~~ Day 22: Pursuit of Happiness ~~

Originally written on Dec 22 2015..

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I am supposedly OOO today – reason? It is my daughter’s first school annual event and I wouldn’t miss it for anything, never! Her school had ensured every kid was part of the big event and she has been selected for a dance event. She has been showing us the progress every single day from past few weeks, and we were all looking forward for the D-day!

My daughter, though at home, is quite talkative, naughty and keeps testing my patience every single day, is quite the opposite when we are outside.. She transforms into this shy, soft spoken (if at all she speaks that is) innocent child and is super chipkoo(like fevicol ka jod)…So naturally, I was quite apprehensive about her stage performance today –  what if she chickens out and just stands still, frozen in the moment –  I mean, I am not that paranoid parent who wants her kid to perform, no matter what, no, I am definitely not that and I was okay with whatever happens, after all, its her first time on the stage.. I just wanted this to be a happy experience for her.. I wanted her to enjoy it to the fullest!

As she kept showing us those new steps enthusiastically every single day(we didnt know the song for quite some time, so, she would dance without any song playing), we could see she was enjoying every bit of it! There are a lot of those times when we both mindlessly dance to whichever song plays on TV, and so when she learnt this one from school, she made sure she taught me her steps..(is this the right time to say that I loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee to dance… I have taken part in almost every single event of my school days, the interest dwindled in college though, taken part in every single dance competition in school and won a lot as well – oops, guess, I have forgotten being humble  )…but somewhere deep within me, considering how she behaves when she is not with her daily-set-of-people, I had this fear of what would happen on D-Day!

Finally, today, as I dressed her up in the morning with the dance costume and applied light makeup and asked her to do her best and most importantly enjoy dancing, she smiled, quickly gave me a peck on my cheek and re-confirmed if I would be there to watch her performance ..  

Hers was the 5th performance of the day and as the song started, there she was, amidst probably 25 kids, smiling broadly, dancing happilly, enjoying every bit of what she was doing on the stage! Almost all the kids in her class were in that performance, she was visible only now and then, when they were swapping places with the boys or if a bunch of them had to come center stage for few steps…but that didn’t stop her from making the most of the experience..she danced for herself and enjoyed it and I could see, she was genuinely HAPPY, completely CONFIDENT and smiling like I have never seen her smiling when I am not around… There was this few seconds, when she had to come to the center stage, and there she was with a cute broad smile and super cute walk, dancing like there was no one watching, enjoying the limelight… and that was the moment, my eyes welled and well, I actually didn’t see what she did center stage as stupid emotions took over and blurred my vision…

Amidst all the tears and the happiness, looking at my daughter glowing in her performance, I learnt something very basic - no matter where you stand in the crowd, no matter from where you perform, no matter if the right people watch you perform or not – If you do what you love , if you will to do it with all your passion, if you do it for yourself & at the same time, enjoy what you do – you will definitely be filled with genuine happiness from within! And instead of how kids do it naturally, instead of looking for happiness within, we adults, still search for it everywhere else!