When I was you.
This is life eternal. This is all that youth will give you. It is the season for wine, roses and drunken friends… ~ Omar Khayyam
In a context known to him, he talked of drinking wine. Perhaps Omar Khayyam felt the yearning that I just gaze upon. Youthfulness, the age of joy, of happiness or laughter out loud, of care free forgiveness. The Sufi tradition often links the drinking of wine with transcendence. To a higher being, to the oneness with the creator. The seeking of unity with the other is then not an idea isolated. It is the youthfulness of age that transcends the loneliness, for the memories that we keep become our companion. Perhaps it’s this thought that gives me comfort. The older I get the more longing for seclusion I crave. Knowing well, for the zest of younger age, that laughter, the energy and the senseless fun would never come back again. No matter how hard I try, how senseless I become now, it will never be the same, The time that I had, of not knowing the known. Of carelessness for future, of worries never defined. With age, they all form. I now know, that the time I spent in youthfulness forms what remains of me, as a relic as I age, for the grains in an hourglass cannot be stopped. It collects at the bottom, welcomes of all that is left to come. Until, there is no more.
“Drink wine. This is life eternal. This is all that youth will give you. It is the season for wine, roses and drunken friends. Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.” - Omar Khayyam
Life gives us periods of contemplation, to give us the break that we need to look back upon and appreciate. We are, after all, the sum of our own experiences. So is it not then appropriate, that we remember our experiences, of those when we were carefree, when we were in the zest of life? Of that senseless laughter-out-loud, of not knowing the known. To me, that time has passed, in the blink of an eye, like the grain of the hourglass lost amongst the pile, trapped inside, that unit of time can never be found again. All I can do in my age is to reflect upon what once was, while I welcome what may come ahead. Perhaps with a feeling of optimism, for I will have with me, my companion in old age. When I transcend drinking wine, with my memories as roses of the times gone by, of drunken times with friends. In Happiness, holding on to the objects of my youth. Of the toys I played with. Of the games I adored. With friends who have lost. With whom I share a common thought.
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