City Lights

She woke up to a morning just like any other, and stared at the rays of the sun glinting through her expensive French windowpane. Everyone talked about the big city lights, but no one had told her about the darkness - when those lights go off, and the sun comes out.

In the big city, she kept stumbling upon people who were running as fast as she was in order to achieve something. In the race to the finish, she had lost many people, and had gained only a few. But, at the end of the day, she wondered if coming home to an empty apartment on the 26th floor had been worth the chase.

Her weekdays were always fast-paced, rushing throughout the day to complete work and then whiling away time with colleagues as evening turned to night. It seemed to her that weekends were reserved for the sole purpose of sitting down and pondering about life, in general.

She had been so busy chasing her dream that she had not looked back even once to contemplate or take a chance at love. She could not trace when that dream ended, and when she woke up to realize that the chase to glory had not been enough to fill her life with contentment? The philosophical books that she often delved in to find answers kept reiterating that happiness is a state of mind, but what was the essence of her life without people to share it with?

A walk down the beach always helped her clear her mind. She saw the young mother struggling to help her toddler build a sandcastle. She smiled at the two girls playing volleyball. There was an old couple sitting not far away. They were sitting down, holding hands, and watching the waves that arrived dancing on the shore. Their serene expressions made her realize the importance of relationships in her life. She realized that she needed to add another point to her chase.

Often the big city lights blurred her vision and drove her to go right to the core of her dreams. Next time, when those lights shut off, she decided to take a closer look at herself in the dark. Darkness was always an honest friend - it ruthlessly told her exactly what was missing in her life without any sugarcoat. It was time for her to start going after that for a while. The big city had appeared to be fun only when she had someone next to her, who saw her for what she was, and noticed things beyond the glitter and glamour - things that the shiny crowd failed to note.

It was now time. It was now time for her to find the knight in shining armour. She had not been designed to play the part of the distressed damsel who needs rescuing. Instead of waiting to be rescued by him for her happily ever after, she needed to wake up and find it herself.