gripe water with bitter lemons

what if i had done a BA and then got married in a dash and had two babies? i’d be zipping around drippy noses, wet bottoms, irate in-laws, PTAs and made hot samosas and chai for my husband for his evening snack after office; i would have juggled 1000 things around the house and flopped in a chair, exhausted, at the end of the day.
would i have had the time to pontificate and gripe about how my life lacks meaning? maybe i would have. maybe i would have been a lot happier. maybe i would have died of premature menopause. it’s not for me to know.
i belong to the entire bunch of screwed up kids-who-will-not-grow-up, who had the best of several worlds. our parents made huge journeys during their time, journeys that i honestly think we do not have the courage or the grit for. appa came from a tiny village with an unpronounceable name, he would trudge several kilometers just to get to his school, he worked his way up, battling lack of money and resources. when my parents started their married life together, all they owned were a few pots and pans and a chair.
i hear similar stories from my friends. of beginnings modest and humble. stories of childhoods spent running free, playing with bits of paper and twigs and that one precious doll (who opened and shut her eyes!), of the simple pleasures of going out together to eat puchka or jhaal muri wrapped in a paper cone; we treasured things more, or is this just my favourite illusion?
things were not easy to come by back then.
i believe, most of my generation has seen a life much simpler, yet today we lead lives of such complications. the paradox haunts me... our parents had little or no material comforts and possessions, but they formed relationships that were rock solid... we have everything we need and three things more, yet we make such fragile bonds. and here we are, 30-something-olds, snazzy, with a pert little accent in the english we speak, with jobs that do a lot more than put the bread on the table; we zip around all day caught in a haze of self-assumed importance, wearing appropriate frowns... yet when evening sets in and the work for the day is done and we struggle with the key in the lock, some of us returning to an empty home, some others returning to a life of details and routine, some to only endless chores more, some to yet another strained relationship and mistrust cloaked in silence... our shoulders sag a bit and the soles of our feet ache... where is the thrill of exhilaration? the surprise and delight at the smallest of discoveries? or even the quiet, calm of a sunday afternoon? we allow ourselves to wallow in a mist of lustreless existence, i think we are in love with our miseries, imagined or otherwise. we feed it, stroke it and put it to bed with us.
there are too many ghouls in this street... too many tired faces... too many phoney smiles and false cheer... the truth is, our asses are too cushy and we are secretly guilty that we have no real problems. we want to assert our free will, but take no real responsibilities, we want to play adults but we are all attention-deprived bawling kids behind that composed demeanour.
its like running on the moebius strip, no one knows which way is in, out, down or up... but the running just cant stop. and the truth might be that, we know of our insignificance.
our 15 minutes of fame passed us by when we were sleeping, putting the garbage out or re-arranging that frown. what would it be like to stop? stop. breathe. this morbid piece ends here. stop.