It ain't easy to be

Perhaps some of you know this line. It's a verse of a song, which can be considered to be very powerful. Up until some days ago I thought that this world is hard on me... but then I realized that we are all in the same situation. All of us are haunted souls, driven by survival, driven by living, driven just by being ourselves. But this is so hard! Living, surviving, and being ME. Lately I was experiencing mood swings. Sometimes I was up, high on life; sometimes I was so down that I couldn't even see the ground. I felt surrounded by people and yet never that alone.

Fact is that, during the last few months, my life turned upside down. I am no longer living the life I always knew. I am all grown up now... I have a job... I pay rent... I have responsibilities... Honestly, it has occurred to me, that I would have to be in this position... truth is, I hoped to postpone maturing for as long as I could, but apparently I failed. Yes, I tend to get lonely from time to time. I tend to think that all my friends are far and away. I tend to be more and more self-centered. I tend to live in my own little “perfect world”…

But then, I turn on the TV. The news are full of people which suffer, of people not having enough food, enough medicine to integrate themselves at the lower end of that which some refer to as "quality of life". And most of them are also on their own. Tormented soles deprived from what they need most.

But the reason I got in this "NO WAY OUT" state was actually an old lady. The archetype of your favorite grandmother, gray haired and tender, kind eyes and a willing soul - who was forced to sell flowers in the corner of the street just to get by from one day to the next. It was striking to see that everybody preferred to ignore her, bowing their heads in the ground as they went by. But more striking was, that those flowers had no chance what so ever to be bought by a man as a token of his love for a woman, or to be placed somewhere in a warm room in a vase by somebody else. They were simple, partially withered flowers, probably best fitted on a grave. Next to her was this other old lady. Still in the same register concerning age and attitude. On the other hand, she tried more to arrange the flowers in such a way as to get a buyer faster. This happened sometime in December, on a Monday night, next to a shopping center in the heart of a bigger city.

I guess this is it. THIS is life driven by something. To big for me to understand. Time flies, nothing remains as it is … I am at least grateful for that … The only thing is … why is it so unfair?? Why do 80 year old ladies have to sell half rotten flowers in order to secure their existence? Haven’t they fought enough all these years to deserve something better?