A Little Ray of Hope
It was one of those days, the kind when you don’t want to get out of bed and wallow in all the self pity you can throw at yourself. It had already been a year since I was back at home, “doing nothing”. All and any attempts to get a job were not succeeding. While the pressure to do something on me mounted, I tried to find escape through writing and the fruits of the hours of hammering away at the key board had not yet begun to show.
Despite not wanting to, I had managed to just open a new document, and spend an hour typing a few words and erasing them; I had used the backspace key more than anything else on the keyboard. It was the lowest point of my life in a really long time and I could not see how I would pick myself up from this point and look forward to life again. The disappointment was not letting me write, and reading was no longer an escape. I had lost all hope.
As I sat there pondering what to do, in walks my almost three year old. He asked me to remove his puzzle box. “Wait, Mumma is Busy”, I replied rather curtly.
He kept on asking me, eventually putting his head in front of the screen while I was staring intently into it, and holding my hand as I typed. By this point I got pretty irritated. Here I was trying to do something important, brooding over the bigger issues of life and he wants his toy. And I did something, I regretted almost immediately, I yelled. Hearing my raised voice, he got quiet and I tried to concentrate on writing something.
Suddenly two arms hugged me tight and a voice whispered sweetly in my ears “Mumma please give puzzle box.” All this after planting a sweet little kiss on my cheeks. The smile on his face was almost challenging the anger as if to say, “Now try and beat that, you devil that makes Mumma scream,” And in that moment I felt guilty, for getting irritated. I immediately shut down the laptop, gave him a huge hug and gave him the said puzzle box.
I sat there with him and watched as he tried to put the car together. He failed miserably putting a piece of the trunk in the front and the bonnet near the wheels. He was getting frustrated and exasperated and I was expecting a full blown tantrum. Now being in the rotten mood I was in, I did not need a tantrum then, so I picked up a piece and tried to help S. “No”, he said firmly, “Do with own hand”, which was his way of saying he does not want any help.
Half an hour later a beaming face looked up at me and said “Mumma see”. The pride unmistakable, the happiness shining in his eyes as he pointed to his completed puzzle. After struggling and trying again and again he had achieved it, without getting irritated and throwing a tantrum.
They say inspiration can come from even the most unlikely places and I found mine in him that day. I changed my perspective. Maybe I was trying to fit a wheel piece near the boot all along till now. A new approach helped me figuring out what I really wanted to do. Today I am approaching writing with fresh eyes and a new perspective and I couldn’t be happier.
I found out that day that hope, positivity and the optimism of others can be so infectious especially if it is of your own toddler. He was my little ray of hope.
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