A tale of two heartbreaks — one from a 6 year old child and the other from an early 20s adult . Both have one thing in common!

Someone once asked me, “What is the one thing that you regret most losing in your life?”.
I thought for some time and replied, “I miss losing the innocence of a child that I once had.”

Am I wrong to say this — May be or may be not? Here is a tale of two heartbreaks to help us all explore the answer to this question.

Story # 1: A young boy who lost his toy car

My mother keeps reminding me of this story, but I only recently realized the significance of the same.

When I was a child, around 6 years of age, I had a toy car. Unfortunately, I do not have any picture of the same, but it was just an ordinary toy car that any child would have. Yet I loved it so much!

Remember when as kids we all would have one favorite toy, that toy car was the one for me. I would eat, sleep and wake up with that toy car. Wherever I would go, the toy car would go with me. Myself, and my very few friends, we would always be playing with it. Coming from a middle class background, I did not have the luxury of expensive toys, but I wonder why I never complained.

But it so happened one day that the toy car got broke — and the 6 year old boy was inconsolable. Maybe it was among the very first moments in my life where I could understand the pain of letting go and what that would mean to me. My parents tried everything to please me but to no effect. Eventually, my father took me to almost every shop in the city trying to find the identical toy car but it was nowhere to be found. Finally, we found a toy car which was not the same, but good enough to please me. My father and myself came back home with a smile that pleased both my mother and father.

Story # 2: A full grown adult who experienced his first breakup

Years went by, and the young child was now a full grown adult in his early 20s. He fell in love with one of the most amazing lady, and life was beautiful. Hand-in-hand, they were happily traversing the rainbows and sunshine. Everywhere they would be together, and nothing could separate them. Life could not be more beautiful.

But it so happened, that they both broke up, and the full grown adult was now inconsolable. Days went by, and all the same rainbows and sunshine were not beautiful anymore. Maybe he was too manly to share his pain with others, and hence he suffered in isolation.

Months later, when the grief had subsided, he would often look for someone to fulfill his life, and yet the search ……

To all the readers who have reached this point!

There is no way we are comparing a toy car to a soulmate. These two cannot be compared. But why are the emotions of a 6 year old child and a 22 year old adult — exactly the same?

Shouldn’t an adult behave in a more practical manner? He is definitely not the first person to be experiencing heartbreak, and there are a lot of self help books on the same.

The Stupid Monk begins to wonder if we ever grow up, and that the innocence of a 6 year old child is still intact somewhere.

The only change is the things that matter in our lives.

A child who was once the happiest with his toy car, experienced the same happiness in the warmth of his soulmate years later. Once he is a parent, his kids are everything.
And so on and so forth!

However old we may grow and whatever new perspectives we may develop, the child is still somewhere inside us — the child who is free from treachery, greed and ambitions, but knows how to love. And that’s all that matters!

Remember, whenever you are thinking from your heart, it is the inner child speaking.

That child will always beckon you for things that matters the most. And when it so happens, please do hear him/her out because innocence is very hard to get by. You cannot go to a toy shop and buy the same.

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