Fifty

That would be me next year.

An age I thought I will never reach. I still can’t believe it. Is it that long already since I made my first step? There was a time I thought thirty was old. That was when through my naivety and honesty the couple I was working for as a nanny found out that the thirty year old brother of the wife was having an affair with the nineteen year old housemaid.

I needed her for something and came looking for her upstairs. They always disappear there after lunch. Applying lotion on some skin disease they told me. I even heard her shouting sometimes. From the pain I thought. The master bedroom was locked and they didn’t want to open the door even though I was almost close to breaking it down. When they finally admitted me in I saw him on the front of the electric fan sweating and half naked. She was dressed and was sitting on the bed with the bath towel (of the wife) under her looking disheveled and strange.

I think nothing of it. The thoughts that normally accompany such situations were then still unknown to me. I grew up in the middle of nowhere isolated and secluded with only my family around me. Five sisters and one brother- the youngest. My father was hardly around. We had no close friends. I had no one to draw on carnal knowledge and everything surrounding it.

When the couple came home and the wife reached for the towel to take a bath I reacted strongly. When she asked why I said it was dirty. I didn’t know why I said that. Maybe because I believe even then that personal items are personal. If others used them, they automatically become dirty. One thing lead to another and all the hell broke lose. The maid had been sent away and the brother saw me as a replacement or potential victim. But that was for another blog post.

I remember thinking then that thirty was old. He was old. He had no business having sex. I thought when people are that old, they are palliative. Waiting for the inevitable. I realized later that we are all terminal since birth. There is only one sure thing for us sooner or later- the graves. No one can avoid death. Rich poor, ugly beautiful, famous and unknown. We will all die.

I was fifteen then. I will be fifty next year. This Friday I’m going to reach my forty-nine years of walking on this planet. Do I feel old? Emotionally, no. Physically… we will not go there. Too much to talk about.