Cloud Nine .... Yess ? We have all been on it at various point of our lives, whether it has been a great result, a tough job accomplished, a beautiful personal moment, a career high .. and so on.
But here I am talking about the real Cloud Nine . When you are on it, or crossing through it, or over it. You know what I mean ? That moment, when your flight takes off .. and goes up.. high into the sky! Have you experienced it too?
With all the rush of baggage check in, security check in, endless hours of waiting to board - finally you get into the aircraft and find your seat. As you settle down, relieved, the non-stop announcements going inside finally recede, the lights are dimmed, you feel relaxed and the flight takes off . As it goes higher and higher up in the sky - you feel lighter and lighter, as if all the worldly weight that your shoulders were carrying - slowly seems to slip away. You are miles away from the ground and all you can see through the window are the clouds below you. White fluffy dots of clouds and you are flying above them - free and light, and all the care in the world seems to fade away. This sight and feeling always mesmerizes me.
At this point of time I feel I can do anything. It is a different kind of high my mind and body are both going through and I pledge to myself that all the dreams I have dreamt of doing, all those impossible things - will now be done. With some more impossible dreams added then and there, in the whole surreal picture that I am visualizing at the time !
Why haven't I done it yet ? Why am I not taking out the time for it ? Who or what is stopping me ?? I ask these questions to myself. I continue dreaming till my mind gets numb and falls into a slumber after it got exhausted from all the adrenaline rush and excitement it went through .. for the last half an hour .
I wake up to the Captain's announcement that we would be landing in a few minutes and to prep ourselves with the necessary safety measures. I look out of the window. The clouds have vanished. I can now see the ground below. The concrete jungle that we now live in, begins to show. The plane starts to descend. Suddenly, a sinking feeling washes over me. All those thoughts and plans that were building in my mind start getting scattered. As we inch towards the ground- other thoughts take over - Where are the house keys ?? , Did I inform my house help of my arrival today ?? , How am I going to complete that project I am working on, by tomorrow ?? The bills .. the medicines .. the grocery .. the phone calls.. till the plane lands on the ground with a thud and races along the runaway .. my mind racing too with all the tasks waiting to be done in the next few hours- days -weeks. All the meticulous and strategic planning which was being done in my mind when I was on 'Cloud Nine' - goes for a toss. I remember nothing of it now. And just a touch on my phone to remove it from the 'flight mode' is all it takes to crash land on the ground reality !
I bid my dreams "Good-bye, - Till we meet next again! "
Have you also felt it, friends ??