood the sentiment. But I can't figure this one out...
The other thought for my 33rd birthday has been:Jesus was nailed to the cross at 33.
I'll end this post here.
2 comments:
Happy birthday, once again.
Since you've got that Jesus fixation, let me disabuse you: there's no scholarly agreement that he died precisely at 33 (see, for instance,http://xrysostom.blogspot.com/2006/02/jesus-age-at-death.html)
Adi Shankaracharya, however, did die at 33, and Shelley died even earlier. So what? Lots of babies die within their first year!
Your missed career made me laugh. How do you know you still run fast? ... Anyway, keep doing it: it's good for you. And live long and happily.
Sigh, chuckle-chuckle. Yes I see, maybe he did and maybe he didn't (but it's fixed in my head as fixations usually are). But it's not so much that he died at 33 as much as he did all he did and then died. Same goes for Adi Shankaracharya and Shelley and Mozart (who was 29 or something ridiculous when he popped off!)and all the others....
I'm glad my missed career made you laugh. You know it's a very good question. I've never timed myself -but I should. At least for the 100 metres. I just know I run awfully fast but only over short distances, just the way I know I don't have it in me and never did to make it as a marathon runner or a cyclist or an excellent swimmer....
Many thanks for commenting, many thanks for the wishes, and SAME TO YOU.
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