BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES.

I come from a border town. My town, or rather my village is situated next to another State. Being from a place like that sometimes leaves you confused as to how a village can be right next to another, yet are seen as different places made up of different people.  

During a road travel, it’s almost funny how you see “Welcome to …………” and as soon as you turn your head, you see “Goodbye from……………” A sight like this comes with mixed feelings. You are sad you are leaving a particular place and at the same time, excited that you are entering someplace new.
Such is life. It comes in a continuum, so many events lie side by side.

Boundaries,  one of the many ironies of life. An exact point where a beginning and an end meets. A point at which difference and sameness are yet to part. Take for instance, an ocean and a beach. At the beach, you feel the beauty of two worlds. Play around the water, that’s fine and fun, walk further into it and you drown. Hang around the beach and enjoy the breeze, that’s okay, but walk further into the land and you would begin to look for the breeze you had in surplus. That is how depriving boundaries can be. 

But not all boundaries are physical, thus are even harder to define. The line between love and hate is hardly ever drawn. People do not know when they cross until they are far gone. Same with success and failure, peace and conflict, abundance and lack, bondage and freedom, friendship and love, childhood and youth, youth and aged, life and death. The boundaries between all these are usually blurred. Making it hard to tell the exact moment you left one and moved unto the other.

Maybe it’s for good. Imagine knowing when you will die, or when your relationship will end or when you will go broke or even when you will become successful. They say love at first sight is wonderful, but accidents, sudden deaths leave people in distraught, so a “fair warning” is never bad.

In road travel, a sign of welcome may be many kilometers away from where you are being welcomed to. You would be disappointed in life if you feel you have gotten to your destination just because you have crossed the boundaries. For you still have further way to go before getting to your destination. Maybe the distance between is to prepare you for your destination. To warm you up to the success you have worked so hard to achieve. To build up your fortitude for the disaster that lies ahead. Maybe the distance allows you time to adjust to the reality you are about to face. The distance gives you time to learn and to train. 

What border are you standing on today? Which border have you just crossed but yet you still see nothing? Are you grieving? In time, you will be happy again. For dawn lies between night and day. Are you heartbroken? Cheer up, the impact has happened, what’s next is for you to be happy again.

Everything is transient.