Same walk. Different Outcomes

Context: On my way to the airport from home back to Mumbai

You know what's funny, the walks are the same but effect entirely different.

Same routine. Same morning freshness. Same habit of walking without care and just to get out of my head. But one is more cathartic than the other. Call it nostalgia or familiarity/security/comfort of home, but when I went out for that walk yesterday night just to clear my head, it worked. Unlike the walks to clear my head that I undertook in Mumbai, which most of the time ended up filling me up with more anxiety, it just worked in Kolkata.

I didn't do a lot of things with my parents, but sitting with them and doing nothing, with each one of us going about our own separate routines, mostly hanging about our phones, was enough. I will miss them. I don't think I have a lot of time left with them. They are getting old and I live far away. I see the longing in their eyes. I could see when I was leaving and my mom was crying how even my otherwise "rock" dad was welling up and holding back. Their eyes were screaming to do anything that would bring back any form of engagement in their lives, the best being living with their kids. They are aging, so do not want too much to happen in their daily life, but after spending the last three decades of your life working on a project, aka kids, when your life is rid of any preoccupation, the void is gaping enough to fall into.

I cried as well. I still can't wrap my head around the irony of life where doing better in life means spending more time away from your loved ones in a job that you don't care about to earn money to afford a lifestyle that will soon be overtaken with unnecessary indulgence to numb the pain of this cycle of capitalist consumption. 

What is the point of everything if my family is not happy? What is the point of everything if all I see is sorrow around me? How am I supposed to go about being merry if the very people I care about are being left behind and lonely?

I find it quite vexing and really question the point of such an existence...I hope I find answers I am looking for sometime in the future Alice!