The world feels as big or as small as my perspective allows it to be. I’ve noticed this more as I grow older, while quietly watching everyone else age too. Not just the visibly old, but the young, the younger, and even the youngest. Age, in its own way, catches up with all of us.
This awareness deepened during one of the longest summer holidays I’ve spent in Kerala in recent years. The days moved slowly in the sticky heat and humidity. Life unfolded mostly indoors through long conversations, shared silences, familiar routines, and in the presence of people who had lived long enough to grow deeply certain of their truths. There was a time when I would have argued, or tried to offer a different perspective. These days, I mostly listen. And sometimes, I just smile; not because I agree, but because I understand.
I often think of the child in me as wet clay, shaped slowly by experiences. Some lessons I learned the hard way; others slipped in quietly through the people around me. Over time, as I gathered opinions and learned what was considered “right,” that soft clay began to harden. I started choosing not just what felt right, but what I was taught should be right.
Without realizing it, a rulebook formed in my mind; right and wrong, good and bad, acceptable and unacceptable. My biases settled in, beliefs took shape, and values became fixed. Somewhere along the way, the clay turned into what I now call my inner granite-strong and dependable, yet not always easy to move.
And if I am granted the privilege of growing old, of ticking off life’s milestones and eventually resting in a life I’ve built, I know it won’t come without its own truths. A longer life may ask me to face dependency, my deepest fear. It may also mean wrestling with irrelevance, watching the world change faster than I can comfortably follow. So today, instead of answers, I found something else, something lyrical
So I choose gentleness- first with my granite, then with yours.
I loosen the armor I once called right and wrong.
I learn to linger in silence,
to let my voice soften, to release the need to persuade.
I remind myself-it is never the words that remain,
but the way they settle quietly in another heart.
I hold faith closer than fear,
and let perspective breathe beyond the edges of pride.
For just as I was shaped once to face the world,
this decade invites me to soften, not stand firm.
To return to clay-not seeking to be shaped,
only to receive what life still offers.
And to smile…
making peace with the slow, unfolding beauty of becoming.
Perhaps this is what growing older is teaching me; not how to hold on tighter but how to let go gently.
Anecdotes of the ordinary 
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