The Sky
I stood and stared
into the vast and fascinating sky,
Seeing a clear reflection
of all the days that flew by.
The cottony translucent clouds
that were floating and drifting away;
A splitting image of all the acquaintances
that merely brushed past or walked by.
The denser opaque clouds
that paused to stare and admire,
A memory of all those friends
who celebrated your successes and laughed along!
And then there’s the eternally expanding sky,
with constant colors and transitioning hues;
A reminiscence of those people who became family,
and loved and hated you all at once, just like that oxymoron.
If we think about it, what a lovely metaphor the sky is! Each one of our lives resembles the beautiful sky and its various elements. The sky moves from a pale blue to a bright blue as the day progresses, with clouds drifting around and a bright sun shining and spreading light. This slowly transitions into a pale yellow, that gives way to a bright orangish-pink and then finally fades away into a light purple. As the day comes to an end, this purple turns darker and darker till its pitch black and there are no more shades visible.
Our lives are just like this. Some days are bright and sunny, the kind of days you wish to keep revisiting; some are dull and gloomy, and you can’t wait for them to pass; some are colorful and fun-filled and will always hold a special place in your memory, while some others are just plain bad and dark, the kind of days you wish will never repeat. And on all these days, you meet several people; some kind, some indifferent, some rude, some who walk away, some cheerful bubbles of energy and some angels who come just to stay! These people are like the clouds in the sky. Some clouds are light, almost like feathers, drifting away without a trace like the hundreds of people you meet on a daily basis. Some clouds are heavier and stay around for a while, like people who are a part of your life for a certain period and share some experiences with you. Some other clouds are designated the responsibility to cause heavy rains and rub against each other causing loud and scary thunder, just like those people who walk into your life to wreck havoc, the kind of people we call “bad memories”. And then lastly, there are those kinds of clouds which are always there in the sky, be it a bright day or an overcast one, on the pale blue morning sky and the dark starry night sky. These are those handful of people in your life who stick around no matter what, who celebrate all your achievements but also stick around to pull you out of the ditch when you land in trouble, the ones who are always there for you even if you can’t see them standing next to you in this moment.
Just like having skies of our own with various shapes and types of clouds in it, we are all clouds in someone else’s sky too. Even if it seems hard to stick around because of some heavy winds trying to blow you away, try being the kind of cloud that shows up in all kinds of skies, the cloud that doesn’t look at a dark sky and decide to float away to a bright orange sky, just because that looks more appealing.
Be the cloud that hangs around, the cloud that one can trust to see even in the dullest of skies.
Don’t be the cloud that merely drifts away.
