With every passing day, a little ticker on my phone marks a countdown. Till a couple of weeks it was to the end of term. Now it is to my birthday. Then it will be the new year. Or Pongal. The list goes one. I love these little time markers. It gives me purpose, like I am striding towards something tangible. A destination. Often in the absence of anything significant am counting down to, I default to the weekend.

Then I wonder what happens if there is nothing to count down to. Or look forward to? What if time becomes as abstract a concept as God? Perhaps that is what scares me most about aging. The endlessness of time. Perhaps that is another reason why I cannot seem to live in the moment. I am forever focused on what is ahead. Growing up it was a vague ‘future’ I was looking to. When ‘future’ became present, I marked with with ritual markers like marriage and home and baby. Now that is suspiciously looking like ‘past’, I can’t help wonder what the next marker will be?